First, there’s this litte eye-nugget to inspire the creativity within anyone giving gifts this holiday season:
How Do You Get Things Done?
Do them. I had 36 mails piled up in my inbox, after having “inbox zero” for a while, and how did I get it cleared out? I sat still for 20 minutes and responded to everyone.
What’s on your plate to do that you’re putting off? Can you give it 20 minutes of attention?
Well put. I also love the “Fifteen Minute Rule,” the source of which I don’t recall… Oh! Oh! It was Fly Lady! Anyway, in one of her posts she talks about Decluttering 15 minutes a day, which basically is a tactic to tackle any one messy area for 15 minutes a day, because you can handle 15 minutes of anything, it doesn’t throw off your whole day, it’s palatable to the easily overwhelmed mind, and who knows, you may end up going 20 or 30 minutes some days without realizing it, and before you know it, you’ve accomplished this really big task!
Another great thing I’ve taken from Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, which I am currently in the midst of reading, is the One Minute Rule she instituted for herself, wherein if something took less than one minute, she always did it instead of putting it off. Great examples are putting clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor, or washing a dish instead of leaving it for later, or putting the remote back where it goes instead of on a random perch on your way out of the room.
I like these things because they break up things that somehow roll into insurmountable projects in our heads that build up avoidance mechanisms, instead of facing them head-on and seeing how easy it can be to live a simpler, or cleaner, or more efficient life.
This all being said, it’s 10pm and I’m going to delve back into Gretchen’s book and see if I can’t read some more! Because, as Stephen King said:
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
and:
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
xoxo, zzzzz
—Crystal
