This article originally appeared in The Simplifier #42.

Doing it Right

By Shawn Tuttle

This article is part of a series on the 5 Core Concepts. We’ve covered creating meaningful goals, visualizing, clearing obstacles, and planning. Now it’s time to start doing!

One of the primary reasons people want to simplify or get organized is to take care of everything they need to take care of with ease. While Planning (last article’s subject) gets into what actions to take toward your goals, Doing refers to how you work. Just because we call it “work” doesn’t mean it has to feel like you’ve been slaving away all day!

You want your work to be as easy on my mind, body, and spirit as possible, don’t you? 

• It’s easy on the mind when you make decisions quickly and accomplish tasks in an appropriate amount of time.
• It’s easy on the body when you mix up your activities and stay healthy. 
• It’s easy on the spirit when you make progress on your heartfelt goals as well as your other work. 

Making it hard
The antithesis of ease is stress. Oftentimes, the work itself isn’t difficult—it’s a challenging mental environment that makes work tough. Understanding what can trip your mind up helps you identify what changes will ease your work flow.

Confusion makes you ineffective and inefficient. The two most prevalent situations that confuse the brain are trying to do too many things at one time and not providing sufficient instructions to get the job done.

Think of your brain as a computer. When you tell it to check email, work on a report, write an agenda, and answer the phone simultaneously, it jumps around from one task to the next, spinning faster and faster. Even if a task is something you’ve done many times, your brain still needs to recall the instructions. Tracking too many sets of instructions stresses your brain. Maybe it completes some of the tasks while leaving others in mid-process. Sometimes it just freezes, leaving you feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.

The other common type of confusion results from not having a clear understanding of what you are doing. I’m not talking about the situations when you figure stuff out on the fly. I’m talking about unclear parameters. One example would be “Research article topic”. It’s akin to telling your computer to “search” without giving it a search term. How will your brain know when it has completed this task? Or if it gets off-track with the assignment? It needs specific information or you may end up researching all night long. Or, your brain will get bored and start wandering the far-flung corners of the World Wide Web. 

Exacerbating confusion, procrastination plays havoc with the mind. Leaving something until the last minute when you haven’t clearly defined the task makes for frantic action on top of worries that you’ve forgotten something. 

Some people thrive on last-minute pressure. I’ll bet this has to do with the time-pressure forcing them to make decisions quickly. You can’t be wishy-washy when the house is burning down. Unfortunately, last minute work is often sub-standard to your capabilities and can prevent you from accepting more enticing offers. (Ex.: Can’t go to the movies because I have to finish this report.) 

Strategies
Understanding that the brain is like a computer enables us to understand what it needs to function smoothly. 

• Know where stuff is. The organizer’s mantra: a place for everything and everything in its place. This goes for paper and digital files, supplies, keys, your wallet, deposit slips, everything!
• Set up systems for recurring actions and stick with them. Systems are only good when they are used thoroughly. Checking messages means: check voice mail, write down messages on designated pad, identify what actions should result from these messages and put those in your action or project lists.
• Take time to take care of yourself. Be nice to you! Remember to ask: “How can I make this easier on myself?”
• Be clear on your purpose. A good question to ask yourself regularly: “What am I doing right now?” If you aren’t sure, stop and decide what is the best thing to be doing based on your priorities.
• Understand the goal of the task at hand. Identify a measurable completion point, be it time-based or achievement-based.
• Use your schedule to assist you. Look ahead for big weeks—what can you do beforehand? What’s going on tomorrow—what can you prepare tonight?

Tips, tricks, and ideas 

• Do the super-important or hard stuff first to get it off your plate and off your mind.
• Schedule activities in appropriate chunks of time. Work within the limits of your attention span.
• Make a sign to post in your work space for when your mind gets frantic: “CLARIFY: WHAT AM I DOING?” (Here’s a PDF file with this message to post on your wall.)
• Biorhythms - Just as you probably wouldn’t expect yourself to run three miles right after a huge meal, schedule mental activities at the right time for the activity. If you’re a morning person, you’ll probably want to reserve mornings for high-caliber thinking projects. If you are a night person, figure out how you can structure your day accordingly.
• Be rested.
• If you have an unpredictable schedule, use a “short list” for the ToDos that absolutely must get done today. 
• Give yourself adequate time before appointments for preparation and travel. Likewise, allow time in your schedule after appointments for processing. 
• Leave less for the last minute. Challenge yourself to make more decisions sooner so you’ll keep moving forward. 
• Take breaks to minimize repetitive actions, don’t sit in one place for hours at a time, and give your eyes a break from the computer regularly.

Taking the time to evaluate and make adjustments to your Doing strategy helps you stay in good spirits and get everything done on time. You may well find that you spend less time on maintenance and recurring activities, too. You can think of it as putting your computer brain on “energy save” mode. Take it easy on your mind, body, and spirit—you already get enough action to keep things interesting!

Freeing yourself with Doing strategies gives you more space to explore the more subtle expressions and guidance of your journey. We’ll talk about this in the next article—the 5th and final part of the introduction to the 5 Core Concepts.

—

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.