One Thing You Can Do Today to Help Organize Your Day
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have 3 goals for the last quarter of 2018. One of those goals is key to meeting the other two and this is organizing my life. This is a big task. First, I have 3 kids and a husband. Second, I have always been kind of a disorganized mess. Since childhood I have lived in a kind of controlled chaos. It is who I am and I have learned to own it.
That being said the chaos has gotten out of control. I find myself feeling constantly overwhelmed and spinning in circles. I feel like I never get anything actually done and I end each day feeling more behind and overwhelmed than before. This lead me to the last great hope of all overwhelmed moms everywhere – Pinterest. Could I find the answer in this beloved board of beautiful images?
I have found many ideas and blog posts. Some may even work for me but over all there is a lot of systems and print outs and lists. It is a lot. When you already overwhelmed, the idea of printing out 45 pages of pages of paper to write down all of the things that already overwhelm you is too much – or at least too much for me.
I thought I was a hopeless case but then I found the idea. The idea that has in a month’s time changed my life. I am serious here people – changed my life. Here it is – here is the 1 single simple thing I have discovered to help pull my sh!t together on a daily basis. I called it “My 3 Things”.
My 3 things is something I do every morning when I wake up. I sit down, drink my morning coffee and think about my day and then I write down the 3 things I really want/need to get down that day as bullet points. There is nothing fancy or detailed about this – just 3 items that need to happen that day. And 3 is important – I got cocky once and did 4 things. I failed that day. I have no idea what the importance of just 3 items is but there is something to it so just do 3.
What does a 3 things list look like? Nothing sexy or fancy I assure you. In fact, I don’t even always use the same notebook to write them down in and I often just use scratch paper. Spelling and grammar don’t count. Neither does penmanship. It is just a list of 3 bullet points that mean something to me. I have shared a photo of today’s list for you as an example.
Now why in the world does having a bulleted list of 3 things matter. It matters for a few key reasons.
First – 3 is a manageable number – it is in no way overwhelming. If I wrote down my entire to do list (which I have in the past) I look at the sheer volume of crap on it and get so despondent that I just lay down and avoid it all together. But 3 things – any idiot can do 3 things over the course of 24 hours. This feeling of doable makes me feel less like I am drowning.
Second – I keep the list near me all day and it serves as a touch point to refocus myself. I have 3 kids in this house with me all the time. I am also trying to find some kind of professional niche for myself. I am easily distracted. I can and have spent all day chasing squirrels and getting distracted by shiny things like a magpie. But this short unsexy 3 point list written on scratch notebook paper pulls me back. I look over at it and think no no no this isn’t one of my 3 things. I have to get these 3 things done before I look at anything shiny or when I am drowning in kid chaos I can say look if I can just get these 3 things done no matter the fire it is a good day and that focuses me on what to do next.
Finally -When I get all 3 things done, I feel good about myself. On the days I get all 3 things done I get more done than any other day. I am in a better mood. I just feel like overwhelmed and buried. I know it is only 3 things and literally some days one of those is “Do a load of laundry” but I still accomplished something no matter what the 3 things were. I picked 3 things I had to get done and I did them all. There is some winning in that.
If you are just living in chaos and feel overwhelmed, I really suggest you try this magical strategy of “My 3 Things”. Finding bite size ways to take back control feels good.
I would love to share with you the blog post that taught me this life changing idea but here is the hard truth. This idea was buried in a list of 20 things to organize you life that I found so overwhelming that I didn’t even save. Now I can’t find it again despite trying in an effort to give the author credit here. But for some reason this idea stuck in my mind and has made a huge difference.
Did you try 3 things? Did it help? Do you have another idea, trick, tip or hack you have to feel less overwhelmed by your life? Drop your feedback in the comments below.