People often say that outer order equals inner calm. Let’s put that to the test, shall we? Set a timer and get ready to go! Just five minutes of focused work can make a huge organization difference in your life as a writer.
- Spend five minutes organizing your Google Drive. Start throwing files into their appropriate folders and delete unneeded materials. Don’t overthink things. It doesn’t matter if your contracts and pitching guidelines are in the same folder or separate ones. What matters is that your Drive, which is for all intents and purposes your second desktop, is a little bit cleaner.
- Answer ten quick emails. Bonus points if they’re emails you’ve been dragging your heels on! Don’t wallow in self-pity. Take 30 seconds per email and simply say “Thank you for your patience with this. Here’s the information you were asking about”. Get ‘er done!
- Load up all the things in your office that belong to different parts of the house and dump them somewhere, anywhere, that’s not in your workspace. (Don’t fuss about putting them away right now. Just dump them on the kitchen counter and know that you’ll deal with it when you eventually want to eat!) Grab some Mr. Clean and a pretty unused mug and go scrub down your desk and corral all your pens in one place.
(Note: I said FIVE minutes. Not five hours. Don’t think I can’t see you embracing a massive office re-org just so you can avoid looking at your deadline. Game recognizes game).
- Purge your phone of unused apps. If you haven’t used it in three months, you don’t need it. And if you haven’t used it in six months, you definitely don’t need it. If you’re ahead of schedule, google “ ____ (your phone model) hacks” and learn a new trick or shortcut to use your phone more effectively.
- Spend five minutes researching a problem that’s been nagging at you and you’ve been putting it off on the assumption that it will be aggravating or frustrating. I’m talking about five focused minutes studying whether you should use Quickbooks or Wave for your accounting or reading about the key elements to a successful discovery call or researching how writers can use Pinterest to promote their services. Will you finish all your research in just five minutes? Maybe, but probably not. But that’s not the point. The point is doing the hardest thing, which is just getting started.?
Bonus! What can you do to get organized when you’re nomadic, house sitting, or working from a cafe, an airport, or a co-working space?
- Dump the things that should make you feel more organize-y but actually don’t. I used to carry around a binder with all these different slots for pens, receipt books, file folders. I never, ever used it and it was dead weight in more ways than one.
- Invest in quality tools. When you’re living out of a pack or mobile office, little things like your own pen, a great pen, really matters. Feel free to dump all those freebie notebooks in favour of a classic Moleskin pad. Upgrade those cruddy headphones for a more effective set.
- Have rituals and routines that you can adapt just about anywhere you go. House sitters can always place a vase of fresh flowers or pretty leaves on their writing surface. Travel writers can always bring up the same music when they settle in to write on some grungy patch of floor in Newark Airport. (Been there, done that). Co-working space folks can start each writing session with the same kind of tea while wearing the same cozy scarf.
