Wednesday, February 04, 2009

5 Things When Stuck Inside on Snowy Day

The Story Behind the Video:

When there's a snowy day in New Jersey and I'm stuck in the house, I go a little stir crazy. Cabin fever, I think it's called. Then I get this urge to make videos. Of Top 5 lists. All while trying to keep the regular routines at home.

And this is going against all that I teach, which is Focus on One Thing.

When I created and edited the video below, it was around 4:00pm in the afternoon, at the lowest energy point of my day, when I'm helping the kids with homework, fixing a snack for them and getting dinner started, all at the same time.

And what am I doing? Bouncing around in the kitchen, from the table, to the sink, to the refrigerator, to the stove, to the computer, and back again... This is what I tell my clients NOT to do.

But I'm focused. On One Thing at a Time.

Two to five minutes at a time, however long it takes to do the task on hand at the moment.

The 'normal' afternoon routine in our house is on automatic pilot, after many months of tweaking and following my own advice to apply the STO System of Organizing. I just happen to throw in a new task of producing|editing|uploading a video at the same time, that's all.

Now I'm not telling you to try this at home ("do as I say, not as I do"). I think it helps a bit that I have a video production background (from many years ago) and that I had already spent many hours in the middle of the night to learn the video editing software.

So, I had a plan on how to create the video in the most efficient way possible. Maybe it wasn't the most high-tech or animated or graphic-rich video that I could have done, but, hey, considering the circumstances, I think it's OK for my first try at it. Plus, dinner didn't get burned either.

Here it is:



Special thanks to the followers on Twitter who responded to my original tweet for their Top 5 Things to Have on Hand When Stuck Inside on a Snowy Day:

@Mike_Wesely
@ProfOrganizer
@tammigirl
@radiomanmic

Here are their original tweets:


Are you following me on Twitter? Who knows, your tweet could be in my next video.

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Sunday, February 01, 2009

STO February: Focus on One Thing

The STO System - Make it a Habit
Eva's Edict 5 Minutes / 21 Days


This month, focus on doing ONE thing at a time. Leave the multi-tasking to machines for now.

Let's get started:

Assess The Excess
What are your areas of clutter? Figure out where your clutter zones are.

Pick One Area / 21 Days

Zoom in and focus on just one area to sort through for the next 21 days (experts say it takes 21 day to make / break a habit). If you finish before 21 days, great! Move on to your next area. If you need extra time, you've got 28 days this month, make the best of it.

5 Minutes
Do 5 minutes, then stop. Use the timer to keep you on track. Got 20 minutes to spare? Go to it. Got no time to spare? Do 2 minutes anyway of focused sorting, then stop.

STO - Make it a Habit to make Executive Decisions
I'm promoting you to CEO, in charge of Your Stuff. Separate out the obvious trash and recyclables first, then get in the habit of making quick decisions on what to do with the rest of the stuff. You only have 5 minutes to do this, so just get it over with, then get on with the rest of your day.

Release, Release, Release
You have more important things to do than to spend too much time on this stuff. Just release it, release it's grip on you.

MIYO
Make It Your Own. Adapt it, adjust it, tweak it to make the STO System work for you.

STO - Make it a Habit. Do something, rather than nothing. Every day.

Send me a tweet on Twitter after you've done your 5 minutes @Eva_Abreu #EE5

Photo credit: FreeFoto.com

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