579 - Your Brain Needs Small Tasks and Large Projects

Last week I talked about Saturday time versus Sunday time, having housework time versus having household management time. Here’s another layer: big projects, small projects, big tasks and small tasks. When I’m stressed, I tend to check off as many small tasks as possible - things that don’t require a lot of mental bandwidth. It’s basically decluttering, and that energy makes you feel lighter so you can move into organizing. Then there’s big project energy. You can feel the difference between these. The problem is when you have a whole bunch of little tasks to do, but you have big project energy…or you have a big project energy, but not a big chunk of time. 

For organizing, sometimes you will want quick wins and you’re organizing with little 15 minute tasks. Sometimes you will want really big two or three hour sessions, or maybe something that takes the entire weekend. When you’re first learning to organize the Organize 365® way, there are two schools of thought. You do short, 15-minute activities…or you empty out the entire closet and get it all organized in one day. As you move along, these 15-minute quick wins that you learn to do just get expanded into longer and longer organizing sessions. 

It’s all about the kind of energy you have for organizing, what kind of energy you have for projects. That is going to wax and wane throughout the weeks, months, and years. This ties back into Golden Windows. Golden Windows are seasons where the organizing energy is high for everyone. The organizing energy for February is finances. Organizing your finances, crafts, or photos. That is what most people will naturally organize this time of year. 

Your job right now is to keep going. 15 minutes a day. Just do a 15-minute organizing activity a day while your energy is low and then you just wait. It’s going to happen. Be ready to either task stack a whole bunch of 15-minute sessions in a row, or tackle something really big that you’ve been putting off that you didn’t know when you were going to do it. The more you understand how time is used at home and for what purpose time is used at home, the better you will be able to do it. Saturday time is not the same as Sunday time. Small task energy is not the same as big project energy. 

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