Get out of chaos: is it possible to organize your life in a week?

1) Start with spring cleaning

The KonMari method of the Japanese Marie Kondo can help you with this. Basic principles: throw away non-working, broken, damaged, expired items from the house; get rid of junk that doesn't bring you joy. Literally, put absolutely all your clothes in a pile, take each one in your hands and ask yourself: “Does this really make me happy?” Maybe the dress is still fashionable, and it’s a pity to throw it away, but you failed the interview in it, and now every time you interact with it you wear a feeling of disappointment and universal sadness. Yes, it will not be easy, but only by getting rid of the old will you make room for the new.

Learn to say no

A significant portion of your time is spent doing small things that are not related to your main activity? Most likely, you also don’t have a single free minute at home; everyone is asking for help.

Conduct an experiment, during the day say “no” to those things that do not fit into your plan. You will get much more done in a day than usual.

Of course, at first it’s not easy to refuse people’s requests. Take into account this phrase: “I would love to help, but my time is scheduled in minutes.”

Don't go overboard and don't refuse to help people who really need it.

2) Mental cleansing

Our brain is like a computer, and when you decide to achieve/accomplish/receive/do, you open another “tab” in your head. And you don’t close everything. We got tired, forgot, routine, urgent tasks - anything happens. Lists of obligations, promises, agreements accumulate, overloading your “processor”. The solution is simple - write down everything that is in your head right now, including the “hanging fruits” that have been poisoning your existence for many years. Divide them into three categories: what I can do right now (will take up to 10 minutes); what can I delegate; which is no longer relevant and can simply be crossed out. Large tasks need to be divided into sub-items and ranked again. Voila, your action plan is ready, get started.

Get out of chaos: is it possible to organize your life in a week?

You should not take advice from someone who is completely different from you. It's like a dog learning to be a cat. I might take a polite interest in Julia Morgenstern's time management advice, which has been expounded in various books over the years, including this year's essay, Time for Parents, but I wouldn't listen to it wholeheartedly if the life she describes before the transition to efficiency, would not have been so recognizable. It's like looking in a mirror.

“I lived in chaos for the first quarter century of my life,” she says. - Everything was in a heap. I was always late everywhere, being optimistic about time. I wasn't aware of it. People often lost things in my house - they took off their shoes and couldn't find them when they were leaving."

This touches a nerve. I just dropped £200 on a new thermostat... Who breaks thermostats?

In fact, we ourselves choose this life: if you are always 17 minutes late for everything because you don’t even want to start looking for a vital piece of paper because you never find it, then you feel a sense of triumph every time you arrive on time. “I felt like a conquistador of chaos,” says Morgenstern. “As much as I craved order, I was so afraid of it.” I thought that he would suppress my creativity, turn me into a limited person.”

Her epiphany came after the birth of her daughter, when it took her three hours to get ready for a walk because she had 18 things to remember, all in different places. “I said, ‘I need to get organized. I can be the hero of my own story, but I cannot behave like that with another living being.”

Morgenstern took to the task very slowly: it took her six months to organize the diaper bag, then she moved on to the kitchen, the house and, ultimately, the very matter of time. On the contrary, I want to do all this in a week, implementing one of its principles per day and becoming a functional person who will no longer impose my chaos on others.

The principle of time is similar to the principle of space

“The biggest obstacle to managing time is how we perceive it,” says Morgenstern. — We consider time intangible, relative, qualitative. But it is impossible to organize if you think of it as such.” Instead, think of your day as an overflowing closet. First, you need to put it in order: for example, organize things by type, get rid of spoiled things, put everything in order, put away things that have no place. This is quite abstract, so it's best to start with a place you actively use. There's no point in dismantling a room you never go to.

It's audacious to start with a room when the founder of the method started with a diaper bag, but I couldn't start with a bag because I never used the same one twice. Perhaps this is part of the problem - the house was overflowing with different bags, at the bottom of each there was one thing lying around (a comb, a portable charger, a passport) that I never needed anymore and, therefore, I never found them again.

I decided to start with a coat, it was supposed to be the “zero mark” of my new life. On Friday I examined him: keys, wallet and phone in his left pocket; electronic cigarette, liquid for it, school blue pen - in the right; In the inner pocket there is a charging cable with lipstick and a tiny mirror. Nothing else, nothing was lost.

Reader, this changed my life. It turned out that every day I always spent the last 25 minutes before leaving the house looking for a vital missing item. Out of nowhere, I had almost half an hour of free time every morning. I started saying yes to spontaneous morning requests—arguing with Nick Ferrari on LBC while making pancakes—that I used to laugh at when out of town. “Research says the average person wastes an hour a day looking for misplaced items,” says Morgenstern. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and for a disorganized person, half an hour easily turns into three.” She gave me three watches, one sixth of which I had already discovered.

Decluttering Isn't the Same as Organizing

On Saturday I cut the Gordian knot: I couldn't organize anything more than the coat problem, because I didn't have time, and I couldn't organize time until I organized the space. But I had a deeper hidden resistance - the fear that I would have to throw away a lot of things. It's like calling 911 knowing they'll tell you to come to the emergency room anyway: someone always wants you to get rid of that third beige T-shirt or that second colander.

