February is designated as National Time Management Month. In this ever-increasing fast-paced world that tries to cram more commitments into a constrained 24-hour day, it seems even more critical to find efficient ways of doing work and other mundane things that will free up time for more enjoyable, less stressful activities. In fact, this is totally in keeping with the idea of this blog for “Taking to smell the roses”.

I wanted to share with you a mindset that has helped me over the past couple of months regain some wasted time I was creating for myself before. It is the Two Minute Rule in tip 160 of Jamie Novak’s book 1000 Best Quick and Easy Organizing Secrets. It’s a really simple idea: if you can do a task in two minutes or less, do it right then.

There were so many things that I would put off until later that actually ended up taking so little time. Instead, I’d fret about them, and of course the longer this would go on, the harder and longer it would be to get back into doing something that should have been able to be done quickly.

The most glaring example was the counters where my mail would accumulate. Sure, I’d quickly (sometimes) look through what had come in, but then just put it back into a pile to deal with later. Sometimes envelopes or boxes would go for days (dare I say months) going un-opened. Reshuffling the pile periodically to see what I should have attended to already took extra time. It took extra time to repeatedly pick up the piece of paper and re-read something to know what it was. And even then I might just put it off. And there we go with another cycle of wasted time.

How silly, I know. But that is the habit I had gotten into. It was wasting time!

Now I have a little game I play with myself to see how quickly I can get through each day’s mail. Each piece is quickly given the 2 minute (or less) test. When the mail/packages arrive, they are brought to a place close to a designated trash can. Each piece is quickly given the 2-minute (or less) test. Junk mail is immediately trashed. All other is opened immediately and filed or put into the designated place where it will be dealt with (e.g. a bills due by date file).

I know … this all seems pretty obvious. And so are most of the other 1000 tips in this book. But this tip and others in the book are something that have helped jog me into action to de-clutter my life of time wasters.

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