Getting Started

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one. - Mark Twain

Sounds simple, right? It is and it isn't. We, and I speak from experience, look around at our house, our list of projects and suddenly feel overwhelmed. We may even utter the words "if only..." At this point it may seem easier to battle space aliens than deal with our tasks at hand.

It is easy to let things get out of hand and pile up to the point that we have no idea how it happened or where to begin. It can start by putting off one thing, saying "I'll do that tomorrow". We continue to do this in favor of what we'd rather be doing. After a while we have a backlog of undone tasks. 

These are often things that would have taken only a few minutes had they been done in a timely manner. Now we are faced with tackling a laundry list of tasks, one of which may actually include doing laundry.

As Mr. Twain states, break down your big task into little tasks. We will use a desk as example, and this is particularly apt with more people working from home these days.

First start by putting away everything that doesn't belong there. My desk is a catch-all for everything I don't want to deal with at the moment, and you know how quickly that can get out of hand. 

Next sort out the papers into file, recycle, shred piles. Put the recycles and shreds into their appropriate bins. Now you're left with filing, and that's everyone's favorite thing to do, right? No peeking at my desk now. To make filing easier, sort papers into related piles, e.g. bills, receipts, medical papers, work-related, and miscellaneous (which translates to "I still don't know where that goes".) Hopefully you already have a filing system –⁠ albeit neglected...or we wouldn't be here would we?

Most of us know these things, and once we have gone through the onerous process, we vow that we will never let it get that way again. Let me know how that works for you.