75 | Getting Things Done

Happy July, y'all! As we enter the second half of the year, we're diving into my favorite month—a time for celebration and rest. July is my birthday month and my dedicated month of slowing down, turning inward, and practicing being more than doing.  

In today's episode, I’m building on last week's discussion about good intentions. If you haven't already, I encourage you to listen to that episode, as it sets the stage for today's topic: Getting Things Done. Then join me on this episode as I share my approach to making progress on projects, which often involves working intensely for several weeks and then taking time to recuperate. This cycle of focus and rest has been effective for me both as a business owner and as an individual. 

We'll discuss how to set realistic goals, eliminate distractions, and break tasks into manageable portions for yourself and also tackle the internal resistance and self-talk that often hinder our progress. Press play to start building the self-trust you need to get things done and lead a more organized and fulfilling life.

And join me as I extend an open invitation to you—to be part of the "100 Hours of Listening" initiative. Whether you're a friend, past client, silent listener, or a fellow professional, your voice matters. This isn't a sales pitch or a consultation; it's an opportunity for you to be heard, without cost or obligation, in a non-judgmental space.

Book a session here, come as you are.

MENTIONED:
Episode 34 The Power of Done

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Transcript

Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing An Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast we'll go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.

Amelia: Welcome to Episode 75, “Getting Things Done.” Happy July, y’all. One half of this year is complete, and we’re getting started in my favorite month of the year. July represents two things to me – my birthday month and my dedicated month of rest. It’s the month where I do my best to slow down, turn attention towards myself, and live each day listening to my heart. I practice being, more than doing. I don’t schedule many activities and aim to wake up each morning and get curious about what I want to do that day. Now, it may sound delightful and carefree, but let me share that it’s actually pretty tough to slow down this much. As a planner and a thinker, there’s always a bumpy start to the month as my body and mind work through the discomfort of not having specific plans, goals, or outcomes. I highly recommend you give it a try, even for just a week, as you’ll learn so much about yourself.

For today’s episode, I want to build on last week’s topic of good intentions. I invite you to go back and check it out if you haven’t listened, because in it I talk about how having an intention doesn’t turn it into an active reality. You have to consciously choose whether to make it a priority, or simply allow it to rest in your mind as a good intention. Neither one is better than the other, but lest y’all think my approach to a clutter-free life is a passive one, where you’re always giving yourself grace (and never taking action), I thought I’d discuss my approach to getting things done. For bonus points, you can scroll back to Episode 34, “The Power of Done” to double your dose of motivation.

This topic is timely for me, as I’m noticing my inclination towards working intensely for a sprint of several weeks, then slowing down to recuperate for several weeks. It’s an effective cycle for me, both as a business owner, and as an individual. I think too often many of us expect ourselves to work at a high level, or at close to max capacity, for long periods of time. THIS in my opinion, is where the term “productivity” gets us in trouble. Then we wonder why we’re burnt out, or are close to burnt out, and have difficulties doing daily tasks in our home, in our business, or in our lives. It’s the expectation of perfection or of effectiveness for a sustained period of time that becomes problematic.

That’s one reason I “force” (through choice) to take a month of rest in July. It’s another reason why, the more I lean into and accept the idea of getting things done in sprints or a dedicated set of weeks, then giving myself a break, I find myself making decent progress on the areas of my life and business I prioritize. So, in today’s episode, I’m going to share how I get things done from a mindset perspective. Much of it aligns with what you can read from experts in the field on productivity such as picking one to two goals at a time and eliminating all other noise and distractions until that goal is reached.

As a mother of 3 and a manager of multiple households, I get that “eliminating all other noise and distractions” seems like the monumental element that male researchers seem to gloss over, so I encourage you to self-reflect about the season of life you’re in when it comes to this topic. I’ve been the mother who couldn’t get 30 minutes or an hour to herself. I’ve been the woman who feels like the moment I have a second to think or do, a thousand other things seem to vie for my attention. Noise and distractions become part of this process of getting things done, and I encourage you to recognize that you can aim to solve for them, or you can aim to expect them and invite them alongside you. You are more organized than you think, and therefore, getting things done with expectation that there will be noise and distractions along the way may be compassionate. If you’re able to carve out quiet time that’s supportive of your project or goal, amazing. Yet, notice and become aware if you’re someone who regularly uses the noise, needs, and distractions of others as an excuse for why you can’t make progress. If that’s the case, I’d encourage you to get curious about the strength of your personal boundaries (honestly, an area many of us need support in).

