Just do it, and right now, por favor.

Do you ever feel like things are falling to shambled pieces all around you?  Do you ever look around your house and as your eyes fall upon one thing to the next, each view is a reminder of a chore you need to get done?

I was speaking to one of my organizational consultation clients about this very subject recently.  Here's what I think - I've often said that the people who seem to be the most organized really have a secret laziness.  I know this doesn't seem to be possible, but let me explain.

People who are very organized are guardians of their future investment, specifically in the area of time.  Here's an example: let's just call this person Sean.  Sean walks into his house and takes his shoes off (he doesn't want to get mud on his kitchen floor), he walks immediately over to the closet to hang up his coat (instead of putting it on the banister at the bottom of the stairs or throwing it over the back of a chair), and puts his keys on the key hook and cell phone in its designated place.  He stands over the garbage can and pitches all of the junk mail, opens the bills and puts them on his desk (where he will pay them later at the time he has designated each week to do so), marks the invitation to the fishing tournament on his calendar and off he goes.  This really isn't a big deal, right?  He's not really taking up a lot of time, just a couple minutes (if that).  Good job, Sean.  You guys should see his garage!

Contrast that with someone we'll call Ms. Piggy.  Ms. Piggy walks into her house, drops her purse on the floor next to the door, throws her coat on the couch, dumps her pile of mail onto the kitchen table and off she goes (with her dirty shoes) to find her lost skirt that she totally wanted to wear out tonight, but she has no idea where she put it AND she is in a rush because she's supposed to meet her friends in 45 minutes but she didn't plan any dinner (and she is totally starving and they're all going out for drinks, so really she should have something, but whatEVER, she's got to get that skirt).

But oh crudsicles, Ms. Piggy took 43 minutes to find her lost skirt and then on the way out she realizes she can't find her keys that she must have put somewhere when she came in in a rush, oh CRUD!  WHY?  WHY?!  WHYYYYYYY!?  Now she's late, she has had no food and she's going to spend ten more minutes trying to find her keys.  Great.

Fast-forward to future, Ms. Piggy has collected a lovely pile of mail on her kitchen table (which she now cannot eat off of because it is so covered in myriads of junk) and she has to toss a few jackets to and fro off of the couch to find the right one (and a place to sit).  

Here's the point: In order for Sean to have his stuff cleaned up, he will need to take about zero minutes to do it.  In order for Ms. Piggy to de-piggify, she basically just ate her entire Sunday afternoon.  Sean was protective of his future time by using thirty seconds of what he has now to save himself several hours later.  Ms. Piggy blew her time now by spending her future time.

Every single thing you do to save your time now is putting it in the bank for later.  Time is just like money.  Little by little makes a difference.  You don't know what you'll have for time later, so don't swipe it like an impulse with your credit card.

My mantra: if you can do it in 30 seconds, don't wait.  Just do it.  You will spare your future self time, possibly money and multiple piles of stress.

Anyway, just a thought.  Whaddya think?

Peace, love and just do it - now,
Ms. Daisy