Thank you so much for your excellent presentation at last Saturday’s workshop. I received several glowing comments at the end of the day, and you really helped get the program off to a great start. The benefits of solid organization skills cannot be overemphasized, and they need refreshing as technologies and lifestyles change. Your skills and expertise are very much apparent and appreciated. I hope that we can work together in the future. Marcia Maroe Conaghan, Women Entrepreneur Program
Better Life Habits Blog
How to have less stuff in your office.
It's pretty easy for an office to get out of control, stuff-wise. Things come into our space with very little effort, but it requires time and effort -- even if just a little bit of both -- to get things...
Cost of Disorganization
Conquering Overload Paralysis
Seven Ideas to Get You Moving and Back on Track
As featured in St. Louis Small Business Monthly, February 2006
Overload Paralysis: The condition afflicting home-based businesspeople who have so much to do and are so overwhelmed by where to start or what to do first that they do nothing. Certainly the corporate office businessperson can face this same challenge, but because home-based businesspeople often work alone and don’t have a supervisor tracking their work, they can succumb to the Paralysis with only their own willpower to get them moving again.
Sound familiar? If so, the next time you feel Overload Paralysis taking hold, instead of surfing the web, flipping on the TV, or taking a nap, try one of these techniques. One or more of them are guaranteed to get you back on the path to productivity.
Change Your Environment —One of the best things about having a home-based business—having your office in the home—can also be one of the most challenging. Except for outside meetings, your environment is the same 24/7 and that can make your brain stale. Take your laptop, or a pad of paper and your “to do” list and get the heck out of Dodge for an hour or two. Go to the library or a coffee shop and work there for a while. The change of scenery and human interaction will jolt your brain into positive action.
Reach Out to a Colleague —Most people who work in a home-based environment are working alone. That means that ideas and issues are constantly flying in and out of your head without anyone to bounce them off of. In a formal office environment you can step over to your colleague’s office and ask “what do you think about….?”. As a home-based businessperson you need at least a handful of people you respect that you can call when you need another viewpoint. It also helps if some of those people are home-based, since they can relate to your issues; and some of them are not, so they can offer a corporate environment perspective.
Get Some Fresh Air —If your office is inside your home as opposed to a separate out-building, it’s possible to go an entire day without setting foot outside. This is particularly likely to happen on days that have been set aside as “office” days when you purposely don’t schedule client appointments. On these days it’s important to get outside a couple of times, even if only for a few minutes. Go for a quick walk, throw the ball with the dog, or sit outside to read the mail. Take some deep breaths while you are out there and pull in some fresh oxygen to feed your brain.
Do Something…Anything —Don’t worry about whether it’s the task you “should” be doing, or that it’s your highest priority task. Sir Isaac Newton said it best, “An object in motion tends to stay in motion.” Being able to cross something, anything, off of that overwhelming “to do” list feels good and increases the likelihood that you will have overcome the Paralysis and continue making progress.
Do a Brain Dump —Sit down at the computer and type of list of every single thing you can think of that you need to do. Don’t discriminate between work and personal stuff. List it all. When you have committed to paper the list that was in your head, you can go back and categorize those items based on personal vs. work, projects, deadlines, calls to make, etc. When all of those “must do’s” are floating around in your head, clear thought is impossible.
List Your Goals —Keep your eye on the ball. With so many responsibilities tumbling around in your head, it’s easy to lose sight of your prize – whatever that might be. As the one and only Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up someplace else.” Make sure you still have a clear purpose. That purpose is vital to determining your highest priority tasks.
List Your Wins —Take a few minutes to write down some things you have accomplished. Hopefully, you have annual goals each year. Review them and see what steps you have taken to get closer to reaching them. Remember that even very small steps are progress in the right direction. Olympic swimmers improve by milliseconds and it can make all the difference in their success. For businesspeople, too small successes can make a big difference over time.
So, try one or many. Try different techniques at different times depending upon your mood. But one thing is for sure. It IS up to you to get out of the rut and get back on track. Excessive lost time means lost opportunities and lost profits – and none of us can afford that.