Category: Things You Should Know How To Do

Time Management Is Stress Management

Have I mentioned? I have this great opportunity multiple times a year.  I teach time and stress management to students in the Highway Construction Careers Training Program, or HCCTP, at two different community colleges in the area.

Let me trace it back. Here’s a reminder that we never know how far our ripples will reach. I owe this opportunity to connections that I made in a professional speaker’s group over 10 years ago now.

And I have to laugh, because there’s so many people that I’m still connected with to this day through that speaker’s group, even though the group disbanded a few years ago. Still connections, friends, network partners, whatever you want to call them, that I met in that professional speaking group.  Many industries were represented, what brought us together was professional speaking.

There was a nutritionist, an insurance broker who I’m still friends with today and who also has a podcast on the Broadcast Basement network.  There was a financial planner who does financial planning presentations, and I’m still connected to him to this day. A friend and network partner who interviewed me on her YouTube channel last Spring, Sabrina Schottenhammel, is a massage therapist and professional speaker and wellness advocate.  And a friend and network partner, Alexandra Glumac, is affiliated with South Suburban College and she is why I started teaching this program, long ago and far away!

I teach time and stress management to the HCCTP hosted at South Suburban College, the Oak Forest campus. They have 4 or 5 groups of students through the program every year.  And because of my experience at South Suburban College, I also teach for a similar program at Kankakee Community College. I get to teach awesome groups of people about time management and stress management.   I started to write today’s episode and article content as I parted ways with Class number 32 last week.  I told them I would give them a shout out.  So, hey, Class 32!  It was great to meet you all!

I started teaching this course around Class number 3 or 4. These groups are in class for 12 weeks, and I speak to them on time management and stress management in their first week of class.  That makes a lot of sense, because by being brave and taking on this coursework, they need time and stress management to make their lives work in the midst of this extra busy time.

And I’m going to be completely transparent.  The stress management is more stressful for me. I know that’s weird, but it’s the truth. Time management is productivity, and hey – that is where I live. That is my jam. That’s what I do. Productivity. Yep. Sign me up. I could talk to you for hours about productivity.  And I probably have, over time.

But the 4 hours of stress management content is newer for this group.  I have only done that 3 or 4 times.  And I’m still trying to get the best right combination of content. My goal is to not stress people out with a lot of work while making sure my participants have the tools they need to succeed.  That is my goal for these groups every time I meet them, to give them tools in their life. And I love that!  I have the coolest job.  And I meet the coolest people. Class 32 challenged me. When they found out I had a podcast, they wanted an episode dedicated just to them.

And here we are.  I can absolutely do that.

We tackled both time management and stress management last week.  And here is the secret, right here.  This is what guides my practices. I feel that so many of the practices that we use in time management are also useful for stress management.

When we feel out of control, unproductive, out of sorts, you know, maxed out because we’re always late, or we never feel like we have enough time to do what we need to do or what we want to do. We don’t feel like we’re making time for the people in our lives. We don’t feel like we’re making time for ourselves.  These are all very stressful situations. And did you hear the words that I said in those statements? Time. Time.

Here’s the premise for today.  I will declare that time management is positively and irrevocably entwined with stress management and stress reduction. Making sure that we’re doing right by that is going to help everything else go better.

If we can get clear on what we want to accomplish in the course of our day and then make it happen, yes, it’s a management of time, but that also decreases our stress levels. We can recognize that and we can work with it.

Here is what our agendas looked like.  In our time management workshops, we begin talking about routines and how our routines can support the things that we need to, to make sure our needs are met in a consistent and regular way. And I’ve talked about routines in other episodes.

In class, we discuss sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene is the routine we have around getting good sleep.  And we know getting good sleep increases overall health and decreases stress.

We watch a couple cheesy videos from early 2000s on productivity, and talk about priorities and planning and goal setting. We look at Priorities and the Eisenhower box, which I know that I have done an episode before about, I’ve always liked that tool. It’s such a great tool. Because knowing we’re working on what is important decreases stress and increases life satisfaction.

In our time together, because these are students in a highway construction careers training program, we talk about project management. I don’t always talk about project management, it’s a very specific need. These folks are going to be working on projects, though, so we take a first glance at project management to get a feel for how they fit into the bigger picture on a project.

Finally, in time management, we talk through procrastination. Because conquering that delay-for-no-good-reason increases productivity and decreases stress.

The next day, in the stress management component, we talked more about routines. We also talked about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs because we need to be able to identify needs so we can ensure they are consistently met. Because otherwise we get stressed! It is stressful when needs are not met. Physical, safety, psychological, esteem, etc. 

This week, I also shared learning styles with this group.   Learning styles were the topic of last week’s episode. I like the stress management content that I wrote because it is all about the person.  The individual.  There were so many really cool aha ah moments.

We were talking about learning styles, and I mentioned that some of us think in pictures, and some of us think in words, and some of us think in commercials or scenes.  That some of us read the words in front of us, and some of us actually sound the words out in our head when we read.

Just knowing that there’s a difference is so important. A lot of our stress management was talking about awareness.  Self-awareness. Awareness of how we are showing up in the moment.  In coaching, awareness is the first goal.

We talked a lot about that in stress management. We talk about physical awareness.  Like physical needs, and also, you know, awareness of where our stress is in our body. For example, if I’m stressed, my face flushes and my shoulders get tense.  If we know what stress feels like, we can identify it more readily and take steps to decrease it for our own wellness.  I really love that, that physical awareness, that physical scanning of ourselves.

Apparently I do it a lot because a couple of my class participants noted “yeah, you do that all the time”.  I didn’t realize anybody else noticed that, but that’s okay.

Along the lines of checking in physically for stress management, we also practiced square breathing both days. Because to be honest, square breathing is a tool I use EVERY DAY.  If you’re not familiar, it’s a breathing technique where we breathe in for 4 beats, hold the breath for 4 breaths, exhale for 4 breaths and hold the exhale for 4 breaths.  That’s it.  Don’t push it, don’t rush it, don’t make it unnatural.  Just focus on your breathing for 5 – 7 cyles of square breathing.  A 90 second vacation.  It’s lovely. 

So, to recap:

It is great to teach these group, and Class 32, it was lovely to meet you.

Time and stress management are related.  If we can get a handle on our time as a limited and valuable resource, if we can do better with our time management, that will absolutely help us with our stress management as well.

When we better manage our routines, priorities, projects, procrastination, goals, bodies and wellness and sleep and breath – stress goes down.

So those are all time management things. But it sounds a lot like stress management to me, too, right? Time management is also stress management.

I’ll never say we can be stress free. And stress isn’t always bad.  Some stress helps us to perform better.  My concern about teaching Stress Management meant that the night before the class, I made sure to check my bag and make sure that I had everything I needed to teach the group today. It was the elevated stress that helped me to be a better teacher today and to work with my group better. That’s good stress.

But long term stress can cause mental and physical problems.  The nagging, long term, you know, heavy weight of stress sometimes that can absolutely cause us trouble. And again, in transparency, I have been in a very stressful season personally and I really need to rev up my self care. So when life gets more stressful, I know it doesn’t make sense, but we actually need to do more to care for ourselves than we normally would because the demands are so much greater on us. And again, I think I need to say that out loud to myself as well.

