Planned Neglect
Who’s in the driver’s seat? (This cute dog seemed to be just fine waiting for its owner.)
Hello Friends:
I hope you are doing well as we head full on into the holiday season. This can be a tough time of year for so many of us, especially if we already feel stretched thin and overwhelmed.
Last month, I neglected to write to you. It wasn't planned neglect, as this is an entirely new concept to me that I want to share with you this month. Aptly, it's quite appropriate for this time of year when so many extras land in our lap.
The term "planned neglect" came to my attention while reading a library copy of The Paper Solution by fellow professional organizer, Lisa Woodruff. This is a good book to borrow from the library, see if you can glean a tip or two and return. For me, the concept of planned neglect hit me at just the right time.
I am not one to neglect anything, and that's become a bit of a problem for me. My obsession with keeping on top of everything, can leave me stressed out, exhausted and most recently with a painful physical injury. As my yoga teacher says, the body whispers at first and will end up screaming if we do not pay attention. I didn't pay attention to the whispers, because it just felt so good to get stuff done (and I had house guests coming).
My body choose to scream at me a week before we welcomed two short term exchange students into our home. Yeah. Let me tell you, two extra teenagers in our home was no joke. And, we are glad we opened ourselves up to the experience. In case you are curious, the students have gone home and my body is ever, so, slowly, healing.
In the meantime, I am experimenting with this concept of planned neglect. It started with my papers, as explained in the above mentioned book. Typically, I have a stack of action item papers on my desk that waxes and wanes with how busy I am. It's not sorted in any way, other than those are the papers that I have to do something with. For two weeks now, I have been using the concept of planned neglect to sort out only those papers that need to be dealt with within the week. Everything else stays in a box to the side and will be revisted the following week. Important note: This type of planned neglect only works if you have a plan to circle around at a later date. Otherwise, it's just plain (unplanned) neglect.
I am trying to utilize this concept with other aspects of my life, instead of being pulled in a million directions and feeling scattered. For example, the email can wait to be checked at certain times throughtout the day and I have timers on my phone to remind me when to do my physical therapy exercises. Planned neglect frees up mental space and probably makes us more effective overall. Basically, almost everything can wait for us to give it our full attention, one thing at a time. When a genuine emergency arrives, which happened to me this week (everyone is okay now), we can drop everything in a heartbeat.
I am curious if you practice planned neglect and what tasks you purposefully put off. I love hearing from you!
All my best,
Carolyn
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