Blogger: Wendy Lawton
A Susan Branch calendar had a quote I love: “I’m trying to arrange my life so I don’t even have to be present.”
Bingo! That’s what I keep aiming for. I’m looking for the auto-pilot method of work. If my systems are good enough— if I keep everything humming, if everything is filed, answered, acted upon, gathered, sorted, classified, organized and logged— won’t the magic happen whether I’m here or not?
Hmmmm. Probably not. Those of you waiting for an answer from me on a submission know the truth. Or those who expected a blog from me last week. Gulp. No auto-pilot blogs or proposal-reading to be had.
David Allen, the guru of productivity, says in his book, Getting Things Done, “It’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control.” He talks about elevated levels of effectiveness and efficiency. Did you catch all those terms: function productively, clear head, relaxed control, effectiveness and efficiency? Can you see my hand waving madly in the air? I want what he’s having!
Want the truth? Organization makes my life so much better, but the process is like herding cats. I just get the herd moving in one direction when two or three meander off. Just when I feel like my systems are humming along, I find a hole in my management of information or I find I’m memory-challenged in yet another area and need to develop a new tracking system.
I want to extract any sense of guilt from our discussion of organization. [guilt off] Developing and implementing your system of organization is an ongoing process. It takes time for a new skill to become a habit. Trial-and-error are part of the process. Have fun with it. Be creative. Look at it as challenge.
Rather than end on a positive note (that’s too easy), let’s talk about what not to do:
- Don’t make yourself crazy trying to attain perfection. Do the best you can and savor the incremental improvements. Celebrate progress. Keep herding cats.
- Don’t allow perfectionism to keep you from developing an interim solution. Maybe you can’t redesign your whole office at this time, but you can reorganize your file drawers.
- Don’t be afraid to call in help. Professional organizers might be an excellent investment for a drowning writer. It’s a bottom-line decision. If a professional could find you extra hours to do your more lucrative job, it doesn’t make sense to do it yourself. If not a professional, maybe you have a friend who is a master of organization.
- And as you get more organized and find extra hours in your day, don’t fill them all up with more work. We live in a culture that keeps trying to accomplish more with fewer people. We’re working harder and longer and saying yes to more projects than ever. Uber-productivity can become an idol in itself. Time and energy are finite. No matter how organized we become, we’ll still hit the wall when we’ve filled every nanosecond of our lives with work. We need to work smart and effectively, but unless we have time to live and dream, we’ll all shrivel. (And shriveled writers do not write good books.)
The nice thing about herding cats is that if we take the time to follow the occasional meanderer, we could just happen onto a great new discovery.
Great post, Wendy, and I love the picture.
* The only thing I might add comes from the metaphorical cliff-face my life has become, to which I cling with desperately scrabbling bloody fingers. I have to find the hand-and-toeholds of hope and faith that keep me going for another day, an sometimes – as now, writing this – for another hour.
* The advice is this: Stay in your three-foot world.
* Organize what you can reach, the next crevice into which you might jam three fingers, the next barely-perceptible outcrop that will take the edge of your boot. Don’t look up, and try to think of the climb ahead; the path you find will take you there. In three-foot increments.
* And for pity’s sake, DON’T LOOK DOWN!
Amen, Andrew, especially the part about staying in your three-foot world. I may not be able to control much, but I can handle that bit, most of the time.
Love the analogy of the three foot world and climbing a cliff face (which I would probably never do…heights and all), Andrew. I like that.Thanks for the visual.
Andrew, it sounds like you may be having a difficult finding toe and hand holds to leep going. My friend you don’t need to find them, instead relax into the Good Shepherd’s arms and let Him lift you to His shoulders and rest knowing the most important thing is that you have loved well because you know the Source of love. Blessings my brother. Remembering you and yours in my prayers.
Grab one of those cats, Wendy. Sit down. Pet it until it purrs. Breathe. Enjoy. Purr back.
I love this, Shirley!
Going back to the very beginning of the post, as one whose career in IT started out in automated testing, I do look for opportunities to automate processes as much as possible. I have multiple “chron jobs” that kick off automatically at specified times (usually between midnight and 5:00 AM. Other automated processes are triggered by user actions, either mine, or a visitor to my website. But the truth is, there are 23 plates I need to keep spinning through manual intervention, and many of those are outside the 3-foot zone Andrew spoke of. Full automation is not a realistic goal, and my task list will never be empty, because as I cross items off the top, someone is shoving new tasks onto the bottom.
I struggled with perfectionism when I was younger but I’ve learned that keeping office hours is far more important than alphabetizing my spices.