In stressful times, we need to do more to care for ourselves because the demands are so much greater on our systems, psychological system, physical system, whatever that looks like. Getting good at time management decreases stress. Yes, let’s do that!

How Does Your Brain Work? Learning Styles

Learning Styles: Does This Sound Like You?

  • “I’m more of a visual person.”
  • “I really need to talk some things out.”
  • “If I hear a song once, I remember the words.”
  • “I’m more of a hands-on person.”
  • “If I drive to your house once, I will always remember how to get there.”

Yes, yes and yes!

Today, let’s talk about learning styles. In coaching, we call them processing modalities. I am going to use the terms “learning styles” and “modalities” interchangeably.  Our processing modalities are how OUR brain best deals with information.  These learning styles are part of what makes you you, but they are not character or personality traits. They are the paths your brain uses to process and cement information and turn it into something useful for you.

The most common ones, or at least the ones we will talk about today, are

  • Visual,
  • Auditory,
  • Verbal and
  • Kinesthetic (and relatedly, Tactile).

Simply put, visual processors learn by seeing, auditory learners learn by hearing, verbal learners learn by speaking, and kinesthetic and tactile processors learn by doing.

It is helpful for us to understand that there are learning styles, that everyone is a blend of learning styles – you and me and everyone else that you interact with – and how to support our blend and the blend of the people we interact with.  Knowing you are a blend, and I am a blend, and that every other person in your life is their own blend of learning styles gets us closer to awareness, acceptance and understanding.

An important thing to remember is that you have options. Options on how to support your own learning styles, and options on how to manage yourself with other people whose learning style is different than yours.

When you think of a traditional classroom, consider all the ways the teachers engage multiple learning styles.  We read aloud, or listen to the teacher or other students read aloud, or we may listen to a recording.  We may use our hands and use manipulatives in math, or word cards on our desk in ELA. We write our own notes, we look at things around the room or on the board, we might move around to stations or act out a scene from literature or history.  There are many ways to reinforce learning styles.

We all possess all of the learning styles, but we each our own special blend of strengths.  The styles or modalities show up differently in each of us at times, too. When he was little, I thought one of my sons was being difficult because we didn’t see things the same way.  And the answer is, we absolutely DID NOT see the things the same way.  And, that’s ok. 

When we talked it through, he and I discovered that he is a visual learner and that when I told him to go in and clean his room, he saw everything in his room as one thing, one composite item.  He would get overwhelmed.  It was difficult for him to break down the big composite item into smaller pieces of the room, like making his bed, then putting the laundry on the floor into the hamper and hanging up his baseball cap.  Once we figured out that we literally didn’t see things the same way, we figured out how I could change my language and he could change how he looked at things and then we started to communicate better.

Now that we know that there are learning styles, and that we all have our own strengths in those learning styles, let’s look at how we can use that knowledge to navigate our life.

I will use myself as a case study:

I am strong in multiple modalities, which is quite common.  One of my strengths is auditory learning. I am a really good listener, which serves me well in my role as an organizational coach and musician. And, that can also be a problem because I get stressed out with prolonged or chaotic loud noise. I LOVE and I mean LOVE a good concert, either seated in plushy seats listening to a full orchestra but more so, in a bar listening to one of our favorite bands.  AND, though I love the concert, I’m also somewhat relieved to walk outside in relative quiet to let my brain process all of the awesome new input I just experienced.  Both can be true.

I am also a professional speaker and singer.  Not surprisingly, I am a strong verbal learner. For myself, I know that I benefit from talking through challenges and ideas, and very often I gain awareness when I hear myself say something out loud. And I can get to a point some days that I am talked out.  I am a verbal learner, but I dislike talking on the phone. I would rather speak in person. I am aware of my learning styles, how they show up for me, how to manage me and what tools I can use as I go through my day.

So, let’s look at the specific learning styles.

A visual processor:

  • learns by seeing, or imagining something in their mind;
  • recognizes patterns;
  • appreciates aesthetics; and
  • appreciates visual representations like graphs or pictures.
  • Ways to work as a visual processor:
    • use color to indicate category or priority, in our homes or professional life;
    • use highlighters or fun colors of ink in writing;
    • make a good list or map of things, take pictures of things to help you remember;
    • be purposeful in the physical arrangement of space; and
    • become aware that we are impacted by visual stimuli.
    • For example, to support my visual learning, I request communications in text or email form so that I can refer back to it if I need reminders.
  • Times it can get in the way:
    • one visual learner may want to see everything all the time and doesn’t put things away;
    • another visual learner may get distracted or overwhelmed by seeing everything, and we need to put it away behind a closed door; and
    • for some visual learners, if they don’t see something, it ceases to exist for them.

An auditory learner:

  • learns by listening, hearing and even reading (we often hear the words in our head);
  • remembers things by how they sound, or what they were hearing when they learned it;
  • may hum or talk to themselves or others; and
  • may learn ideas while listening to favorite music, instrumental music, white noise or other noisescapes, or silence, depending on the person.
  • Ways to work with it:
    • learn new material by reading flashcards, directions, stories or assignments out loud;
    • record yourself spelling words or working through new content, and then listen to the recording;
    • use mantras or repeated phrases to reinforce an idea or learning; and
    • listen to podcasts, or use recordings, books on tape, or having test questions read to you out loud to help you study.
  • Times it can get in the way:
    • auditory learners rely heavily on hearing, but can also become overwhelmed with loud, chaotic, off-key or repetitious sounds; and
    • as with all learning styles, age and health can have an impact, for example, our hearing acuity changes with age, so we need to get our hearing checked regularly.

A verbal learner:

  • learns by speaking and expressing themselves, by “talking it out”;
  • is often strong in written communications, too, and reading and writing; and
  • is often strong with auditory learning.
  • Ways to work with it:
    • many of the tools with an auditory learner works with a verbal learner, too, as we are doing the reading of the materials; or
    • learn new material by reading flashcards, directions, stories or assignments out loud;
    • For example, I often “write” my articles while I commute or travel.  I open the Voice Memo app on my Iphone, and record my article, then use a transcription website to turn it into text. And at rehearsal the other night, I used the voice record to text option to send a text for follow up, and this sparked a conversation among my choir members.
  • Times it can get in the way:
    • as I mentioned in my case study, verbal learners can get talked out; and
    • verbal learners may speak too much, disrupting themselves and others.

Kinesthetic and tactile leaners:

  • learn by touching, doing, moving, building or drawing.
  • Kinesthetic learners use major muscle groups and gross motor skills;
  • tactile learners work more with fine motor skills and their hands;
  • learn best when there is some sort of movement involved with the experience;
  • learn by taking things apart and putting them back together; and
  • communicate with your whole body, physically and by touch.
  • Ways to work with it:
    • floor plans, maps;
    • factor in activity, gravitate towards sports or careers that incorporate movement;
    • physically manipulate learning tools like flash cards into categories, topics, etc.;
    • accept gum chewing, fidgeting, tinkering and taking physical breaks;
    • do hands-on activities that involve touching, building, moving, acting or drawing; or
    • offer to be the note taker in a group setting, to use the activity to keep your mind engaged.
  • Times it can get in the way:
    • a K or T learner may struggle if and when they are physically fatigued, injured or sore, or if space does not permit movement;
    • it is difficult to sit still and you may need to take frequent breaks;
    • fidgeting and movement may be mis-construed as lack of focus or impulse control in a traditional class room setting.

