Don’t End Up Screwed Before You Start — Is It Gnat Shit Or Pepper?

Are you guilty of too-damned-detailed-too-fricking-early-organizational-effort-derailment?

It can happen when you’re cleaning discards out of the garage — then find yourself sidetracked, setting up the perfect teeny-tiny-bits-of-hardware storage.

It might sneak up while you’re sorting a stack of paper, separating “archive” from “reference” from “action” — as you inadvertently end up wasting the whole afternoon trying to resolve a single to-do.

It could blindside you at the start of a project — if your primary concern is creating a detailed schedule before figuring out all-the-steps-to-take-or-resources-you’re-gonna-need for completion.

Look, I’m a huge fan of extremes. My two modes are “all in” and “fuck that,” I can’t even pronounce the word “moderation” — and my own personal motto is “anything worth doing is worth obsessively-overdoing.” But I’m the first to admit that there’s a right-time-and-a-correct-place for anal-retention.

Do it too soon, you throw all sense of perspective and prioritization out the window.

Fortunately avoiding this devil-in-the-details conundrum is a easier than shooting candy babies falling off a log in a barrel full of duck soup — thanks to the “elimination by aspects theory of choice.”

“Speak english motherfucker,” I hear you cry (sounding very much like Ronnie Dobbs, if you’re a fan of Mr. Show — if not, you have no clue what I’m talking about and just think I’m vulgar AF). “Not research-ese!”

It’s all about gradually eliminating alternatives.

Forcing your brain to choose between 25 different possibilities is a recipe for decision-fatigue. (Just ask any starbucks patron.) It’s better, easier, and cranially-kinder to reduce the number of options in stages.

When faced with a papyrical mountain of who-knows-what-the-hell, start with a small selection of expansive groupings — like “stuff to file” and “stuff to do,” or “personal” and “business.” Next round, break those bigger categories into subcategories — like “personal” into “finances,” “auto,” “house,” and “kids.” Third time’s a charm — that’s when you engage in the kind of nit-pickery that converts “finances” into “checking,” “savings,” “retirement,” “credit cards” (and might even split discrete accounts asunder).

Make sense? Wunderbar!

Now pretend we’re back in that garage — paso número uno is to remove anything you immediately ID as trash/recycle/donate. Next, create scopic piles of whatever’s left — “tools” or “car care” or “gardening” or “recreational.” Then-and-only-then are you allowed the meticulosity required to sort each nut (wing/square/acorn/castellated), bolt (hex/lag/carriage/flange), screw (flat/phillips/wood/machine), nail (common/finishing/masonry/drywall), and washer (flat/fender/square/dock) into its own unique home.

Are you impressed that I know so much about hardware? Don’t be — I googled it.

Last-but-not-least, how-oh-how does this principle apply to time? When tackling any project, focus on big objectives, final deadlines, broad completion-measures — then fine-tune ’em into specific deliverables, clearly-delineated milestones, and each-individual-bite-sized-task-required-to-accomplish-that-goal.

It’s not that hard. In fact, you’re already doing this unconsciously in many areas of life. (It’s just when you start to THINK about how to proceed, that your stupid gray matter gets in the way):

• sandpaper (ever tried smoothing wood by going from small grit to large? of coarse not — see what I did there? you start with a p20 or a p40, then work your way up to superfine)
• writing (a rough draft provides the overall story/essay/script/book structure, then you hash out them specifics in later revisions — also, explaining too much too soon is a great way to lose your reader)
• painting (big sweeping strokes for your background/base, depending on whether we’re talking art or a wall — then take care of the tiny details, like edging around a window or a few happy little trees)
• medicine (with the in-some-way-symptomatic, that doctor’s ordering a wide-spectrum examination, THEN narrowing down the differential diagnosis, THEN getting into crazy-specific testing)
• storytelling/speaking/teaching (overload folks with information, you’ll bore or confuse your audience — better to give a nowhere-close-to-exhaustive overview, then get into the blow-by-blows)
• networking/pitching (as any elevator-speech-guru will tell you, the what-you-do-for-a-living rule of thumb is to offer a 40,000-foot-on-a-cloudless-day-view — then slowly zoom in until you touch down)
• skill development (playing a sport or instrument, dancing or using computer — first the basics, then refine, moving into successively more complex aspects of whatever-it-is-you’re-learning-to-do)
• deductive reasoning (top-down logic moves from hypothesis through multiple potential solutions to reach a solitary conclusion — actually the exact OPPOSITE of what Sherlock Holmes does)
• taxonomy (kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species — well, and also domain at the fattest part of the pyramid, if you’re going with Woese’s ribosomal-rna-technique — regardless, ’nuff said)

General-to-specific, that’s the natural order.

If it’s good enough for Marie Curie, Tony Robbins, AND Bob Ross — shouldn’t it be good enough for you?

Author Bio

Ramona Creel is a woman of mystery and power, whose power is exceeded only by her mystery. A 20-year veteran Professional Organizer, Accountability Guru, and Golden Circle Member of NAPO, Ramona runs a one-babe cottage industry composed of 27% eyeliner, 13% tattoo ink, 18% dark chocolate, and 44% raw determination. (Believe me, she needs that extra 2%!) As a former Social Worker, Ramona describes her role as ‘resource-finder-and-problem-solver-extraordinaire.’ She plans eventually to take over the world using nothing more than unicorn glitter, cat fur, and movie quotes -- and her proudest credentials are ‘decreaser of world suckage’ and ‘queen of friggin’ everything.’ Ramona has worked with hundreds of clients, and has delivered scores of presentations on getting organized, being a better business person, achieving financial freedom, tin-can traveling, and embracing voluntary simplicity. She leads by example (having radically downsized herself) — traveling the country as a full-time RVer, living and working in less than 200 square feet. Ramona spreads the gospel of simplicity with everyone she meets — teaching others how to have more time and space for the truly important things in life (and be happy letting go of the rest). A modern-day Renaissance woman, Ramona has found a way to bring her many passions together into one satisfying career — as an organizer, coach, writer, artist, and speaker. Feel free to check out her latest triumphs and stupidities (kudos if you can figure out which are which) at www.RamonaCreel.com.