But this is not what Morgenstern wants. “You can't get rid of clutter if you're not organized: you don't know if you have 17 options for this thing, you don't know which one is the best. “Declutter” by category and organize room by room.”

With this affirmation, I was given another opportunity to organize. Naturally, decluttering is really easy when no one is forcing you to do it. By the end of the day, I had gotten rid of the electric piano, the prunes in Armagnac, and a lot of other people's books.

Break your day into periods

“A day is a limited period of time. We have 24 hours. You sleep eight hours. Let's say you need 10 hours to work; There are six hours of personal time left. By planning more than can fit in that time, you pack things down. As a result, your day becomes like a cluttered closet, chaotic and scary. You don't even look at your to-do list, you just improvise because you know it's impossible to follow a plan."

On Sunday I started grouping things like this. “Work” didn’t want to be grouped, because some of it you want to do, some of it you have to do, some of it scares you, some of it seems distant because no one demands it from you, and some of it is very boring. Don't divide based on urgency. Determine what time of day you feel most creative, when you feel most physically energetic, when you feel slow but efficient. I distributed the tasks according to the mood they required. During the day, I noticed a difference: I had completed travel reports for discounted tickets, but the organization administrators must have already decided that I had completely forgotten about it; completed two scenes in a script about a world where a feminist villain was destroying men who were due to be born in September. I even stroked it a little! I have already forgotten what ironing is.

Give your loved ones attention for a quarter of an hour

“This is a revolutionary discovery,” says Morgenstern. - It is very important; it is based on eight years of research. How much time and attention do children need to feel loved and safe? The answer is: systematic short bursts of truly undivided attention lasting 5 to 15 minutes—random little blocks of time.”

When they wake up, when they come home from school, when they go to bed, when they get home from work (this applies to adults and children alike): stop what you're doing and focus on them, then leave them alone to do something whatever they want. Standing over your kids while trying to navigate Twitter and find a recycling bag will only make things worse for everyone.

Oh, this is a revolution. I can finally give vent to my incessant questions: “How was your day?” “Who upset you?” “Did anything happen that would amuse me?” “What did you have for lunch?” - and no one will object, because everyone knows that these questions have a time limit - and at some point they will stop.

Before bed, I started reading my favorite book to my son. I had been planning for several months, but kept putting it off because of household chores and looking for different things. This book is The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, about people who become telepaths after a nuclear apocalypse and are persecuted for it. My son said, “This looks like a creepy leftist WhatsApp channel.” I guess I missed his best years.

If you learn to say no, you can say yes.

If you don't know what you should do next, it's hard to give up on something. And—this is just a far-fetched observation from me, not a time management expert—if you've never known what you're supposed to do, you don't even have the vocabulary. So borrow it from Morgenstern: “I would love to do it, but my time is scheduled by the minute.” If saying this makes you sound like a robot with an American motherboard, take comfort in the fact that at least you're responding to people quickly rather than making them wait six weeks by saying yes and then backing out at the last minute.

On Tuesday, I knew what was planned not only for that day, but more or less for the whole week: I knew that I was free to go on a school trip with my daughter. When we were at the National Gallery, I took five minutes to show her the skull in Holbein's The Ambassadors, explaining from what angle the image could be seen.

She said, "It's not a skull, it's a towel."

“They are ambassadors. They would have very clean, luxurious towels. Besides, who brings a towel to a meeting?

"It's in the bedroom and he just took a shower."

I'm deviating from the topic of time management here, but if you think that Holbein's main message is that all things will turn to dust and that the only eternal truth is death, then we neatly return to Morgenstern: “The way we spend our time is it's how we spend our lives. Nothing is more important."

Self-care is important

This phrase is disgusting, it demonstrates our fragility, along with the smells of hippies and meditative idleness. But if you put all that out of your mind and set aside 20 minutes twice a day to do something you enjoy - looking out the window, taking a quiz about how well you remember the 90s, sorting mini marshmallows by date - you will experience a heady feeling: “I’m doing this because I want to, and I’m recharging myself,” rather than: “I’m toiling because I’ve had too much going on.”

This is the hardest thing to do: if you still haven't organized your living space, if you still waste 10 minutes after you start doing something, it's not so easy to lose yourself in a novel about an ice sculptor who runs a kebab shop and accidentally cuts off his finger.

Time management work - for life

You can spend two years creating the perfect system, but the work will never end because everything will change: work will change, priorities will change, children will grow up, pets will die, and you will get new ones, which is even worse. “You will never achieve perfection; you will hone and refine it for the rest of your life,” says Morgenstern.

So a week has passed and I don't blame myself for asking: what is the point of a quest that never ends?

“The way I look at it,” Morgenstern says. “I can make a more unique contribution to the world.” With more time, clarity, and peace, I can live my life more fully. Without order, all my talents and skills are only used to 20%, because they are mostly working their way through chaos.”