I could write forever about learning styles, but this is a good place to start.

Consider the different learning styles mentioned, and reflect on which one or ones resonate with you the most. Consider some of the tips suggested to help you in your day-to-day experiences. And take an active interest in the learning styles of the people around you as well, to foster communication and support!

P.S. I write this with gratitude to Denslow Brown with Coach Approach for Organizers, https://coachapproachtraining.com/, where I first learned about learning styles and processing modalities.

How To Get Back On Track

When naming this article and episode, I tried Catawampus – as in, “when it all goes catawampus”, but my SEO score on my blog did not think that was a good idea. Noted.

I was a guest on the EP podcast episode that dropped last Tuesday, March 12.

We recorded on Monday, March 11th because that is the day I record my episode, too. And I was a guest on the EP Podcast because Chris, my producer, had a family emergency over the weekend with his 18 year old daughter. And she’s fine. Healing well.

And everybody’s fine in my house too. Everybody’s okay. We’ll start with that.

But we talked through, first of all, the situation and that it was crazy for them, I know. And then the question he asked me was, “After the fact, what do you do to pick up the pieces?” You’ve been through this dramatic and potentially traumatic situation and what do you do to get back on track?

In his situation, he has children other than the post-surgical one to take care of. He needs to take care of his daughter while she recovers. Anything he had planned for that day and also for the days to follow obviously just went out the window because, well, that’s what the situation required.

We’re going to do it because it needs done and we’re going to do it because our kids win and because we love them. And guys, I really do love you. So if you’re listening – well, I don’t think my kids listen to my podcast, but some of their friends do. And then we pick up the pieces and get back to normal, get back to work.

Here’s the twist. We recorded at noon on Monday because we usually record at noon on Mondays. We have systems for these things and everything else. I’m still like a week behind. I’d like to get back on track with that personally. That is a leftover from my recent surgery.

My college age son was home for his Spring Break and there was an incident and he lost consciousness in the kitchen. I’ll leave it at that. It was scary. He ended up going to the ER in an ambulance. So, a shout out to the Evergreen Park Fire Department, the EMTs when we called 911 were awesome and competent and kind. They took care of business, they took care of my son, they loaded him up and we went to the hospital.

One thing Chris mentioned on his episode was that his 18 year old was still eligible for the pediatric ER, and if you have to choose, the pediatric ER is a better place for a young person than the regular ER. And I found it surreal that, within 8 hours of having that conversation with him, I found myself in the front seat of an ambulance while they unloaded my 19 year old in the ambulance bay next to the door labeled Pediatric ER at Christ Hospital.

Never, in no imagination of my day could I have foreseen that I would be confirming that information from him within 8 hours of recording that episode. But there we were. And to repeat, he’s fine. My son’s fine. And I have his permission to write about and talk about this. He’s ok.

Let me make the rest of this very long story short. We were there for 24 more hours. We arrived around 7:30 pm Monday. They ran tests and started the admission process at 11 pm. He was finally discharged from the ER at 08:00 pm on Tuesday night, they had not yet found him a bed in 24 hours

When you’re in the ER, you gain perspective. Obviously, other people were having a much worse time of life than we were. My son’s ok.

Simple things. My son was in the ER but he had a room with doors. A lot of people didn’t. He didn’t have a bathroom or a shower, and I didn’t sleep at all because the room is not set up with a chair for a non-patient to sleep in. I never pulled an all-nighter in college, that didn’t happen until I was a parent!

We had family and friends texting and checking in on us, with offers of support and assistance if we needed anything. I am so grateful. And I’m grateful for Greg, my husband, so that we could tag team and I could go home for a few hours of sleep when he came back first thing Tuesday morning because we didn’t want to miss any of the doctors in consultation, etc.

But as Chris mentioned, once the dust settles, right, after all this happens, then what? When you look around your house and you realize that all of the routines that you normally have that support your life were completely abandoned, for a few days. Where do you start? Where?

I’ve talked about emergencies recently. I had a recent surgery as well. Five weeks ago I had surgery on my nose. It was planned. It was February 13, but I had known about it since the end of November. It wasn’t news. It ended up being more complex, more invasive, and I had a lot more downtime and a lot more healing that I needed to do. That was news, but the schedule was already cleared, I had no expectations of myself already. It wasn’t an emergency, it was a hassle. I won’t say it was fun. I’m still not done healing. I still have swelling and follow up appointments. It’s not don, but for the most part, I’m good to go.

But trips to the ER, for your daughter and her appendix, for my son in the ER for 24 hours and a lot of diagnostics to determine what’s going on and what to follow up on. Those are emergencies. They both have had good outcomes so far. I know it could be worse. Oh, my God, do I know it could be worse.

Once the emergency has passed, now what? What do we do to get back on track?

I came home at 830 Tuesday morning after tagging my husband out at the hospital, having not slept for 27 hours. I set up my phone and apple watch to charge, took a shower, brushed my teeth, had a really big glass of water and slept for 2 hours. Then I got up and I made sure things were taken care of, sent a few emails, took a shower, got dressed, grabbed a protein shake for the road and headed back up to the hospital.

On Tuesday night, when we were finally discharged, we asked the question again.

First things first: We’re headed home, do we need to eat? We can pick up something on the way.
All right, I’m going to drop you guys off, and go to the pharmacy for my son’s prescriptions.

Anything we need grocery wise? No? Okay. We just had people over, so we have a full fridge of food.

Everybody was comfortable and happy.

Next, Laundry. Unpack the bag from the hospital Yes, let’s start a load of laundry.

Next, let’s make sure maintenance has been occurring. Load the dishwasher, bring in the mail, make sure that there’s no packages out front.

None of this new. I think that was the point that I made when I talked to with Chris on his podcast. We don’t do new stuff. We take a minute and remember what our routines are. And routines are there to help us make sure that our needs are being consistently met. That’s what routines do for us. And so first things first, we’re to check in on the needs. Needs are food, clothing, shelter, safety, warmth. Right? Basic bottom level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Check in on those, make sure that all of those are functioning. Food, clothing, shelter, safety, warmth. Once we take care of those needs, then we can move up the list.

Now, when we got home from the hospital, finally, it was after 08:00 on Tuesday night after very little sleep. At that point, another need, very rapidly was becoming sleep. I could have tried to do more, but it wouldn’t have worked. Sleep is also a need, and that was the answer. Meeting needs consistently so that everybody can continue to function in survival. I’d love to get into optimal thriving mode. But first things first is survival. Food, clothing, shelter, safety, warmth, right? I mean, that’s where we got to start.

So, when in doubt, that’s where we spend our first hours of attention, is making sure that those needs are met for the moment. In the moment. Then, how to continue to meet those needs for the next couple of hours and then days. We start with needs, we start small, we start with what is right in front of us. We don’t need to do the big stuff right now.

So to recap: First things first. Having routines, very helpful routines, helped me to grab what I needed to grab, throw it all in my backpack (which is my purse) that is always sitting in the same place and run out the door with the ambulance people. Anybody I need to contact was already programmed in my phone. All of my apps are up to date. Everything is up to date. My wallet has our insurance card and has all of John’s information, all of my son’s information.

There are things that maintenance, that routines absolutely provided. My son is otherwise in good health. I’m in good health. Maintaining good health eliminates helped rule out some potential problems because he’s in otherwise good health.