Alright, so first, as I’ve mentioned, I find getting things done during a cycle of focus then rest to work well. Whether you’re able to carve out uninterrupted time (or time that you’re unavailable) or not, the first requirement is to actively schedule a dedicated amount of time to the task at hand. And before I explain what I mean, if you’re looking for more practical guidance on how to create a clutter-free schedule, head to the show notes to download my free guide.

So, y’all, I schedule everything. Your schedule is a living document that doesn’t have feelings. It’s only based on facts. You have 24 hours, so do I. This means that if all the blocks on the calendar are full, you are fooling yourself if you think you can add a new project or task from your to-do list into your week. Nothing gets done unless you consciously carve out time to do it. I’ve worked with a number of clients who resist scheduling, and my approach is always to work with them to find a schedule design that is supportive to their concept of time. I don’t give them the choice to abandon scheduling all together. So, to be clear, you can get granular with your schedule and time block each activity throughout your day, or you can give yourself general blocks for home tasks, paid work tasks, caregiving tasks, personal time, etc. There’s no right way, but just know that identifying WHEN you’ll do something is the first step.

I want you to pause now and consider your current relationship between getting things done and time. How do you determine if you have time for a task? If you’re someone who notices that you’re always trying to squeeze things in at the last minute, or if you’re someone who struggles to find the time to work on your next clutter clearing project, lifestyle goal, or personal passion, you may want to spend time getting really curious about your scheduling system. Now, all the points I’m going to share today are coachable topics. So, please know that if you find setting boundaries or identifying when you’ll work on something a challenge, I’d be more than happy to help or refer you to another resource. Using a planner or a calendar to identify when you’ll clear out expired food from the pantry is one part of the process. Navigating the internal voices and resistance to doing the task is another, and that’s where coaching comes into the equation.

The next step to getting something done – after scheduling a specific block of time to work on it – is to break the task down into the smallest achievable portions. For example, weekly meal planning is a struggle for many of us. It’s not an easy task because there are many invisible elements to it: there’s looking at the calendar to know how many folks are going to be eating at home on which days, there’s looking in the pantry to see what you have or need, there’s choosing the meals, there’s taking other’s opinions into account, plus understanding how much time you realistically have the day of to do the cooking. Right? It’s complicated. So, many of us drop meal planning all together and then beat ourselves up for not doing it, not sticking to a budget, or ordering out too much.

What I observe when working with clients, is that folks are often setting the bar too high – meaning they’re telling themselves they “should” be able to meal plan for 7 days at a time. I encourage you to break meal planning, for example, down into the smallest achievable portion. Let’s say that’s 3 days at a time. Ok – I can think about 3 days. I know what will stay fresh in the fridge for 3 days. I know what I can build from what’s in the pantry for 3 days. I know what folks in my house are going to be up to for the next 3 days. It helps shift you out of overwhelm and impossibility into an actionable, reasonable amount of time. Planning for food twice a week doesn’t take more time than planning once a week because you’re getting more practice and improving your system with each set of 3 days that you account for. It allows me to breathe more deeply and get it done.

So, I invite you to engage in the pre-work of breaking either a weekly task or a long-term project down into small portions. Then, pause, and ask yourself if those portions are truly small enough. What you’re aiming for here is to eliminate the internal friction that inevitably will show up when it’s time to get started. I get it. It’s absolute magic when motivation arrives right on time to spur you to get started. Yet, let’s be honest. Having “motivation” show up and lead the way towards a clutter-free paperwork system or helping your parents struggle through decluttering decades worth of belongings is not worth relying upon.