3) Digital detox

Clear your mail and bring the number of inboxes to the coveted “0”. Open all unread SMS messages on your phone and instant messengers, and then audit all correspondence, groups, and chats. These are attention and time wasters; here the “delete” and “switch the chat to silent mode” button will help you.

Carefully review the entire information flow on your social networks, unsubscribe from irrelevant and annoying topics, blogs, people, news channels, and mailings. The best thing to do is stop watching TV.

What is a person's lifestyle?

Healthy.

Peculiarities:

• No bad habits, such as smoking or drinking alcohol.
• Regular exercise.
• Proper nutrition.

There are a lot of advantages here. By adhering to this behavior, you can improve your health, always look young, and achieve longevity. Motivation and the ability to not give in to temptation are important. It is also necessary to maintain a balance between work and rest.

Secular.

Peculiarities:

• Actively attend social events, their topics depend solely on interests.
• Putting your life on display, for example, on social networks.
• Commitment to branded clothing, scrupulousness in matters of style, choosing friends, tracking trends.

Leading a secular lifestyle does not always mean belonging to the elite strata of society. In a more simplified version, it means to be fashionable, to “hang out”, to change along with trends in society. For people with such vital activity, they make numerous new acquaintances; it is easier for them to make connections, including business ones.

Among the shortcomings is the desire to find a price for everything or attach labels. But this style also helps to make friends, be open, and live a fun life.

Stag.

Peculiarities:

• Reluctance to get married or start a long-term relationship.
• Mobility.
• High value of boundaries of personal space.

Some people elevate freedom to a cult, others simply run away from relationships due to complexes or fears. But if we attribute the word “bachelor” specifically to a lifestyle, then it is not limited solely to freedom from relationships. We are talking about the freedom to make decisions in general, when a person operates only with his own opinion and life experience.

Family.

Peculiarities:

• Caring for family members, regardless of who they are - brothers, sisters, parents, children, spouses.
• The desire to be in a group of people, to seek their support, to feel unity.
• Ability to make compromises and take into account the opinions of different people.

A family lifestyle presupposes that marriage, the creation of a social unit, is the main goal. This determines leisure time, which is often spent in places where all family members will enjoy it. Even in earning money, the motivation is to build a foundation for the future well-being of the family.

Take the test: introvert or extrovert?

Understand where your energy goes

In positive psychotherapy there is the concept of “balance model”. Its meaning is that a person only has 100% of the time (energy/attention) that he devotes to four areas. These areas are as follows: 1) Body: sports, health, nutrition, sleep; 2) Activities: science, work, training, career; 3) Contacts - communication with family, colleagues, friends; 4) Future (Meaning) - intuition, self-development, plans for the future, faith, values. An equal division is considered normal - 25% for each of the areas, otherwise the area that receives insufficient attention will remind itself in the form of a problem. Analyze your life to understand where you are too much and where you are not at all.

Components

This concept includes the following elements :

• way of life (organization of everyday life, daily affairs);
• standard of living (availability of material goods);
• quality of life (level of satisfaction of key needs);
• lifestyle (main areas of activity);
• way of spending leisure time;
• self-development (physical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, etc.);
• communication links;
• intimate life;
• religious beliefs;
• family values ​​(raising children, caring for parents, etc.).

It should be noted that for most people the phrase “lifestyle” is associated with ideas about leisure .

When people ask their interlocutor a relevant question, they want to hear about how the person spends his free time. In fact, this concept is much broader.

Create task lists every day

A diary, paper or electronic, will always remind you of what and when to do that day, month or week.
Don't be shy about describing tasks in detail, even if they seem small and insignificant. If the case is large-scale, it requires several additional entries. For example, a note about an invitation from a friend to his birthday requires a few more additional notes: - choose a gift;

— choose clothes for the visit;

— buy a gift in the store.

Breaking down a large task into small ones will help you avoid getting overwhelmed and, as a result, missing deadlines and causing a stressful situation.

Make lists of tasks for the day

You can keep one or more diaries and highlight things in different colors. There is no clear advice on how to implement this idea. The main goal is to improve your own effectiveness. The to-do list must be checked every day, promptly adding items that suddenly appear or those that have not been completed during the current time period. It is better to put in extra effort, but still complete all the intended tasks. Constant transfers lead to the formation of blockages. The experiment of organizing your life in this case will fail.

Order in life - order in the brain

It is known that an orderly lifestyle of any person helps restore physical and mental performance and helps improve the flow of mental processes.

In this regard, scientists advise maintaining the correct daily routine, ensuring adequate sleep, and a healthy diet.

To maintain brain activity, memory, and attention, monitor your health, learn to alternate periods of work and rest, and maintain mental balance.

Physical exercises, sports games, swimming, walks in the fresh air increase blood circulation in the body and nourish the brain. The work of all mental processes depends on this.

During complex mental activity, you need to take short breaks more often and learn to perform relaxation exercises, which also help develop concentration.

The main thing, while maintaining the performance of memory, thinking, and attention, is to treat them as necessary life processes, which, like other aspects, require daily systematic training.