When emergencies happen, that’s it. That is where you need to be. Everything else needed to fall away. With my son is the only place I need to be. The rest of life will all be waiting for me when I get back, for better or for worse.

But that’s the answer. So we create routines because in the heat of it, in the heart of it, in crazy times, we need to have those structures in place to keep things going. So we have habits around needs, so those needs continue to be consistently met. And to give us the habits, the reminders of how to get back to some semblance of normal when our days haven’t necessarily looked normal.

Start with needs. Start with what is right in front of you. Don’t create something new, but get back to your routines. And that, my friends, is how to get back on track.

Body Doubling and “How Does Finish Line Friday Work”?

How Does Finish Line Friday Work? And, What Is Body Doubling?

I’d like to reintroduce body doubling. 

I was driving to a client appointment as I started to dictate this content out loud.  One benefit of slowly easing back into in-person clients this week is that I increased my commute time. I don’t really look forward to commuting time, but it is also uninterrupted time for me to think, and that is helpful! 

I like to be productive with my time. And while I love quiet uninterrupted time, there is still something to be said about working with other people, too! Enter, body doubling.

My phone has a name, my laptop has a name. Believing that there is somebody on the receiving end of what I have to say anchors me to the space. Believing that someone is expecting me and someone’s on the other side of that anchors me so I don’t get distracted.

A new community member reached out to me via email.  I believe she has started following me and my content in the last few months at one of my recent presentations. She visited a recent Finish Line Friday and wasn’t sure how it all works.  So, this is for you, Karen. I will endeavor to explain more clearly what exactly Finish Line Friday is, and how we use the strategy of Body Doubling and the Pomodoro Method of time management to increase productivity.

Body doubling is a productivity tool, a strategy, call it what you would like. In my own experiences and with my clients, body doubling helps us be more productive. Body doubling is one of the many perks of working with a professional organizer because having a person with you in your space as you work can be very motivating. It anchors us to the work and the space.  

Same goes for coaching. Body doubling is absolutely vital. For example, early in the pandemic lock down, a number of my clients struggled with the new phenomenon of unattached work time, of working virtually for the first time and it was not working for them.  They did not feel that they were being as productive as they could be, because it turns out that being around other people who were also working on similar things helped them to stay on track.

There were hours when I would sit in a zoom room or on Facetime with a client and they were doing their work and I was doing my work, and that would help my client stay on track. If a question came up, I’d be happy to answer it or I was ready to listen attentively. One client in particular would sometimes need to verbally work through something because she’s a verbal processor, and we would do this parallel play, this body doubling, for a few hours at a time because she knew that she needed support around some of the tougher projects.

Body doubling isn’t needed for every task.  You are a capable, productive person.  But some tasks are harder to tackle than others, and that is when we bring in tools. 

My middle son lives alone, but in community, in theater housing. He has his own apartment but he and his fellow actors all live in the same apartment complex.  He mentioned that there are times when he needs to get things done. Maybe he needs to tackle a project that he’s having some kind of mental or motivational block around, and he’ll have his friend come over and she can work on whatever she wants to work on or play video games, it really doesn’t matter. That’s not the point. he point is, having somebody else physically in his space keeps him from getting distracted.  She doesn’t have to remind him, it’s just her presence that will remind him.   He calls it Parallel Play, like when two year olds play next to each other on the floor with some blocks.  They’re developmentally too young to play together but they play with their own thing side by side.

Finish Line Friday is like parallel play. And here is how it works:

Finish Line Friday uses the Pomodoro method of 25 minutes of work and five minutes of rest.  Studies have shown the most efficient and effective ratio of work to rest is 52 minutes and ten minutes. For every 52 minutes of work, we need ten minutes of rest. And after three or four cycles of that, we need a longer period of rest. Imagine you start your workday at nine. You work from nine to 9:50 then take a 10 minute break. You work from ten to 1050, take a 10 minute break. You work eleven to 11:50, and then maybe you take half an hour for lunch. Right?  So, this cycle is something we may already be familiar with.

As a participant in Finish Line Friday the other day said, we know these things, but it’s really helpful to hear them said out loud by others.

Finish Line Friday helps us get into the healthy and productive habit of 50 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest. 

In practice, for Finish Line Friday:

  • We all hop into the zoom room at 9 am;   
  • We arrive with our own work for the 2 hour session;
  • We spend a few minutes chatting;
  • We set our intentions for our first 25 minutes of work;
  • I share my screen with a 25-minute countdown clock, counting down to the next 5 minute break.
  • Then, I mute all of us, though we can stay on screen.  That’s how that works.
  • We work for the 25 minutes, check in for the break with another 5 minute countdown clock, and start all over again.
  • And we just do that for four cycles. 
  • There are not assignments, at least not from me!  Come to us with your own agenda, with your own work, with your own ideas about what you want to get done.

Yes, I’m happy to talk to you about productivity or triaging your to-do list or prioritizing.  We can absolutely do that in the breaks or in the chat.  I facilitate productivity, but we are working side by side. We are working together on our own things, myself included. We all come with our own agenda, and I supply the structure and the community. 

I supply the structure and the community. That’s Finish Line Friday. 

Recently, the work has included: 

  • one participant was uploading artwork to a shared drive;
  • another was getting ready for houseguest and was grateful for a 2 hour block of time, knowing that they would get some stuff done, maybe talk to people on the break, and have fun (and that is FLF does for them);
  • a first-time participant was excited to get through a couple of planning tasks and then start working on a professional project; and
  • I cleaned out my in-boxes, wrapped up messages for the week, then moved on to writing presentation content for a project I’m working on for my national association. 

Now that I have more fully explained Finish Line Friday, please assemble your to-do list and plan to join us for a Friday morning of getting things done!

Meal Planning: Start With What You Know

Last week, we got started on Meal Planning by asking two questions: What does healthy mean to you? And, What are your meal planning goals?

I hope you have had some time to think about your answers to those questions! With answering those questions, you have gained some awareness for and about yourself. Awareness is the first step for progress!

I know Meal Planning may sound like a lot of change and a lot of work, but it is easier than you think, especially to get started. I am not here to tell you what and how and when to eat. Those are personal choices. What I am here to say is that meal planning can help support your intentions and achieve your goals, whatever they may be.

So, as we get started with the HOW-TO for meal planning, let me suggest starting with what you know.

So, what do you know? 😉 Let me tell you, You know more than you think you do!

First, you know you.

You know what healthy means to you, and you know your goals.

You know your preferences, your allergies, your schedule, your finances, and your family situation and who else you need to factor into your meal plans.

Let’s get to it. Starting with what you know, Make a list of your favorites.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes coming up with ideas for what we want to eat is the hardest part of meal planning for me. It’s not checking inventory, or grocery shopping or even cooking – the IDEAS are what stump me. To circumvent that trouble, I have a list on the inside of my cabinet door of 30 of my family’s favorite meals.

What are your favorite meals, or your family’s favorite meals? Favorite doesn’t have to mean complicated, it just means meals I know we will eat. Items included on this list for us are:

  • chicken pie
  • chicken enchiladas
  • chicken soup, with noodles or with rice
  • chicken breasts
  • tacos, ground beef or chicken
  • pork roast
  • pork chops
  • smoked sausage gumbo (crock pot)
  • andouille sausage and grits
  • kielbasa and pierogi
  • BLTs
  • ham and sweet potatoes
  • beef stew
  • meatloaf
  • chili (crock pot)
  • burgers (summer)
  • pot roast
  • fish, shrimp
  • stuffed pepper casserole
  • egg roll in a bowl
  • breakfast for dinner, etc.

