I am having to rely again on “Do ONE SINGLE THING, even if it is the SMALLEST AND LEAST IMPORTANT THING, because doing ONE SMALL UNIMPORTANT THING still puts you AHEAD of where you are if you do ZERO THINGS.”
There are cluttery, visually-burdensome things I would not have to see and feel oppressed by every single day if I would just spend two minutes bringing them to where they belong, and yet I am not doing it. I keep thinking “Ug, but there are SO MANY things that need to go other places, it would take SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT to put them ALL away” and so I don’t put ANY of them away, and that is extremely silly. If I had made myself put away even one single item per day for the month of October, I would be looking at SEVENTEEN FEWER ITEMS right now, maybe EIGHTEEN if I had already done today’s item, and that would be SOMEthing. It might be small progress, but it would BE MORE PROGRESS THAN DOING NOTHING. And actually, it wouldn’t even be small progress, it would be pretty significant progress!
I also get stopped by “But putting that one thing away is a LOW priority: what I REALLY need to be doing is [much, much larger and more important and more time-consuming task]”—and so I don’t put the item away AND I don’t do the larger and more important task. Again: silly. I know from experience that if I get ANYTHING off the to-do list, the WHOLE LIST feels better. If I make my environment even a LITTLE less oppressive, it is easier to do EVERYTHING, including the more important items on the list.
And I know it is only October, but every year I think oh it is MUCH too soon to even START THINKING about Christmas; and EVERY YEAR I get to December and wish I had done SOMEthing, ANYTHING back in October when I was kind of eager to get started and it would have been fun but it felt like it was too early, so that NOW in DECEMBER I could be ENJOYING CHRISTMAS rather than FRANTICALLY SCRABBLING. So one of the tentative items on my to-do list is to bring down the box of Christmas-card stuff. There was one year I addressed and stamped all the cards ahead of time in October, and in December I was so grateful to myself. I LOVE to do the cards, but they ARE time- and space-consuming, and having instead a small neat stack of cards all set to write and then just seal into the envelopes was GREAT: I kept the box next to my comfy chair, and would write a few whenever I felt like it.
I used your advice yesterday. I HATE filling my weekly pill box. I put it off and waste time getting a day’s worth of pills instead of refilling 14 separate little boxes. Timed myself doing it slowly yesterday. Three minutes and 45 second. I stress and procrastinate for hours each week instead of doing something that takes less than 4 freakin minutes.
I told my daughter about your really excellent advice. She said “um, yeah mom, they did that with ADHD kids.”
How funny. Filling my weekly pill box is literally a task I look forward to every week. Any chance you love wiping down bathroom mirrors, and we can trade hated tasks? :)
I fill 14 weeks at a time. it’s a pain, but so wonderful to only have to do it about 4 times a year.
This is how I’m feeling right now as we are moving in two weeks. I could be doing more but then I think but what if we need this item in the next little while? I’m procrastinating and there are empty boxes everywhere!
Yep. Yep. Yep. One thing. Even if it is Very Small. I have been infinitesimal-stepping my way toward things, honestly. Like there was a blouse with a stain on it that I allowed to hang on a hanger for a few weeks once I noticed the stain. Then I finally moved it onto a counter. After a few days, I moved it to the laundry room and sprayed the stain with cleanser. It has been there for two days; today I moved it to the washing machine. Maybe I will turn the washing machine on, even!
(Yesterday was the type of day where I forced myself to do TWO things — both phone calls — and neither of them resolved anything so I will have to make the phone calls again. That is SO discouraging. When I manage to Do A Thing, it should come OFF the list.)
My brain also works like Swistle describes in this post and I relate a lot to the “adult women with ADHD” articles and memes. I have two neurodivergent kids and so there’s that too. It’s an executive function thing.
My job offered training in Getting Things Done, which says to break tasks down to their smallest parts, and then make each step a thing. So putting a bag for donations in a room you need to declutter counts as a thing.
I find it very motivating, especially because I imagine a world in which a chore I’ve put off only takes a few minutes, and then I feel silly fot taking months or years to get around to it. But what actually happens is that the seemingly tiny chore actually takes for-effing-ever, and no wonder I’ve been putting it off.
But looking up the type of screw I need or checking to see if we have primer? I can get that done pretty quickly.
House is still . . . not great, though.
A related issue is when BIG problems make small ones seem Not Worth It- like, why put away the pile of papers on the counter next to the fridge when the fridge isn’t working? Have I hidden papers from guests in the non-working fridge? Yes. Did I clean up papers before the fridge repair man came? Yes, I did. But not for myself.
It is one thing, but it is *in* the *bucket*!
(honestly. I have a chronic illness and often can’t do much, so I have added “reduce chaos” to my daily to-do list which serves both to remind me to actually take my pills and do my PT exercises every day, and a record of what I’ve done such that if I have a crash, I can look and go “…oh. Yes, that was kind of a lot that I did the day before the crash.” And it now has the line “reduce chaos” on it. On bad days, that means that one easy item moves from where it is to where it ought to be, within the same room, i.e. scissors move from on the floor in front of the office supplies to the top of the office supply drawers, which is their “home”; on good days, slightly more. But *any* chaos reduction counts as chaos reduction for the spreadsheet check-that-line-off purposes! And also any chaos reduction helps. Even if chaos reduction is not keeping up with chaos generation, it still slows the pace of accumulating chaos, which is worth something!)(and if I have a vomity migraine, then the daily to-do list drops down to take pills, stay alive, no chaos reduction, which is fine. But! Most of the time! *Some* thing, tiny or small or sometimes even middling-size, can be done!)
