It ain’t about perfection, ladies. It’s about being able to use your systems to quickly dig out of the chaos life inevitably causes.
The last two weeks have been a bit crazy over here — I went out of town for five days, my husband and I had a staycation at a hotel (well, he had a conference, and I worked in the quiet hotel room, but still), our daughter’s teething, and, when I had spare time, I wanted to get work stuff done, not stay on top of the incoming mail, travel receipts, etc.
As a result, my desk got a bit wonky:
The before: My desk after two weeks of neglect.
Yesterday, during my daughter’s nap, I got a glorious hour of digging-out-the-desk time.
I love systems — again, not because they have to be followed rigidly (obviously not – see the first photo), but because they let you get life back in order fast so you can enjoy the rest of your day.
At the core of my system is this: don’t try to do it all now — do the quick stuff and then schedule when you will do the rest.
The result: You’ll actually tackle the mess because you know it’ll only take about an hour, you won’t expect too much of yourself (setting yourself up for failure), and you’ll eliminate stress because you’ll now have a game plan of when you’ll get it all done.
Yesterday, in that hour, I calendared some calls, logged expenses for my business (scanned and tossed receipts), entered some contact info in my CRM (then tossed the business cards), figured out when I’ll fill out a stack of paperwork for my daughter (it’s now hanging out in the action tray), and got my email inboxes cleared out (including calendaring when I’ll handle some bigger issues and snoozing the emails until then).
I didn’t get to my filing, but who cares – it’s not time-sensitive. Function over perfection.
The after – after an hour of digging out the desk and getting stuff done/scheduled to get done.
Afterward, I got to spend the rest of my day at a friend’s house with my daughter, cook a great meal, and enjoy it outside with my husband when he got off his shift. All without those pesky, nagging thoughts about what I may be forgetting to do.
Love that clarity and ability to be present to enjoy life.
If you want help developing systems so you can be there too, learn how we can work together here. I’d love to help.
And if you want some awesome ideas of how to make your desk space and general work-from-home life work better for you, check out this article on specific home office gear that’ll make the whole work-from-home experience better. I love the recommended laptop stand + keyboard idea. I’m all too familiar with that back-hunched-over-the-laptop situation and see relief with that combo! Happy exploring!