Right there, for us, are more than 20 ideas. Now consider that these days I make a big batch of two or three meals once a week and then reheat them, with veggies or a salad. With 20 ideas, that is 6-7 weeks of planning, if I wanted new ideas every week. And, I have to say, knowing that I have ideas for more than a month feels pretty great!

If you want to use meal planning to make changes and therefore are looking at new or different recipes, the same strategies hold true. Start with a list of recipes you would like to try, or foods that you want to incorporate into your plan. Try a new idea or a new food every week, and once you find winners, add them to your Favorites list!

The next two “Start with what you know” steps are related! We look at the schedule, we look at the inventory, we look back at the schedule and match things up, etc.

Take an inventory of what food you already own.

What is in the fridge, the freezer and the cabinets?

For example, on Saturday morning, I was getting ready to batch cook that evening for a few days. So I checked the freezer for what proteins we have on hand, and planned accordingly (chicken enchiladas and some lovely frozen, fully cooked lemon chicken).

The great thing about having a list of favorite meals and recipes is that I tend to have the ingredients for the items we eat the most often already on hand. So, the chicken enchiladas used homemade enchilada sauce, diced chicken, canned green chiles, canned black beans (I used red kidney because that is what was in the cabinet), tortillas and shredded cheddar cheese. All of which I had on hand.

I need to do more batch cooking later this week, and as I planned my batches for Saturday looked ahead at what else we might want to eat coming up, and added those items to my grocery list.

A suggestion that I will plant here is that, as you start this process for yourself, now would be a great time to Pantry Shop! What that means is to review your foods, checking for expiration dates and making sure everything is safe, and then incorporate what you have on hand into your meal plan for the next week or two. It’s a great way to clear clutter in the cabinets and also save some money by not grocery shopping this week!

Once we know what we have, take a look at your schedule for the next 7 days.

Consider, too, if you need to plan for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, or just 2 meals or even just one. When my sons were little, we meal planned for dinner. Breakfast and lunch were easy and basic, but dinner was a little more complicated.

Now that I cook typically for just my husband and myself, our needs have changed. I still don’t plan for breakfast, but I factor in extra left overs because we tend to eat lunch at home more often with remote work. A friend who homeschools her children plans for all three meals every day because that makes her week flow more smoothly. Perhaps you don’t need that much detail. Your choice.

Also, when looking at the schedule, note days that either don’t need a meal, or perhaps need a special one. For example, my college student comes home on Friday for his Spring Break, so I’m guessing there will be pizza from our favorite local pizza place Rosangela’s for dinner, no need to cook that night!

So, before you say – No Way, Colleen, meal planning is way too much work! Or, before you decide you have to make HUGE Changes, which by the way are really difficult to implement and maintain, let’s start with what we know. We know ourselves, we know our favorites, we know our inventory and we know our schedule! Start with what is in front of you. Just start!

Meal Planning: What Is Healthy? And What Are Your Goals?

Today’s topic has been on my list for a few months now, and I am ready to share!  Over the last year, I have shifted to more coaching and less-in-person organizing, and that shift will continue. AND, not surprisingly, meal planning is still a hot topic for my clients and presentations.  Because, well, we all eat.

As I sat down to write this content, I had just finished wrapping up the dinner dishes. Two hours or so before that, in about an hour, my husband and I had assembled and cooked three separate dinners, ate one (with leftovers) and put the rest in the fridge for the next few days.

How?  Why?  And why am I telling you this?  Well, let me tell you a story!

Last summer, I rebooted my “An Organized Kitchen” presentation.  I had many speaking requests last summer for “An Organized Kitchen” and Meal Planning content and I thought it was time for a refresh.

I don’t remember a time when we didn’t meal plan. Much of my past content about meal planning is from the view-point of cooking with and for kids and my family, which is all really good content! But as I spend more time coaching my clients and thinking things through for myself, I recognize that what we eat, how we eat it, how it gets to our dinner plates – all of these impact our days and weeks and life!

I could be surprised by how many of my coaching clients want to be more productive… and eat better.  Or that want to find that next new job or career … and have better habits around eating a healthy breakfast. Or, are facing lifestyle shifts and changes, and realize that eating healthier and finding time to exercise would go far in helping them face their challenges.

I could be surprised, but I am not.

Nutrition is a building block for many other things, it is part of the foundation of our life, and we want it to be a strong foundation.

I follow personal development influencers, and a quote from Brendon Burchard comes to mind. I’m paraphrasing, but the idea was that we can start to make positive change in our lives by being intentional about what we eat. We have to eat, right? It is something we already do. While adding in an hour work-out every day 7 days a week may seem daunting, making adjustments on what we do every day anyway seems less intimidating.

In my newly re-booted Meal Planning content, we start with two questions.

  • “What does healthy mean to you?” and
  • “What are your Meal planning goals?”

There are SO MANY ideas on what healthy eating means.  Low carb, no carb, gluten free, keto, paleo, vegan, lo-cal, high volume, sustainable eco foods, plant based, intermittent fasting.

But my question to You is “What Does Healthy Mean To You?”  Because if you tell me you want to eat healthy, that can be something vastly different than what I consider healthy.  And since I am NOT a nutritionist, I would suggest you figure that out for yourself as you figure out meal planning.  Because there are SO MANY IDEAS AND OPINIONS out there, if you don’t have a way to focus in and narrow down your options, you are going to be overwhelmed before you even begin.

The second question then, is “What are your Meal Planning goals?”

Yes, goals.  Did you know you can have meal planning goals?  Meal Planning goals might be…

  • Save money. Or waste less food. (It’s estimated that the average American wastes 216 pounds of food a year. And an average family of 4 throws away $1600 in produce a year. (per rts.com))
  • Save time, have less hassle.
  • Teach yourself and your family how to cook.
  • Establish healthy habits and / or support. Or, most likely,
  • Some combination of these and others!

Just this week, two different clients reported wanting to make positive changes including meal planning. One was seeking a plan that would let her adhere to an subscription menu and eating plan that she receives via email every week on her own schedule.

For another, she works full time and wants to meal plan better for having lunches and dinners for the whole work week.

One of my sons moved back into theatre housing in Indiana last week since rehearsals start tomorrow. He stopped by and mentioned that he had spent time meal prepping after he unpacked his stuff.  I asked him those questions – What is Healthy ? And What are your goals?

For the What Is Healthy answer, he is aiming for 30 grams of protein per meal, and more home-cooked foods. His goal is to have nutritious food made ahead of time so he can pack his lunches to take to work / rehearsals, and also not have to cook when he gets home if he’s tired.  Brilliant.

My personal example: As we entered 2024, I realized that January was going to be very busy (and it was). I am not going to report out on what specifically I consider healthy eating because that is not really the point. I will say, though, that I want home cooked food, to eat well, to save time and money and minimize stress, and to not rely on take-out. And to meet those goals, my strategy was and continues to be to cook two nights a week, most likely Friday and Sunday, and make multiple meals on cooking nights to carry us through until the next cooking night.

The evening I described when I started is an example of supporting my meal planning goals.

