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On Independence Day weekend our good friends came down from Virginia to spend the long holiday weekend with us at the mountain house. The house had been empty for a few weeks, so when Christmas Boy and I arrived on Tuesday evening, we found that weeds had begun to take over all the planting beds, the stone driveway and the pea gravel walkway. Ugh. It looked awful and confirmed for us that you really can't outrun Mother Nature. Bear in mind that when I come up to the mountains, the last thing I want to do is pull weeds, yet it seems I have to do at least a bit of it every time I visit.
This time was different though, because we hadn't been here in a while and the weed growth was excessive. I woke up Wednesday morning, put on my sexiest weed-pulling outfit (pink tank top, blue paint-stained shorts and flip flops for those into gardening fashion trends), pulled on my hot little gardening gloves, grabbed a bucket and headed out into the wild to do me some killin'.
Nearly overwhelmed by the number of weeds I had to attack, I felt discouraged, but I chose to use a tactic I use with my organizing clients: I stayed in one small area focusing only on pulling each weed in that section of earth and dropping it into the bucket before moving my eyes to the next section. By working systematically, focusing on one weed at a time and the ever-filling bucket, rather than bringing my focus to the bigger picture, I was able to stay motivated and keep on task. I also reminded myself of how happy I'd be with the result of my work, and how proud I would be when our friends arrived and the house looked beautiful again.
As I heroically eliminated the scourge of weeds from the earth, I was reminded of the similarities pulling weeds has to organizing. Sometimes you want (or need!) to get a space or a project organized, but you feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. You can't imagine doing the whole thing, so you don't even begin because it feels impossible to finish. So you just keep putting it off and the job gets bigger and bigger. Sound familiar?
Tackle your organizing projects big and small using the same method I used for my weed project:
- Choose to begin and stick to the start time
- Stay focused on working a small area at a time
- Avoid looking at the big picture until you've made a marked difference
- Look in your bucket frequently (or at your "discards" pile) to see your success so far
- Keep thinking about the FINISHED RESULT even before you're finished
Using this mindset and method on the weeds, I wiped out the weeds from all the planting beds around the house, the entire walkway, the planting beds running along the length of the 60-foot driveway, and the driveway itself. PLUS I limbed a few trees AND pruned back some of the bushes around the house. All in just three hours. (Hey, they don't call me The Assassin for nuthin'! Wasps and weeds tremble at the sound of my name).
But I digress. My point is that I got so much done because by staying focused and checking my success frequently, I felt a quick sense of victory, which created momentum. The added bonus is that because I knocked that pesky task off my list early rather than putting it off, I didn't have the spectre of weed-pulling looming to ruin my enjoyment of the rest of the weekend with my friends. So every morning, I woke up at 6 to enjoy a gorgeous sunrise without any lurking gardening thoughts distracting me from being in the moment.
So if you're feeling overwhelmed about an organizing project -- or any task or project for that matter -- use the same tactics to tackle your project that I used to pull weeds, and you'll find yourself finished and feeling great about your accomplishment!
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