Now, when life happens (tense family relationships, money issues, or even a messy house), I still have a clean office, but now it’s just a lap desk in the guest bedroom.
Perfectionism is a hard beast to overcome, isn’t it, Angie?I like your focus on keeping your writing space clean. And portable. 😉
LOL, Angie! This set me to wondering…when did I last spin the carousel and alphabetize the spices? And my office has a few piles that need to be addressed before chaos takes over.
When my home is organized, my heart is HAPPY. Unfortunately, band and football happened this fall. And my house is in a bit of . . . chaos. For me. I’m trying to get back into the habit of spending 10 minutes a day purging/organizing a certain space in our home. One room at a time. Then move on. I LOVE seeing space open up and become usable again.
*Thank you for the reminder that we don’t have to fill up the opened up time with more work. Taking time to breathe and relax are just as productive as working. I needed that reminder. Thanks, Wendy!
Jeanne, like you, I’ve recently adopted the 10-minute habit of attacking clutter or dust. It does give me a feeling of peace to have done at least something to bring order to a room.
The most important aspect of organization for my author self is to realize that it’s not social media, it’s not community, it’s not conferences—it’s CONTENT that matters. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the corollary activities associated with being an author. In reality if I’m not producing quality content, no publisher is going to sign me. Once a day (four or five days a week), I pop by this blog. Once a week I load Buffer and schedule posts on Facebook. Then I leave social media alone to focus on life (family, working out, golf, fly fishing, and reading), ministry (Intertestamental context bible study starts tonight and I’m ready to teach!), and writing (finished another manuscript for Rachelle last weekend). It’s easy to let glitter along the way distract me on the joyful, arduous journey of producing a manuscript. But I am not a magpie! Thanks for a reassuring post.
Fly fishing? My dad taught me in high school, and I even used to tie flies. It was one of my favorite activities until I moved to Illinois with no trout streams. You just started fishing and writing analogies frolicking in my mind, Lynn.
Getting a book deal is rather like landing a big one with a barbless fly. You’d better take pleasure in the strike, the set, and playing the fish because you might not land it even if you get it right beside you. But fishing is still fun, even without catching. Just don’t count on fish for dinner every time.
Well, I’m a catch-and-release angler, Carol, so not worried about my finned friend appearing on the dinner table. I’d rather catch it again, when It’s become a little larger. (I do keep salmon, including a 60+ pounder caught on the Petrohue River in Patagonia, about a mile from the Pacific. Thought it was going to break the fly rod.) That being written, I am most content with my Loomis GLX 7wt. in my hand, standing in a stream, casting for sippers as the sun sets. I’ve been doing this for more than twenty years and can honestly say that I’ve never had a zero-fish day. (That could change with the rising sun.) Glad I could bring back some fond memories for you.
Oh, yes. Not letting perfectionism keep me from getting anything done is a big one!
Same goes with writing for me, Kristen!
Wendy, I love this post, and I totally understand about getting things done because there is much to do like herding cats! What a great analogy. My moto is from a close friend, actually two, maybe three, two of them who have multiple businesses and one who has been widowed for twelve years, who has three special needs daughters. I love them dearly, and they love me. All three have told me, “Okay, you are doing everything surrounding and learning about writing, but you need to sit down and do the actual writing.”
Mind you they have all been my friends for over twenty years, and have read my writing that I have stored up in binders, and I’m frames. They also know I tend to be a perfectionist. My friends with businesses assured me they would have never gotten off the ground, much less become successful, and growing if they had waited for perfection. Excellence? A resounding, YES! One, an event planner told me she could always find something imperfect if she looked for it, BUT she had to step back and take a look at the overall picture and ask herself the following questions?
1. Is it excellent?
2. Will it accomplish what it needs to accomplish?
3. Will my clients be happy and satisfied, and want to hire me again?
These dear friends are the primary drive, along with my husband to write over the past years. God blessed me in so many other ways too along the way, with a wonderful writing partner, my daughters (not in blood, but in heart and faith) who root for me . So, now I have actually been sitting down to write, and I am grateful. My writing partner says I am like a bowling ball heading down the lane to make a strike. The one thing is as I mentor others, volunteer at church, do things with family and friends I veer to the sides somewhat, but the gutters have the bumper pads in, which for Tamara and I it’s our commitment and call to write and God that bumps us back on track to continue on down the lane moving forward until with God’s hand in all of it we make the goal of a strike.
I love the above analogy, reminds me of herding cats–it’s never a straight path, but a move here and there. The thing is if you don’t quit, and you learn as you go, you are in the right lane.