I was home that afternoon and evening, which doesn’t always happen.  And since I knew that morning that I would have a little more time at home that evening, I pulled from the freezer some ground turkey and Polish sausage to thaw. At dinner time, we diced many green peppers, an onion and a few potatoes, browned some ground turkey, and using what we had in the fridge (left over rice plus staples) and freezer (already browned ground beef), assembled Inside Out Stuffed Pepper casserole, Egg Roll in a Bowl (a new recipe, and so delish!), and baked Polish sausage with diced potatoes, peppers and onions.

All of these recipes store well, warm up well, and are currently waiting patiently in my fridge for future consumption. We can eat well and free up time by not having to cook or clean up for a few days.  We save time, we save money, I stress less and we still eat delicious food.  Check and check!

Next week, I will delve deeper into the how-to.

So, what’s it going to be?  What does healthy mean to you?  And what are your meal planning goals?  Keep the answers in mind, and tune in next week when we talk about how to make it all happen.

Eliminate Brain Clutter With A Cranial Cleanse

In a recent Finish Line Friday session, one of my regular participants mentioned she was working on “The Smalls” during our time together.  She explained that it was the end of a very busy week.  She had been home long enough between events and appointments to make piles but not to put away the piles. She said “Every room had a pile of smalls.”

And the other participants nodded understandingly because we’ve all been there.  Regularly!

That always makes me smile. Not because someone is struggling, but because most of us understand what “The Smalls” means.

And because the words  – The Smalls – sound funny to me and many people express frustration about The Smalls, in sometimes passionate and colorful language! For example, I have another friend and client who, when I ask her what we’re working on today, will occasionally say “The Smalls, Coll!  It’s The Smalls!” with perhaps some frustration and colorful words!

Here’s the thing:

The Smalls can be physical things in our spaces.

They can be a jumble of papers on the kitchen counter, the pile of Lego bits, Barbie shoes and puzzle pieces at the bottom of a bin of toys, or the contents of an everything drawer in the kitchen. (I personally don’t call them junk drawers, because if you call it a junk drawer, guess what ends up inside?)  If the person I mentioned in my first example is like me, the smalls in every room that she mentioned are bag contents from meetings and events, random clothing items or shoes at the back door that have been cycled through and now need to be put away, neglected amazon boxes and mail at the front door, etc.

Bear in mind, none of these items is technically clutter.  They are all things we obviously need, use or love – they just need tended to.

But they pile and they distract and they call out to us for attention and energy.

Which leads me to – The Smalls can be thoughts and ideas in our brains.

“Small” doesn’t indicate importance, or in the definition of “small”, perhaps un-importance, but instead their size.  “The Smalls” means that SO MANY MORE can fit in a space.  Like I have 100 ideas or to-dos or tasks in my brain and they’re all crammed in there making each look small. And they’re all clamoring to get out!

Some of the challenges with The Smalls, either on the kitchen counter or in our brain:

  • There are MANY.
  • They aren’t just clutter.  They are likely important and require care and attention.
  • Right now, they are unsorted and un-categorized.
  • They are not prioritized in order of importance.
  • We believe that the small are important.  And we don’t want them to get lost.
  • We fear The Smalls will get lost.  We fear that brilliant blog post idea that just came to us will disappear, then we worry about that so long that it does disappear, or we forget other things while we spend mental energy on trying to REMEMBER EVERYTHING!
  • The Smalls DO get lost, and then we forget appointments, emergencies happen, feelings are hurt, etc.

Another regular participant in my Finish Lind Friday productivity sessions has used great imagery when we talk about what we plan to accomplish that day.

Imagine a room full of helium balloons with strings attached.

Now, gesture with your hands to collect those strings.  That is what she is often working on, on a Friday. Gathering loose ends, she calls it, with that gesture. Gathering them together.

And a coaching client, in our time working together, even created her own Loose Ends List, to collect The Smalls and all the other ideas / thoughts / tasks that occur to her and then require completion.

I want to applaud all four people that I have mentioned – they identify The Smalls, they identified the need to consistently collect The Smalls, and they have habits and ways to collect and deal with them.

Two Big Ideas this week.

In the interest of writing this article this week, I opened up my copy of “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” by David Allen, thinking I needed to re-read it to write this article. And I am … proud? Relieved? Yes, those feelings and more, to find out that since I read this book many years ago, I implemented and am still doing many of the things he talks about (and he talks about them clearly and concisely and the book is totally worth the read.) And I can do better, and I will share more about this book and his process in future podcasts and articles.

First big idea, this is a great book, check it out (and I mean, actually check it out of your local library – no need to buy it!).

To get started, though, in Getting Things Done, David Allen talks about collection. How first, we need to COLLECT all the thoughts and ideas in our head and get them out of our head and into a more user friendly, time specific, prioritized form.  He mentioned, among other things, a Mind Sweep.

Others call it a Brain dump, though I find that an inelegant phrase. My friend Jen recommended Cranial Cleanse when I asked my community for a better term for Brain Dump.

Whatever we call it, Mind Sweep or Cranial cleanse, it is a great place to start.

And it requires a place to put the collected items. For me, that means my Bullet Journal first, to collect items.  Then I insert them into my master to – do list to prioritize and take action.

But let’s talk about the collecting. I no longer do a cranial cleanse like David Allen recommends, as in, an event, because it is a constant process for me – I am ALWAYS doing a cranial cleanse.

For example, when I am working or out running errands, thoughts occur to me, like an idea or a task that needs completed, and I quickly jot it down.

Because…

Have You Noticed? Another problem is that very often a thought or idea or task occurs to us at a moment when we do not have time to act on it.

This

Happens

To

Me

All

The

Time.

I have noticed that certain events generate more thoughts and ideas.  For example, when I am driving.

When driving, my brain is focused on driving but also open to outside stimuli (which is a good thing while driving), subsequently ideas often come to me while I drive.  OR while I cook, or while I’m in the shower.

This goes back to the recent podcast and newsletter that talks about If I Don’t Write It Down, It Doesn’t Exist. 

The other side of that is, If I don’t capture and collect the ideas when they occur, they continue to float around in my brain with nowhere to go, and that makes things very crowded up there with all The Smalls! 

My suggestion, then, for all of this week – the Second Big Idea – is to have a trusted place to collect the ideas and cultivate a habit of collecting them.

I love my Bullet Journal, and that will be a live webinar sometime soon to look at how to make Bullet Journaling happen for you – but the take away is that I have ONE PLACE to write things down. 

It goes with me everywhere.

It is always ready to collect the ideas and safely hold on to them. To get all The Smalls out of my brain so there is room and space to actually get some work done.

And then I have the regular daily habit of reviewing those ideas, prioritizing and activating those ideas and putting them into  my master-to-do list or on the calendar, etc.

We can’t avoid The Smalls, and really, we don’t want to.  The Smalls are where it’s at, sometimes!  The genius is in The Smalls!  But not when all of the Smalls are cramped together in our brain. 

We need the habit of moving The Smalls out of our brain and into a trusted collector. And then the habit of prioritizing and acting on them, too!  This is how we get things done.

Who’s On The Team? (Wellness Edition)

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Who is on the team?

I’m going to be real and honest this week.  Well, I’m always real and honest, but I am going to talk about things that are a little uncomfortable to talk about because… well… sometimes we need to do the uncomfortable things.

