The Clutter Fairy Weekly #301
Special Guest: Karen Baker on Productivity, Routines, and More
Cluttered spaces diminish our productivity by adding distractions, draining energy and focus, and wasting our most valuable resource—time. Organizing can help us find the clarity and confidence to accomplish important work and boost our mental wellbeing in the process. In episode #301 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly, Gayle Goddard, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, welcomes back productivity guru Karen Baker to explore the complex relationship between productivity and organization and offer tips to boost your productivity.
Some content in this episode is based on results of a survey of our audience.
The next selection for The Clutter Fairy Book Club will be New Order: A Decluttering Handbook for Creative Folks (and Everyone Else) by Fay Wolf. Shop for the paperback or ebook at Bookshop.org.
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The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.
Set or Reset Your Current Key Priorities
This week’s assignment is to organize a short list of priorities to use as a tool for evaluating how you spend your time and energy.
- Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen or pencil, or open a new document in your favorite note-taking app. You’ll also need a timer or timing app. Label the page “Current Key Priorities.”
- Set a timer for five minutes. Without thinking too hard about it, jot down things that are on your mind—responsibilities, commitments, projects, future events you’re planning, and so on. When the timer goes off, stop writing.
- Spent 15 or 20 minutes examining the items you wrote down. Strike through anything that’s clearly beyond your present capacity. (You can save these items to a “someday/maybe” list.)
- Rank the items that remain in descending order from most critical to least critical. (For example, a project that pays your rent might rank higher than work on your side gig.)
- If your list is longer than four or five items, consider which lower-ranked tasks or responsibilities you could consider deferring for later. The objective of this step is to winnow your list down to no more than three or four items.
- Post your completed list in a visible spot where you’ll be able to consult it whenever someone in your life asks you to add a new task or responsibility to your agenda. If the new item doesn’t align with one or your key priorities, be willing to say no!
- Schedule a date to review and update your list. If you experience a major life change, be sure to review your list and consider whether it needs an update. At the very least, plan to revisit your list every six months to a year.
For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.
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