226. Distractions

I’ve tried to organize things in my life. It came after a work webinar where we learned about organizing our email from some dude who called himself the email guru or something like that. The premise of his brand was a little weird, “I’m the guy who helps you organize your emails”, but he actually had some decent organizational points.

The basic points of his email organization premise is this: take care of it, file it for later, or delete it. It sounds pretty radical, but it’s really helped me organize my inbox (at least my work one, my normal gmail is a mess and I don’t want to take care of it.) I frittered away over 400 messages in my inbox last week and now it’s sitting around zero. I also think I’ve been more productive in the past week. I’ve taken care of things right away instead of letting them linger. When I let things linger, I wory, and when I worry I either do dumb things or procrastinate. I’ve found myself doing that less and less. I like having a clear set of directions and tasks in front of me.

I’m not an extremely messy person. (My mom might think otherwise.) I’m cleaner than many 20-something men. I sometimes let things go, but I’ve done better with keeping an area clean. I’ve tried to implement that email philosophy in life. I’ve started with the kitchen. I can either clean it, put it away, or save it for later. I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping a clean (maybe not spotless) kitchen. It is also pretty nice to wake up to a clean kitchen. (Especially after you spent the night drinking beer and you see cans all over your counter.)

I’ve tried to do that with my clothes, but it hasn’t quite yet been successful. I think that’s because I don’t have a great filing system in place yet, so things tend to end up on the floor. I’ve started to ask myself, will I wear this again? If so, hang it up. If not, throw it in the hamper. My room isn’t as messy as it was, but it still has a long way to go.

Maybe I’ve started to do this because I’m getting older. I like to keep things organized and simple. I’m not a huge fan of plans getting mucked up or complicated. I think I’m still fine with a little bit of mess, as long as it’s a controlled mess.

I’ve also been timing myself how long it takes to do simple things. I’ve noticed that cleaning up the kitchen after I’m done takes less than 15 minutes. I can usually get it done quicker than that. That’s a really nice feeling. I think it also helps when you limit distractions. I wanted to write this post in 14 minutes, and I think I’m going to make that goal. So, the lesson I’ve learned the past week? Take care of things and don’t let distractions get in the way of accomplishing a goal.