Parts of my office are chaotic.

That may surprise you. After all, I co-wrote Organizing from the Heart, and I share tips about organized productivity and other life skills on a regular basis.  You’d expect my home and office to be very organized with everything in its place.

Not so.

I’m pretty organized when it comes to a lot of things because one of my strength-gifts is administration. But I’m also a creative, who has a hard time getting rid of stuff, especially if it has at some point been important or inspiring to me.

So I’ve been on a “continuous improvement” journey for several months now, making it part of my routine to (nearly) daily do a very small task that helps improve my home or office.  I also write down what I did, so I have a running record that something is being accomplished.  And, it’s paying off!

Recently, I tackled one section of the top of some storage cabinets in my office.  I moved things out of the way and dusted it off. I’ll be looking for some plastic storage crates I can turn on their side to provide shelves for notebooks I want to keep but that are taking up valuable accessibility space in the cabinet below.  To be honest, that whole section of my office is overwhelming. But I feel a small sense of contentment knowing it’s JUST a bit better than it was.

Try it yourself. Set a timer for five minutes and tackle one VERY small spot in your office or home.  Do that every day for a week. You might be surprised by the end of the week that you’ve actually made some great progress.

Key things to remember:

Choose a very small area to work with (i.e. one drawer, one three-square-foot area of a room, one shelf of a closet)Understand that it may take several days of a “work in progress” pile before it almost suddenly feels organized.Make sure to attack the project for at least a few minutes every day. Continuous improvement doesn’t work if it isn’t continuous.If it would be encouraging, start keeping a list of what you worked on each day.  “Done” lists are sometimes more energizing than “to do” lists.Avoid the temptation of having too many of these small projects going at once (guilty) or your whole workspace/home will feel too chaotic.

Anything you do today to organize your home or workspace makes it better than it was the day before!

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Freebie Focus:  Print out the May Hope Hints sheet for a tip for every day of the month.

Free book: Organizing from the Heart will be available for Kindle free May 6-10.

 

The post My Workspace is Chaotic: How to Make Organizing Progress in (Very) Small Steps appeared first on Beth Beutler.