Feeling Stressed? Overwhelmed? This One Thing Can Help!

Today I’d like to take a stroll that may seem well off the path of my usual topics. But hey, this is my blog, and sometimes I like to just go where it takes me. I hope you find something useful in this bit of meandering.

So…if you asked Joe to describe me in one word, I would put money on that word being “ORGANIZED”—and yes, he would say it ALL IN CAPS. While he sometimes says that word like it’s a negative trait, I happen to think it’s quite positive. I know deep, deep down, Joe’s thankful I’m organized, too. He might even admit it if you asked him.

I don’t know how I came to be so organized. It wasn’t a decision I made one day. For me, it’s innate—in my nature, likely from my first breath. Even so, I do think if organization skills aren’t in your nature, you can learn them. Now, you might not wind up with an “organization Ph.D.” like me, but you can learn skills that will make your life less cluttered, easier, and oh so much less stressful. I’ll get to the less stressful part later, but my main purpose today is to share with you the one thing you can easily apply to many areas of your life and, if you follow it, you will be more organized and your home will be much less cluttered.

The History of Organization

Twenty-five years ago, I went to work as an admin assistant in the district office of a major paint manufacturer. They already had one admin who was working for three managers. When I walked into the office that first day and saw the mountains of papers waiting to be filed, I could see why they decided a second admin assistant was a necessity. It took me a couple of months to get through all of that filing while also learning the ropes and handling other duties for my manager. During the hours I spent alphabetizing those paper mountains and opening and closing file draws, I discovered an organization principle I’ve carried with me from that first day forward. All these years later, I can’t remember if this principle was an original thought or if I stole it from someone else. So I’m not going to take credit for its origin, but I will tell you this, I’ve followed this principle for so long now it feels like it was my idea!

What is this “magic organizational bullet”? Get ready cause these can be life-changing words! My number one organizational principle is this: Handle It Once. Whatever it is, strive to handle it only once. If you make this principle a habit, I promise you will see less clutter, less paper, less junk and, because of all of this “less,” you will feel less stress. Truth.

Putting It to Work

Let’s break it down a little bit. How do you put the Handle It Once principle to work in your everyday life? It’s easy peasy. I’ll use one common area of mess and stress as an example, but Handle It Once works in just about every area where you’d like to be more organized. Let’s tackle the mail and those stacks of paper that wind up overflowing on your desk or on your kitchen counter or, even worse, on your dining room table. Here’s the scenario. You go out to the mailbox and grab that stack of mail. You’re flipping quickly through it as you come into the kitchen. You know a lot of it’s probably junk, but there’s likely some correspondence or bills that are “keepers” in there, too. So what do you do? You add it to the pile that’s already on the kitchen counter because you know some of it is going to require you to do something, and you’re thinking you’ll have more time to do that something later. Trust me, you won’t. You’re adding today’s “do something” to yesterday’s and the day before that, and so on. In a short period of time, it becomes too overwhelming to ever have a kitchen counter or desk or dining room table that’s not littered with stacks of paper waiting for you to do something with them.

Now here’s how it goes with Handle It Once. You go out to get the mail. On the way back in, as you’re flipping through the stack, you quickly pull out what you know is junk. If your recycle bin is in the garage or on the way to the kitchen, you tear up the junk mail and drop it in the bin before you even get back in the house. Those papers have only touched your hands once and they’re history. After the junk, there are likely only a few envelopes left. You slice them all open at once with your handy letter opener that’s right where it belongs in a kitchen drawer if you bring the mail to the kitchen, or in a desk drawer if you bring the mail to your desk. You pick up the first envelope, take out the contents, peruse, and decide right then what needs to be done. If it’s a bill, the outer envelope goes in the trash, and the bill goes into your letter holder for bills, which is always in the most convenient place for paying bills. (If that’s on your desk and you’re opening the mail in the kitchen, maybe you should be opening the mail at your desk. Do the task at the location that makes the most sense.) Do the same for each envelope, putting the contents in the designated location (a holder of some type, not a stack somewhere) for that type of content; e.g., bills, correspondence, etc. Most outer envelopes can go directly in the trash unless you need the return address. If that’s the case, take a moment right then (for truly it only takes a moment) to enter the address into your contacts on your phone. Then into the trash with the envelope. Once a week, or once a month, or whatever schedule you use to pay bills, all of those bills will be right where you need them with nothing else mixed in to distract you. Same with correspondence of any type.

Sometimes things come in the mail that need to be filed away without any other action necessary. Don’t put that piece of paper down! After you’ve gone through the mail, go file what needs to be filed right then. Filing two or three pieces of paper takes seconds. (I’m assuming you have a filing cabinet already set up. If not, that’s a whole other blog post.) Putting a couple of papers down to file later eventually becomes stacks of filing two or three feet high. Looking at stacks of paper with a nagging voice in the back of your mind saying, “I really need to tackle this mess,” only leads to stress and even depression. It stresses me just thinking about having something like that staring me in the face every day.

It’s Easier Than You Think

Now it may seem like this Handle It Once thing takes a lot of effort and energy you don’t think you have. It only looks that way when you write it out in words. Doing it, literally, takes a few seconds; okay, maybe a minute or two at most. But can you imagine the freedom you’ll feel in never having stacks of paper piled up anywhere in your house ever again? And we’ve only talked about the mail. Handle It Once can be applied to just about everything you need to do!

Clutter-free countertops! Ahhh, freedom!

I’ve read it takes about 30 days to form a habit. Why not make a conscious effort for 30 days to try Handle It Once in one area of your life that seems to “pile up” and add stress to your life. If it’s not the mail, maybe it’s newspapers, or the laundry that never seems to get put away, or dirty dishes that wind up in the sink all day instead of the dishwasher. Pick just one thing and give it a try. Come back here after 30 days and let me know how it went. Before you know it, you may find yourself straightening the fringe on a throw rug as you walk by without even realizing it. Not that I’ve ever done that….