How to Speed Up with Patience
Are you frustrated with your organizing efforts? Does it feel like the more you try the more it falls apart? I’ll let you in on a secret, staying organized is a constant process, one that relies on incremental improvement, forever.
Sometimes my clients will beat themselves up when they fail to keep perfect order. I have to remind them that there is no such thing as perfect. There is just learning, and process. Don’t let frustration stop you from continuing. Instead, take a deep breathe, or two, remind your self to have patience, and go back to the process.
What does patience have to do with organizing? Well, taking the time to put your things away can save you hours of frustration and searching for what you need. More harm is done with one frustrated swipe of everything off the table when the guests are pulling into the driveway than if you take a few minutes everyday to return items to where they belong.
By recognizing frustration as an opportunity to create a system or routine, you will improve things for next time.
Here are some other ways to use patience to help you create long-term results from your efforts:
- Putting things aside for now is usually a result of fatigue and will lead to overwhelming piles. It takes the same amount of time to put your stuff down in the right place – once you have established the right place. Give yourself a break, get some rest and come back to it as soon as possible. Take a moment to think about what you can do to make putting things away easier. Then work towards that system.
- Constant interruptions are usually a result of not keeping clear boundaries with people. Think of this frustration as an opportunity to train the people in your life. It takes a little bit of time to communicate your wishes and how your systems and routines work but it will save many hours of frustration if you tell people you will be unavailable at certain times, and what they can do to do it themselves.
- Frantic searching for misplaced items is a big time waster and usually the result of not having a well-defined place to put those items. For now stop, take a deep breath, close your eyes and think about where you put it – retrace your steps and look there deliberately. Then see #1 above and work on a consistent system for where to keep those things.
- Events (like meetings, travel, or illness) can cause some piles. The trick here is to recognize it as a temporary situation. Schedule the time to recover and catch up. It doesn’t happen instantly, you need to incorporate in into your usual routine. A few extra minutes on each task is faster in the long run than an all at once at the expense of your routine approach.
- Unexpected delays can cause a ‘why bother’ feeling. Recognize this as a chance to reevaluate your goals. Are you still on the right path? Sometimes a new direction is needed and sometimes you just need to take a step back and let the process unfold in it’s own time. Forcing it is rarely the answer.
Patience is a virtue, and an opportunity. Let me know what frustrating opportunities present themselves to you this week.
Tags: organizing, patience, perfectionism, procrastination, Simplifying, streamlining, time management