Instead, you’ll want to break the task down into even smaller chunks so that the discomfort around getting started can be quantified. For example, if you find yourself saying, “I don’t want to make decisions about old taxes and business records.” Give yourself a concrete amount of time that you could suffer through doing the task. Acknowledge the discomfort and resistance, then remind yourself that you can do anything difficult for 10 minutes. “I don’t want to make decisions about old taxes and business records at all, and I know that I can do it for 10 minutes. Tomorrow, I’ll do 10 minutes more.” Honestly, this is how I became a runner during the pandemic. I knew I could jog for 2 minutes. It’s still my approach to exercise, especially when my internal soundtrack wants to exist.

Some tasks are just dull. No one really wants to help their parents sort through decades worth of belongings. It’s not fun for them, nor is it fun for you. No one really wants to follow up with their kids to make sure they made their bed, cleaned their room, did their laundry, or completed their schoolwork. That’s where the tools of organization come in to support your efforts. You schedule the time and/or set a reminder. You break tasks down into miniscule, manageable chunks so that you don’t have to rely on motivation to get it done. Next, you’ll want to watch your internal language or dialogue. This is the most common obstacle to getting anything done.

Think about it. You most likely have a set of lines that you say to yourself when a task or project is unwanted and potentially challenging. Perhaps you find yourself thinking about how it’s going to be so much work. It’s going to take so much time. It’s going to take research and planning. You have no idea about where to look or who to ask. It has to be perfect, or you have to get it right. Perhaps it’s an emotionally charged conversation that you need to have so you tell yourself that you have to “be ready for it.” Most of these statements are lies, and I say this with love. I say it with love because I’m not immune to these statements. They’re part of our built-in safety mechanism in our brains – the primitive part that says, “put off the hard work until later + conserve your energy.” 

So, the solution is to coach yourself. Talk to yourself like you would a friend who’s complaining. Comfort yourself by acknowledging that it’s not going to be easy, nor is it going to be as hard as you think it’s going to be. Remind yourself that you’re more organized (and capable) than you think. That circumventing procrastination is part of the process. Then, pause and bring yourself back to the actual data. Ask yourself, how many minutes will this project actually take? Get honest. How many minutes will it take if I avoid it for a few more days or a few more weeks? Ask yourself if waiting will really make it easier, or if you’ll end up judging yourself for delaying. Tell yourself the truth to bring the impossibility of the task into actual, quantifiable focus. The fact that you’re spinning around in circles is eating up minutes of your life, adding to the overwhelm, and contributing towards your self-doubt.

Which brings me to the final point I want to share today. Getting things done is one way you’ll build the self-trust that you’re seeking. One sentence I ask folks to complete for my coaching intake is, “I want to become someone who…” It’s a powerful question. Making progress on a task or a project isn’t solely about the result you want to create. It’s about BECOMING the kind of person who does hard, difficult, challenging, emotional things. It’s about knowing yourself better. It’s about trusting that you are a solution finder. Doing the thing or navigating the steps to get the task or project done is what leads to dismantling your beliefs about being a perfectionist, a procrastinator, a people-pleaser, a disorganized individual. Those labels aren’t the truth unless you repeatedly choose to prove them true. You’re here, as part of my community, so I’d classify those labels as nonsense. I’d offer that the more you practice navigating the discomfort and internal resistance, the more self-trust you’ll build. My clients have seen these results time and time again, and you are no different.

When you consciously decide that now is the time to get started, then decide again the following day or week or month later, you’ll make progress. It’s the law of inertia, and it hinges on navigating the internal resistance that you and I experience on a daily basis. Look for all the examples in your life in which you’ve gotten up and gotten started. This morning alone was one example. You’re choosing to make it happen for yourself and others each and every day, and applying those skills to a specific project is no different. You’ve got this my friends. And, as always, I’m here if you need more support. Talk to y’all soon.

Outro: Hey y'all, share the love. Remember, if you've had at least one valuable takeaway from this episode, someone else will too. I'd encourage you to share it with like-minded folks and suggest they follow the podcast too. I truly appreciate your time and I don't take it for granted.