Piles of Crap on Desk/Floor = Meltdown #productivity #makeaplan

You know you’ve been there.  Looking at your desk with so much to do and wondering where to even start.

What did I do?  I scooped all of it off the desk and put it in one pile on the floor.

That’s right, I couldn’t get past the piles so I made a bigger pile. (Hey, it made sense to me at the time.)

One of the many piles…

In retrospect the bigger pile was overwhelming, mocking me, getting under my skin. So much to do and all of it small piddly little stuff, most of which I was the responsible party.  I’m a really great delegator and this stuff just wasn’t “delegatable”.

This happens from time to time with all of us. In the middle of the swirl, it’s painful, drags you down, and seems like a dark tunnel with only a pinpoint of light at the end of it.

How did I get out of it?  20 Minutes and Trees.

I left the office, left the phone, went for a walk, got some zen.  

Once I was walking outside looking at the trees, the grass, the sidewalk, the graffiti on walls, my mind chatter slowed down. In fact it stopped. All of the sudden I could see what I needed to do first. and the overwhelm left like a snap of the finger.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

What did I learn from my angry pile of crap?  I learned that I normally don’t ever let the piles get that big. In the midst of transformation and business growth, keeping my office rituals is paramount: 

• Friday afternoon filing – 30 minutes of quick and dirty get it done filing
• use my kitchen timer – break tasks into 30 minutes
• use my spiral notepad – write down my plan for tomorrow before leaving the office

When I keep my simple regular daily rituals, that pile of overwhelming crap never shows up and my time is spent on the stuff I love that makes me money.

Jessica Chapman Clark is the founder of Room to Breathe™ where she helps busy entrepreneurs set up personalized workflow systems so they and their staff can spend their time making more money.  Connect with Jessica on Twitter @Room2BreatheOrg or on facebook.com/RoomToBreatheOrganizing