I decided to kick off January with a quick read that was appropriate to the new season: Declutter: 30 Simple Habits for Getting Your Life, Schedule, and Home Decluttered by Armin Bergmann.
After a short introduction, Mr. Bermann jumps right into the thirty habits. The first few center around mindset and introduce the idea of having a mission statement and goals that will provide a filter as you’re making decisions about what and how to fill your time.
His idea is similar to the one I use in which I filter life and business decisions around my core values. If something I’m considering doesn’t honor one of my core values, I just say no.
The rest of the book gives good, basic advice for anyone just get started with organization, such as getting rid of things you haven’t used in six months and not being too hard on yourself for not being perfect.
My favorite of his habits are:
- Limit Distractions. I don’t believe in multi-tasking. I find you can get much more accomplished when you focus on one thing at a time. This applies when the tasks you’re working on require full concentration. One of Mr. Bergmann’s habits is multi-tasking but his example is folding the laundry while watching TV. I’m in agreement that doing two less thought intensive tasks simultaneously does work.
- Clustering. This is something I want to do more of in 2020. The idea is to group similar tasks together even if they are related to different projects. For example, if you get dressed and put on makeup to get new headshots, you can take advantage of that and do a couple of short videos to be posted later on social media. If you’re in your graphics program creating a visual for a blog post, determine if there are other visuals you can make for other articles or projects.
- Set up a loose schedule. I like to have a set schedule to structure my day and ensure I make progress against my goals, but I don’t like to schedule every minute. That gives me the flexibility to handle emergencies that may pop up. I also like the idea of having a ‘make-up day’ at the end of the week for those tasks that you want to check off before beginning a new week.
If you’re looking for a good refresher and a way to get energized to organize, you’ll find it in this book.
