Day 20: Speak Less

Challenge: I once received a fortune cookie that read: “Speak less of your plans, you’ll get more done.” What’s one project that you’ve been sitting on and thinking about but haven’t made progress on? What’s stopping you? What would happen if you actually went for it and did it?

I think I'm doing relatively well on my big goals, but the small everyday ones bog me down. I don't answer messages, my inboxes, physical and virtual, are generally a mess. There are still some straggling boxes left over from our move last August that I just can't find the time to go through. For some reason, these little things that are really pretty simple make me feel incredibly overwhelmed. All the time.

I've tried to-do lists. I've tried anal-retentive GTD to-do lists. I've tried not worrying about it.  Nothing's really worked. Things like this sit on my back burner until I have a spurt of energy that happens to be focused on a particular thing, i.e. it's inbox day -- for no particular reason, I'm suddenly inspired to answer all those year-old emails! Or at least delete them.

So what if I went on a rampage and organized everything I want organized, threw out everything I'm not using, and achieved a clean, clutter-free mind? I'd be ecstatic! But I can list out my next steps all day long -- it won't matter unless I actually take a step.

I don't know the right solution to this one. It's a self-motivational issue, and experience tells me I just have to keep trying until I figure it out, or accept that I'm just not going to change.

Or just throw everything away. It could happen.