Small Changes, Big Impacts

• John

Going into my August break, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. My office had gotten disorganized and out of control, and I had some projects on my mind that I’d been putting off for too long. I wanted to come out of the break in a good frame of mind for the busy fall season and feeling like I’d accomplished a few things, but I also wanted to take it easy. I had a couple of long weekend trips planned, which meant the time I could spend on projects was limited, so I decided on two tightly defined projects that I thought could have a big impact.

The first was reorganizing my office. On the surface, not much has changed, although my bookshelf is less cluttered and there are no longer things stacked on my desk. What I did, though, was pull out everything from every shelf, storage bin, and other surface and reorganize it. It was overwhelming at first, but as I slowly decided where everything should go, the progress snowballed. It was the perfect project for a break because it was physical, not mental. I caught up on podcasts, listened to some music, and just chipped away at organizing all my gear for a couple of days.