A Way to Get Out of Inaction
Ever felt so overwhelmed by things that you don’t even feel like doing them?
I’ve felt that way quite a few times myself. Whether you call it a feeling of overwhelm, depression, feeling down or just plain stressed, the irony is that you’re not doing things in a time when things need to get done the most.
Over the years I’ve put into practice this little technique that almost always helps me to feel better about myself and start getting out of inaction and into action. And it starts with this little question:
“What’s one small thing I can do immediately that can help improve this situation?”
There are 2 parts to this little trick here:
1) It must be a small and easy action that you can do immediately. One reason why we get feelings of overwhelm is because we’ve blown up and multiplied all the things in our head that we feel we should be doing but aren’t.
Imagine you’re playing basketball, but instead of just bouncing one ball around, you’re expected to be juggling ten balls. That’s what your mind feels like it’s doing in a state of overwhelm.
So the trick here is to tell your mind to let go of all these balls…for the moment. And get back to bouncing this one ball first…and scoring the goal.
2) You must do this small action immediately!
Ideally you’ll want to pick an action that you can complete in 5 minutes or less. That way, it’s not only small, easy, but also fast.
The secret here is this, once you finish this small action step and get a ‘mini-high’ at knowing you’ve made this situation better, even just by a little bit, you won’t want to stop. Usually the momentum from this one little step will begin to propel you forward to the next step, and the next, and the next, and before you’ll know it, you’ll have already begun to feel better about yourself and gotten some things done.
Don’t just take my word for it, test it out!
Funny. A few months ago, I’ve used the very same Windows theme with ObjectDock at the bottom.
Anyway I think your desktop could be simplified even more.
- Is ObjectDock really necessary? You can use the Start menu.
- Use online calendar (like GCal) instead of Rainlendar, and open it only when needed
- Hide all tray icons
- Don’t display the date next to the clock
Hi qeek,
I love the dock because it’s a much faster way for me to get to the programs I want. After this post I set it to auto-hide though, which works much better (by the way it’s the resource-light Y’z Dock not ObjectDock).
I like having my calender on the desktop because I have to go out for events regularly and I like having the reminders there. Plus it integrates nicely with the GTD method of having only time-sensitive tasks in the calender.
I like having the date on the clock! I know it adds to the clutter but it’s just me – it reminds me of a Mac :p
Thanks for the link to desktopography – superb site and I’ve got myself a nice new desktop. The actual link in your article is wrong i think – it should be http://www.desktopography.net/
Oops! You’re right, Rob, thanks! The link has been amended.
Complexity and disorder is the natural way of things. Real life doesn’t fit into orthogonal containers. Clutter represents uncertainty, mankind’s greatest fear. Learn to accept it, appreciate it, love it!