I hear a lot of people whine about lack of time, and I have a lot of people ask me about getting things done. I recall an office mate once saying to me, “Whenever I come into your office, nothing seems to be happening, yet everything always seems to get done.” Now, over the years, I’ve become far more judicious about doling out advice: I often find that when I tell people what I would do, it’s not something that they would even be willing to consider. Frankly the shock and scorn started to wear on me a few years ago, so I shut down the free advice booth. Now, people really have to insist most of the time.

As I write this there are several guys trampling back and forth over my head hammering in a new roof. One of the things I didn’t know you had to do to prepare your premises for this undertaking is to get everything off the walls because…see above…there will be several guys trampling back and forth all day!

(You’ll get a feel for your level of accumulation if you ever have to do this exercise, by the way.)

In the course of pulling down paintings and antiques from over 30 years in the same house, I began to realize I had more art than floor. Looking for a safe place to lean the paintings out of paw/foot-traffic range, I stood for about three seconds in front of the television in the living room seeing the perfect spot if I didn’t care if I couldn’t use the babble box for a couple of days.

Somewhere under the stuff we love is an electronic device we bought once.

That’s all the time it took for me to realize that not only were we unlikely to miss this object in the next couple of days, we had hardly used it in the past week. And then I decided it didn’t matter whether it was accessible or not.

I just received a newsletter that says it perfectly:

When asked how she managed to be so prolific, (noted author, teacher, and designer) Barbara Walker said she needed only four or five hours of sleep each night. She also said that her TV set broke once and she didn’t get around to calling the repair man for five years. “I got a lot done,” she smiled.

http://tinyurl.com/mrhm8j

So, before you ask me what you should do, first ask yourself what are you doing right now that doesn’t matter.

Inklings, Organizing Life Design