I’m also a fan of making goals less daunting by carving them up into smaller tasks. After my husband’s death I needed to go through a lot of papers and clutter that had accumulated on our desk. The first time I tackled it I told myself all I had to do was go through what was on TOP of the desk. I threw lots of stuff away, rearranged some things, and the desk looked neat and organzied. Goal #1 accomplished. The next time, I told myself I’d only attempt the wall organizer, which had become stuffed. Goal #2 accomplished, and the office looks better already.

After this article and discussion I have shifted some of my morning rituals to p.m. The hummingbirds will be mad today since the feeders won’t get topped up till tonight, but they’ll be happy again first thing in the morning. And I get to “do less” in the morning.

It was Blaise Pascal who famously said something like “Sorry to write a long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

Economy of space doesn’t necessarily translate to economy of time.

idea but I must recognize that it may be a trap, so sometimes I have to do

more, just to be sure that my work is the best; and I really agree with the

idea that work and productivity aren’t the same thing.

For example, I like to have my windows look nice, but I used to do them all on the same day. Now I’ll do the living room windows one day, the dining room windows another day, and so on. Like one day I’ll vacuum downstairs, and another day upstairs. Everything I could think of was put on that long list, and now, in a week’s time, all that stuff will get done (!) but only by doing 4-5 things from that list a day! So today, I looked at my chart and quickly did what I had listed for Monday and got it done and over with, then enjoyed the rest of my day, knowing that as the week progresses, 4-5 things will get done, day by day, and this way it’s not so overwhelming, and yet at the end of just one week, everything on that long list will have gotten done! (I included the yard and my car too). It sounds crazy, but I’m sort of looking forward to this new schedule. There’s something about having each thing written down that motivates me, plus I don’t have to think about it and won’t forget anything or skip anything either, which I’m famous for. (I wish I would have thought about using this years ago, and thought I’d share it).

@JenK “My bank is now set to automatically send them the money once a month.”
Now that’s being efficient!

That’s how I got several months ahead on my mortgage — they’d send me a new statement each time they received a payment. And then I’d send a payment. So they’d send me a statement. One day I noticed that they were billing me for 4 months from now and … *facepalm*

(I assume they’d send them monthly if they didn’t receive a statement, but never tested that theory. My bank is now set to automatically send them the money once a month.)