We just keep moving. I absolutely love the verse, ‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way.” Psalm 37:24
This verse, and Proverbs 3:5-6, plus experience has helped me to somewhat experience what David Allen writes of, but it is a challenge at times. I rely heavily on God’s guidance.
Blessings as you herd those cats?
When we first found a litter of kittens about 3 years ago, we herded them into the barn. And the little things were everywhere … all 4 of them. One girl backed up and partially stepped on one kitten. Scared me nearly to death. My girl cried. But praise the Lord, there was a gob of hay under that baby, and she was cushioned. I couldn’t fault my girl because I almost did the same thing. They were meandering everywhere. We had planned to find homes for all of them, but we still have that little cat, and she’s sweet and healthy. And well, I think that cushion is the Lord. Regardless of how crazy things get or how stuck I feel at times, if I’m working hard and giving my heart’s all, I just can’t feel too guilty about much. If I have Jesus, a fairly clean house, and we are all alive and mostly healthy, I’m pretty happy. 🙂
What a sweet story, Shelli. And analogy too. Your perspective is always a blessing.
I’m definitely still learning how to organize my life after a lot of big changes in the past couple of years–getting married, moving, teaching high school and now middle school too. And trying to fit writing in amid it all! I’ve learned a lot about how to get everything done and use my time wisely, but I still have far to go. Thankful for God’s grace that gets me through each week whether I “succeeded” in my own estimation or not. 🙂
But my husband and I adopted two kittens this fall, so I love the analogy! Even if they aren’t very herd-able, they add so much love and joy to life.
Kiersti, isn’t it strange how we have this idea of what success is? And we judge whether we succeeded or not. We wouldn’t be nearly as hard on a stranger or friend as we are on ourselves. Getting married, moving, teaching … that’s a lot. Moving is stressful. And if I worked outside the home, I don’t imagine I’d be writing much. I’m so impressed with you. And the kitties … aww! You need an Instagram account to show those kitties off. 🙂 I checked for you there. 🙂
Last week was one of those “I don’t need a cape, I’m already a super hero” collection of days in which I slayed the beasts. Every. Single. Day.
This week? So far, it’s a lot of, “Yay, I tied my shoe on only the 5th try!”
For me, though, I know what my limits are. I know exactly how much I can give before I need to take care of me. Learning to say ‘no’ to extraneous requests was a huge deal-breaker in terms of my creative output.
I also check with The Hubs and plan my week in advance, so that I know when I’ll be able to write, and when family needs more of me.
In some things, I’m ahead of the game, in others, I’m chugging along.
But trying to stay organized and tidy with 2 teenage boys in the house? HAHAHA. No.
Martha Stewart never had teenage sons.
Jennifer, you made.me laugh! It was about the week you slated all the beasts and then this week starting off with trying to tie your shoe five times! Been there. And yes, Martha Stewart never had teenage sons! Still laughing???
I feel your “pain”, Jennifer. Teen sons and all. 😉
Teenage sons and perfectionism cannot be in one house at the same time (says she who raised four boys).
If streamlining is like herding cats, just dub me the crazy cat lady. I keep picking up random strays the longer I’m in this business. Just when I think I’ve got a good system down, something changes and I have to change right along with it. Thank you for the gentle reminder that work time does need to have limits. I often forget that bit.
Thank you for your post, Wendy. I think it is important to focus on the “why” of your organization efforts. Keep an end goal in mind. What do you hope to get out of becoming organized? As a middle school teacher, where a regular task is to go “against the grain” with strong-willed students, it’s easy to feel bogged down and negative. I sometimes feel it spilling over onto my own children. I’ve noticed, here and there, that I have to remember to have fun with them because I still have my guard up. I have to make sure to “give myself permission to laugh.” Organizing for the purpose of helping your mind to be more prepared, and therefore less preoccupied with trying to constantly control every aspect of work, can help you remember to have fun with the things that are more important. ( or ALSO important!)
Great post, Wendy. As my writing ministry comes into focus, I’m finding that as cute as all those kitties (distractions) can be, letting them wander provides me with the time and space I need to enjoy my life. As a result, I’m able to write and speak from a place of peace. I find myself saying “no” to a lot of things, but every time I do, I’m saying “yes” to the one kitty God put me in charge of. It’s easy for us to take responsibility for cats that aren’t ours to care for. God is really good at showing us what to focus on if we’re still enough to listen.
You speak my language! (And at just the right time :))
It’s so nice to know I’m not the only one!
Been there. Definitely need to keep some unscheduled time.Anyone want to join me at Cat-herders Anonymous? Oh, right. You can’t say. Well I just see ya’ll there! Thanks for the breathing room, Wendy!