Almostgotit.com

Do you have one of these? I have several, and they seem to get bigger every day. I can still remember when it was fun going out to get the mail… now, whenever I see a mail truck, I feel like screaming, “INCOMING!” and heading for the fall-out shelter.

Things have come to the point where these irreducible piles are giving me brain-rot. How can I do anything at all with the damn things lurking in the background all the time? It feels like I have hangnails, or some kind of terrible skin disease. They make me feel guilty and irresponsible. They’ve got to go!
There are lots of great ideas on how to get organized… and as a natural “messy,” every so often I just have to revisit them.

I’m afraid that my first impulse is always to head to Target or Pier One, giving in to my default conviction that surely the right collection of bins and baskets will solve the whole problem. The real problem, of course, is that my piles represent a series of delayed decisions, which in the aggregate quickly become too overwhelming to tackle at all.

So today, I am beginning at the beginning. Well, after checking my email and blogging, of course! My sword and shield of choice? A large trash can and an egg-timer.

Because even the most tedious task should be bearable in five minute increments. As writer Anne Lamott suggests, some things are best if you just take them bird by bird.