Because they’re the right things to do, even if they’re uncomfortable.

Before we go too far today, I want to start with the end in mind:

  • We need to de-mystify medical issues, wellness and prevention, and we need to talk about stuff.
  • I’m fine. 
  • I am very appreciative of my team, of knowing that I am not alone and that I have very smart people I can call.
  • We need to pursue prevention and wellness in positive terms.
  • I am encouraging all of us this week to map out our plan and make our appointments for 2024.

I am happy to say, I took care of all the recommended wellness screenings and vaccinations for my age group in 2023.  Before you think I’m bragging, trust me – I’m not.  In full transparency, I received my results from the test I took instead of having a colonoscopy on December 28.  So to say I took care of them in 2023… well, I just squeaked that last test into 2023.

The question I want to ask us today is “Who is On The Team?” And let’s think of them as a team, as people who are smarter than us in certain areas and who are here to help us.

This week, that is in health care terms. Here’s the story:

It’s Spring, 2020. I had created a great team, I thought, over the last 20 years with a gynecological practice and primary care practice in the same clinical building.  And then… just as I really needed them in 2020, my gynecologist who delivered all three children retired, the clinical building closed and all the doctors left with no follow up for over 3 months.

Because of that experience, I realize just how important it is to have A Team. And to think of wellness and prevention in positive terms.

I’m always on track with my annual gynecological exams and my mammogram. I struggled with medical issues starting in the summer of 2020 that culminated with a major gynecological surgery in February of 2021, so staying on top of those issues is more important to me than ever and I never miss a year.

However, because I had done so much medical stuff in the 6 months leading up to that surgery, I did not get an annual general physical exam or lab work, etc., in 2022. 

But, I understand the importance of regular screenings and preventive medicine.  I encourage all of us to understand that and to make time NOW to take care of ourselves to save time and heartache later.  So in 2023 I re-committed to prevention and re-examined my team.

I made the calls that needed to be made, I made the appointments, I did the work.  Did I like all of it?  No.  Did I do it anyway?  Yes.  Because, like in organizing, maintenance in wellness is where is the secret and foundation to success.

In 2023, I had not yet had a colonoscopy, even though recent changes to the recommendations tell us that we should start getting those at 45 years old, and let’s face it, I am more than 45 years old. And as my otherwise totally chill and relaxed gynecologist said very strongly at my appointment with her in July, there are worse things than getting a colonoscopy – Like GETTING COLON CANCER. 

In truth, I wasn’t actually worried about getting a colonoscopy.  My hurdles were navigating our insurance, setting aside 2 days to schedule the prep and exam, not wanting to bother anyone with needing to drive me, etc. So, at my annual physical in November, my primary care doctor mentioned Cologuard, a test I could do at home and then send in, and I thought that sounded like a great idea.  (And it still took me a few weeks to do it, after I got the kit!) The “everything looks good, you have 3 years until you have to do it again” were the results I received on December 28.

I am taking a while to get around to what I really want to talk about today.  I added another member to the team recently.  For much of 2023, I had a spot on the right side of my nose that just wouldn’t heal.  It would almost heal, and then I would wake up and it would be bleeding again. 

I am a fair-skinned Irish girl. I have worn SPF 35 or more every day for 23 years. I have two colors – white and red.  There is not much in-between for me.  I have family members who have had skin cancer.  I knew I needed to make the call.  I hesitated for a while because my son was getting married in late September, and I didn’t want to have surgery before that.  It isn’t reasonable, of course, to think this way, but it is what I thought.

So, right after the wedding, I made the appointment for a skin screening, and that screen occurred the first week of November.  They completed a thorough skin screening and took a biopsy of the spot on my nose.  This may sound strange, but even though the dermatologist was also concerned about the spot on my nose, I left the office that day feeling so relieved, knowing that except for that spot, the rest of my skin looked good and healthy. 

I received the results the week after Thanksgiving, that I have a basal cell carcinoma on my nose and it needs to be removed. Let me assure you, this is the blandest, least concerning type of skin cancer there is and I am perfectly fine.  You can google it, if you’d like, goodness knows I did.  And now, I have a Mohs procedure (you can google that, as well) scheduled in two weeks to remove the spot.

Did I want to have the dermatologist appointment?  No.  Did I want to have the screening? No, because I was worried about what they would find. Again, not logical thinking, I know, but that was my thinking nonetheless. And because I was worried, it was EVEN MORE IMPORTANT TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

What’s really interesting is that now that I have to take a few weeks off around the procedure for recovery and have spoken to clients, friends and peers about scheduling, I have heard just how common this procedure is. Thirty percent of fair skinned people will have it in their life time. As soon as I mentioned that I have to do this, I learned that many people I know have already had this procedure. Which goes back to the the statement – we need to de-mystify medical conditions and talk about stuff more openly.

Which is what I am doing today.

So, back to the original question.

Who’s on the team?

  • My chiropractor, my massage therapist and my nutrition response testing provider (all at the same office), and I probably see them the most often;
  • dermatology practice;
  • gynecologist practice;
  • eye doctor (just had my 6 month check-up this past week);
  • my primary care doctor; and
  • my dentist.
  • I’ve also worked with and can call on them again – a nutritionist, a healer, a physical therapist, an oriental medicine practitioner and acupuncturist, and a therapist.
  • More importantly, who needs to be on your team? What are the recommended tests and screening for people your age? If you haven’t already scheduled those for 2024, may I gently suggest you give those some thought this week?

So, let’s review.

  • We need to de-mystify medical and wellness and prevention, and we need to talk about stuff.
  • We need to examine the excuses we tell ourselves, because sometimes those stories are wrong.
  • I’m fine. 
  • I am very appreciative of my team, of knowing that I am not alone, of knowing I have very smart people I can call, and of thinking about prevention and wellness in positive terms.
  • And I am encouraging all of us this week to map out our plan and make our appointments for 2024.

What does that look like for you?

Using the terminology from last week’s podcast and article, start with the easy and the obvious.

Schedule your dentist appointments, your eye doctor appointment, your annual physical. You don’t have to complete them right now, but please, get them on the calendar for some time in 2024. And if doing that all at once feels overwhelming, place a reminder on the first day of each month to call one office and make one appointment. Or, make that note for your birthday of the month – meaning, for me, the 7th of every month could be wellness day. I always use my birthday in the Fall as a reminder to get my flu shot.

If you don’t know what the recommended screenings are for your age group, ask your primary care provider or google it. Have the uncomfortable conversations, make the tough phone calls. Be the leader of your wellness team and make your plan!

To paraphrase the words of my doctor last summer, what’s worse than the screenings and vaccines to prevent illness? Actually having the illness! Mobilize that team!

Start With The Easy and Obvious. Just Start.

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Let’s Start with Starting. 

Some days, our most important word is “start”.

I received a text from a client this week. She is delightful. I work with the most amazing people.

She is an in-person organizing client.  We were scheduled to work together later that day, and she was thinking through her project list and what she wanted to accomplish that day. She has a few high priority projects and determining where specifically we needed to spend our time since we would not be able to accomplish all the projects in the time we had scheduled. She didn’t know if we should start on putting away the Christmas decoration bins or start on the basement storage space or start on the clean and dirty laundry in the primary bedroom and walk-in closet.