Addressing xmas cards now / in advance: 🤯🤯🤯 MIND FULLY BLOWN. This is so smart.
(I personally am now tied to one photo-card vendor for the rest of my natural life, because I spent the time & energy one year to meticulously format my entire effing list into the exact stupid just-different-enough-from-my-spreadsheet format they needed to then print all the envelopes for me, and the time & effort it took to do that was indeed SO MUCH that I feel compelled to benefit from the time savings for the REST OF TIME NOW, regardless of whether that vendor has a card design I particularly like.)
(We shall not delve into the other extremely smart Swistle learning of Sunk [time] Cost here, although I recognize this is perhaps a perfect example.)
I don’t have my old log in info (I lost my email address in a divorce. Literally) I used to blog as Fairy Dogmother, and I think of your past advice about this kind of thing all the time – it might just be a drop in the bucket, but it’s SOMETHING, which is more than NOTHING, and the drop is IN the bucket, and now look, you just did a thing and that’s one less thing you have to think about! I have post concussion syndrome that is probably never going away now, so executive function and actually doing small tasks is a lot harder than it used to be. Something I’ve been doing to combat inertia/overwhelm/I don’t want to is when I’m waiting for something for a few minutes like the microwave or the dryer I stay in that area (so I don’t forget about it as my brain pinballs around from thing to thing through the day) and I look around and just do something in that 1:37 left on the microwave, and some days I’ve managed to tidy the whole kitchen, or sweep the laundry room and kitchen floors in bits and pieces of time through the day. And being able to physically see those accomplishments can energize me to do more things on the mental to do list. But if it doesn’t that’s okay too because look, that stuff can get crossed off the list cause it’s done!
I am on a christmas buying spree this month. Anything I do prior to november 1st is like a small gift to myself and a minor miracle. How we go from Way Ahead on Halloween to Way Behind on Nov 1st is a trick of time. My goal is to have one big thing bought for all four family members and advent calendars picked and purchased. So eight items. I have four so far. WOO!
I am currently, very slowly, repainting the entranceway/foyer/hall (whatever word works for you) of the house. As long as I do a *bit* every day, it’s getting done, right?? So many coats of paint!!
Oh yes, the not doing Things because there are more Important Things to do (that also don’t get done) round and round leaves me exhausted without having achieved anything.
And some of those things like going for a walk or making a proper lunch would help me to do the Important Things better but I only know that in the knowing part of my brain not the doing part of my brain.
Ohhh the knowing part vs. the doing part. Sigh. I’m learning more tricks for getting things started, but… yep. We’d like the doing part of the brain to be on board enthusiastically, rather than having to drag it along like a reluctant toddler.
(it is *also* annoying how difficult it can be to convince the feeling part of some of the things the knowing part is entirely certain of and is objectively correct about. Sigh.)
I think the separation of “knowing part of my brain” from “doing part of my brain” may be even better than the theory of “regular stomach” vs “dessert stomach”
Oh, I can really relate to this, especially for decluttering. The do-something reasoning can be applied to anything I dislike that needs steady progress (like trip or meal planning) or needs to become a habit (like decluttering). I used to clean our bathrooms once a month in an hours-long slog and felt miserable for the entire duration. And then a week later, I’d think how gross the bathroom countertops seemed, but it was still several weeks away until I drudgingly cleaned them again. I only recently came to the revelation that I can clean bathroom countertops any day I want without having to also clean the toilet, shower, mirror, floor, drains, etc.
Oh brother, I get this. I had people coming over to interview me to babysit for their child and I had to clear the countertops of clutter and there was so much that I’ve looked at too many times. I wish I was better at making a decision the first time I saw something vs. putting it in a pile. Being prepared for Christmas in advance is a super power that I do not possess.
Love hearing about this topic. Some of my strategies.
I love drops in the bucket.
I also have learned through coaching the skill of writing down “the next five things” needed on a task. It helps me break it down.
I set 10 minute timers.
I think back often on an old postpartum blog post I once read that said what a house needs is: clean laundry and food. The rest (made beds, decluttering) is not essential.
I try to do the daily tasks Clean Mama sets out. I find this keeps things pretty under control.
I try (try) to give myself grace. Only recently did I acknowledge that when I am weighed down by big things it takes a ton of energy just to get through and guess what, I don’t have all the energy for all the above! Except laundry and food, And nudging myself to go for a walk.
I could use this advice as we are embarked on a decluttering project and the size of the task is so disheartening.
People don’t get how difficult it is to be at war with…ourselves. It takes energy that could go to actually accomplishing things.
This has been a problem for sure, but I have had a little luck with making a reminder list of chunks of different goals. It helps me because I will accomplish A LOT in order to avoid doing something I really don’t want to do. It’s all relative, of course. New loathesome tasks are always coming in!
Whatever it takes to hack your own nature is okay by me.