Mega-Goals, Mini-Goals, and Office Organization

Sometimes the goals we set for ourselves are small and very doable in the allotted time frame. Other times, the goals we set for ourselves are huge - complex and often time-urgent. These I call Mega-Goals. Usually a Mega-Goal involves a big life change. Examples: deciding what to do after graduation, selling and/or buying a home, relocating to another part of the country, beginning or ending a significant relationship, changing jobs or careers, preparing for retirement.

When faced with a Mega-Goal, it is easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged. And the typical response to this kind of overwhelm, in addition to frustration and fatigue, is often either to procrastinate or just shut down and back away from the project altogether.

This feeling of overwhelm is something I experienced recently at the end of my year-long Letting-Go Experiment. I had completed my 365-day experiment of releasing one material or non-material item per day. I felt very proud of my accomplishment. However, my major reason for starting this experiment in the first place was still staring me in the face. My office! While the other rooms and storage areas in my home now had been relieved of their excess clutter, my office had not.

I need to begin this story by saying that, typically, organization is one of my strong points, my skills. I like my living space to be clean and uncluttered. The state of my office for the past couple of years has been atypical.

One room in my small home is totally dedicated to my office. While once there had been a futon in my office to accommodate overnight guests, this was now long gone. On every wall, there are bookcases, filing cabinets, or desk surfaces, and all overflowing with stuff. There are also several extra storage bins and boxes jutting out into the room. While some of the clutter involves having too many books, magazines, and working notebooks, most of it involves - what else! - too much loose paper!

Piles of paper cover every surface in my office. Mail - a lot of mail!- (most of it junk, but occasionally something valuable), computer printouts, files waiting to be filed, notebooks full of notes from various conferences, and all sorts of miscellaneous bits and pieces of paper - scraps with important notes or phone numbers. My numerous filing cabinets (I count 15 filing cabinets of various sizes) are crammed with paper, which is one of the reasons why there is so much stuff on the surfaces.

When the computer first became the primary home office tool, one of the selling points was that it would cut down on paper files. In my experience, this has not turned out to be the case. After two or three disastrous computer crashes involving total wipe-outs of my C-Drive in a three-year period, I no longer depend on back-ups. Despite the fact that I do an automatic nightly backup of my C-Drive onto a separate drive, I still keep my important documents in paper form as well. I also print out lots of information from the Internet for my personal or professional research, because I'm not confident that I'll be able to find it again on the web if I go to look for it again down the road.

So, ever since I began my Letting-Go Experiment, in June of 2006, I had my eye on the ultimate prize - a clutter-free, highly functional office. The year came and went and the office was still cluttered and dysfunctional (and my business reflected this in some ways). So, I decided that de-cluttering my office would become my summer project. Well, not my "summer project" at first. My first goal was to complete the project in one week in June. I barely made a dent that week. Then the deadline was changed to the end of June. Then, the end of July. And a few days ago, I re-vamped this deadline once again.

Why? Because this is a project that kept throwing me into overwhelm. Every time I began, one thing led to another, such that nothing really got completed. I might work on the project for several hours and then feel as though I had nothing to show for my efforts. Office organization was on my To Do List every day, but I began to find myself procrastinating. I'd do anything else rather than tackle my office - clean out a closet, take a walk, do errands, read a book, take myself off to a movie, even pay bills (something else "painful" but yet less painful than organizing my office).

Finally, I decided to coach myself through this situation. If I were working with a client who had this challenge, what approaches might I suggest?

First, I asked myself, "Other than the obvious physical mess, what else might be blocking your efforts to clean this place up?"

Eventually, I got to the underlying emotional block. For the past year, I have been thinking about re-designing my business and taking it in some new directions. But I wasn't ready to make the decisions or the changes. So, my energy has been conflicted and scattered, and my office was reflecting this. And, I was hanging on to all my stuff, even things that were seriously outdated, "just in case" I might need them in a new endeavor. However, even though I now recognize that I am in transition in my business, and still have not made any firm decisions, I have come to understand that I cannot function well in chaos and I need to get my "career house" in order.

Next came the understanding that this office project is a large and complex one. I had been treating "de-cluttering my office" as a mini-goal, where in fact it is a Mega-Goal. I began to understand and accept that I could not complete this project in one day or one week or even one month unless this were a full-time job (which it cannot be).

So, then I did what I would encourage my clients to do with this Mega-Goal: I CHUNKED IT DOWN. [This is the main tip in this article!]

On my computer, I set out my Mega-Goal (De-Clutter and Organize My Office). Then I began breaking this Mega-Goal down into mini-goals: projects I could accomplish usually in 30 to 60 minutes - a few might take longer. I looked around my office in a circular direction and identified, listed, and defined each mini-project. Next to each, I put a check-box so that I could easily check each one off as it was completed. Altogether, this project chunked down into 50 mini-projects!

Almost immediately, I felt a sense of relief, and a relaxation of the muscles in my neck and upper back. I did not have to do everything at once. And I could experience a sense of accomplishment for each mini-goal along the way: 50 wins instead of just one!

I also gave myself a different timetable - a minimum of one mini-project a day. Some days, I only have time for one, but I can always find a half-hour to do a little one. Other days, I have time for two or three, or a more time-consuming one. A few, like sorting through old piles of mail, I can do while watching TV at night. So now, I have a more realistic and reasonable time goal: 50 days. Most likely, I will be done ahead of schedule.

Coaches often work with clients on creating SMART goals, these being ones that are:
S = specific
M = measurable
A = attainable
R = reasonable
T = time-related

Chunking this large goal, which was not SMART, into 50 mini-goals that are SMART, is already making all the difference.

So far, I have completed 5 of the 50 mini-projects, or 10% of my goal. Slowly, surfaces long-hidden are reappearing, and I am finding things I thought I'd lost. On the first day, I uncovered a refund check for $73.09 - found money!

And, best of all, my business is beginning to pick up. By about 10%, I figure. This would not come as a surprise to a Feng Shui practitioner, but it did to me - a very pleasant and welcome surprise. I can't wait to see what my business looks like in 50 days!

What is your next big project or Mega-Goal? How are you going about it? It gets much easier if you take it one small chunk at a time.

If you have had experiences similar to this one, I would enjoy hearing from you. And if my story has given you some ideas about how to approach a project that seems overwhelming to you, I would love hearing about that too.

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Email: connie@conniekomack.com
Web: www.conniekomack.com