And, of course, this is a great question to ask. Where to spend our time? But more importantly, of course, is that all of those options start with the word start. Because if we want to make progress in any direction we have to start. 

In this case, we started with the easy and the obvious, with the big project RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, which was laundry.

If you also wonder where to start on your organizing projects, here is the answer:

  • Start with the easy and the obvious.
  • Start with a project that is small.
  • Start with a project that is completely straightforward and un-emotional.
  • Start with the project that you’ve already made progress on or is almost done.
  • Start with the obvious. If you want to organize your kitchen today, load up the dishwasher and clean out the sink first before you open one cabinet or drawer. 
  • Start with the easy.  Take out all the trash and recycling.  Those are already-made decisions and getting that all out the door can jump start our motivation.
  • Start with what is on the floor in front of you, because that will make taking a next step easier.
  • Of course, You can always start with the hard and intimidating, too, but that is a topic for another article!

Just so you know, this article is not just about physical organizing.

My organizing work also utilizes the skills I’ve learned in coaching because in the best organizing sessions, the conversation stays solidly with the client, the client gains awareness, we utilize clear communication and powerful questions, and we set my client up to continue to succeed.

This client texted me that she was overwhelmed. She had small children home this week due to the cold and snow here in Chicago. The holidays wrapped up less than a month ago.  January activities are in full swing. I say all of this because, hey, who among us hasn’t felt overwhelmed?

She was asking for guidance around prioritizing work and projects.  She is clear on what her projects are but was sorting out where was the best place to start.  She was crafting her plan for our time together based on needs (hooray!!!).  And for our purposes that day, the answer was Start with the Easy and the Obvious.

So regardless of if we’re working on organizing a bedroom or in coaching, setting our professional goals for 2024, the process and questions are similar!

We determine needs – in my client’s example, the needs were physical spaces that needed to be organized, for better functioning of her home and therefore some peace of mind. 

Next, how do we prioritize? What shall we do, first , second, third, etc.? Let’s make sure that what we’re working on, in organizing or in coaching, is important. That it will move us towards our goals, will improve our lives. Let’s think it through.

For this client, we could look at our three options, Christmas bins, storage space or clothes, and we could acknowledge that all three were important but taking care of the clothes and laundry would help immediately.  So, we started with the Easy and the Obvious right in front of us.

And once we know what to do and when, let’s actually make the work happen.

SO THEN WE START.  And the twist here is that STARTing is the easy and obvious step to take.

My client started the work when we set the appointment for this week a month ago. 

She started the work when she reached out to me earlier in the day to tell me that she was overwhelmed but still willing to work.

She started the work when she texted me to talk through priorities.

And when I got to her house, after we talked through things a little bit longer, we DOVE IN and made great progress on the clothes / laundry / bedroom project.

If you, too, are wondering where to start on your organizing projects, let’s review.

  • Start with the easy and the obvious.
  • Start with a project that is small or impersonal or already started or almost complete.
  • Start with what is right in front of you.
  • Just start.

What does that look like for you this week?  Sure, this has been about an organizing project, but let’s ask the question about you personally.

What is easy and obvious? What simple things can you change to make things better in 2024? 

  • Want to eat healthier?  Bring home healthy foods.
  • More exercise or movement?  Every time that idea occurs to you, stand up and move around your space.
  • Improve your relationships? Text a friend.
  • Better sleep in 2024? Got to bed.  No really.

Start.  Just start.

Everything? Sure, But Not All At Once!

I was chatting with one of my Finish Line Friday participants last week before everyone else arrived in my zoom room. Not surprisingly, we were talking about goal setting for the new year. I said out loud, as a reminder to her and to me, that “2024 is 12 Months Long.”

Meaning, we have a lot of time and opportunity to make positive change and we don’t have to stuff everything into the first week.

And that really resonated with her.

Because, of course, every year is 12 months long. January, even when we try to pack all sorts of new habits and change in, is 31 days long. No more, no less.

Some years, we start out strong and believe that we need to change EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE when the new year begins. And we set our selves up for failure or major anxiety when we think that way. Instead, let’s consider pacing ourselves.

On the other hand, I had grand plans for EVERYTHING at once when it comes to strategic planning in January.

6 weeks ago, I made sure to block out time on the calendar last week and this week for hours of strategic planning time to work on my editorial calendar, get ahead on my writing and plan my year in detail. And… as is often the case when it comes to big-picture strategic planning, more urgent issues squeezed into the space instead.

This is not to say that I am not planning strategically for the year this week. It IS to say, that I am using smaller pieces of time to do the planning. And as an aside, I will block MORE time at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025 to ensure some sacred space for planning!

The balance seems to be, then – Everything? Sure. But NOT ALL AT ONCE!

Here goes – this week, I am working on the Qs.

I use a Bullet Journal. I have mentioned it in past podcasts and videos, but I haven’t delved too deeply. And I feel that it is time to delve deeply!

And one of the features for the Bullet Journal is called a Future Log. As we set up our Bullet Journals, we start with a few index pages (a topic for another day), and then we set up our Future Log.

I, like many others, break my year into quarters. Quarter 1 is January, February and March, Quarter 2 is April, May and June, etc.

This year on my future log so far, I have:

  • Q1, a procedure in February
  • Q1, coaching certification to complete by March 1
  • Q1, Liturgy planning for Easter on March 31
  • Q2, a wedding in Maryland
  • Q3, family vacation
  • Q3, moving my son to his college apartment
  • Q3, a trip to Massachusetts

There are also doctor appointments, presentations, client appointments and board meetings on the calendar for 2024. But those are typical items and don’t need to be in the Future Log. The Future Log and the Qs are for tracking big projects.

Working with quarters helps my brain every day.

Some of us stumble into all or nothing thinking, and that sort of thinking can disrupt our reason, our logic, our productivity and our peace.

With the Q’s and the future log, I have a consistent and reliable place to park ideas that are AMAZING but that do not need to be worked into today’s plan or this week’s, or even this month.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with my social media manager. We are working on a big launch for Q1, but then she asked (without knowing what this week’s topic was going to be) if we could look at Q2 and beyond as well. YES!!

We don’t want to lose track of the good ideas we have, but now or even this quarter may not be the time to tackle them.

I have a big project for a professional organization I am affiliated with that will take time in Q1 and Q2, so any other big projects will need to be planned for Q3 or Q4.

I also look back at last year’s Q’s, the plan for each quarter and also the list of things I completed. And I can learn from that, as I plot my Qs for this year as I look ahead. For example,

  • Last year, especially in the second and third quarters, I was helping my mom downsize and move to her new very cute apartment. I will not need to do that this year, as she is already settled. More importantly, my son and his wife got married the end of September! Amazing, but also not something I need to plan for again this year!
  • On the other hand, also 3rd quarter last year, we spent a lot of time with one of my sons and his friends at the lake, and that was awesome, so I should make note now on my planning for July to spend weekends with them, if they’d like.

We can zoom out from the day-to-day or even week-to-week planning, and look at our year in broader strokes or as a bigger picture. We can pair up what we want to accomplish this year with the time that we have available. We can cut ourselves some slack and recognize that we can accomplish great things AND not wear ourselves out and doom our goals before we even begin by pacing our work and our energy for the longer term.

We can let our ideas flourish by giving them a resting place until we are ready to act on them.

Consider your 2024 Qs this week and this month, and set yourself up to succeed in 2024!