I was talking to a client recently who said she often felt overwhelmed by big tasks and kept putting them off until she had enough time and energy to tackle them.
I told her that’s exactly how I felt about the huge operation required to declutter my cupboards and drawers.
For a long time, I’ve felt irritated by how messy my storage spaces are, but even though I set a goal several times to sort them out, it never happened.
I knew I needed a new approach to make it feel less overwhelming, so this quarter I broke it down into tiny segments to make it feel achievable.
The process of Switzerlazation (if you don’t know what that means, you can find an explanation in my blog here) began two weeks ago.
I counted up 100 boxes, drawers and shelves that required sorting through and rearranging, and made it my mission to complete all 100 this quarter.
By chunking the task down into smaller parts, I knew I needed to Switzerlize about one box/drawer/shelf per day to achieve my goal.
Recently, I realised I had guests staying next weekend in a room that was full of boxes, so it gave me the motivation to do 20 boxes very quickly!
I must admit, I felt a bit sick when I brought them all downstairs to blitz them. It looked like I’d had my house turned over.
I purposefully took the boxes out of the room they were in not only to give me more space to sort in, but also to give me the ultimate motivation to stay on task: I had successfully put them to the back of my mind for months in the little bedroom at the furthest end of the corridor, but there was no ignoring them in my garden room!
Mental leverage is everything if you feel you’re stuck on goals.
I thought I’d get them all done in one day, but it actually took me two, because the boxes were full of old memories that I loved sifting through, but I got it all done and I’ve made a huge dent in my target for the quarter.
So, if you find yourself setting the same goal time after time and wondering why you can’t get anywhere with it then ask yourself two questions:
Can I break it down into smaller parts?
How can I make it painful to NOT complete?