Will it be Any Easier Later?
I came across the above quote in a book about organizing things. It struck me as being the perfect compliment to the whole “person of action” concept that I’m trying to live. Simply put, when you have a task that you want to put off, you ask “will it be any easier later?” If the answer is yes, then put it off until the appropriate time. If the answer is no, then just start it already. You’ll get it over with sooner and then it will be something you accomplished rather than something you need to do. Read more »
Posted: November 19th, 2008 under Time Management.
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According to the stores, Christmas is coming. I say that because all the holiday decorations are up and Christmas music is already playing on the Muzak system. Granted, Halloween just happened and Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, but that is the retail sector for you. The start of the Christmas season used to mean the start of the busy season for me. I had so much to do and little time to do it. I figure there are three weekends in December before Christmas. All the Christmas parties I was invited to had to happen then. I had to find time to buy presents for everyone. I had to find time for the Christmas cards. I had to … well you get the picture. 
“You either have time or money” is a favorite saying of my friend Shannon and I. “Is this the hill you want to die on?” is another, but that is a post for another time. The time and money statement basically shows that at different points in your life you value your time or you value your money more. Normally it is a life cycle kind of thing, when you are first starting out on your own you don’t have a lot of money so you invest your time into things to save money. As you get older and your purchasing power parity increases you spend a little extra money to save yourself some time. 
So my dad and stepmom are coming in town this weekend to visit. That means I need to knuckle down and get rid of some of that nagging clutter around the house. Between the cruise, teaching, and our normal evening activities, the month of October was pretty much a wash when it came to cleaning up the clutter. On the plus side, I didn’t gain any significant clutter. 
I’ve always been sort of a pack rat when it comes to paper. It probably stems back from childhood when my father always insisted I used both sides of the paper to draw on before getting a new one. It probably hit its apex in college. It seemed like there was always some kind of flyer in my mailbox, so I’d stack them up and whenever I needed some scratch paper, I just wrote on the back. I remember Mike, my suitemate, joking about how I would be in charge of the recycling program. After college, I still had about a ream of this scratch paper that I actually moved to my new apartment and stored it in my storage unit there. Why? The practice continues at work. I cut a bunch of old printouts into quarters and use it for jotting down notes. It is a convenient size and it is essentially free. I have a new problem now, though. Lists on quarter-sheet sized paper. Lots of lists.