Office Organizing Journey 6Overcoming Organizing Obstacles

This was originally posted 2/17/09 on Organising Queen as a guest post series.

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Anne here.

Confession time: I quit. I am a quitter.

It isn’t any of the self-justifying excuses I could throw out at you, it is just that I quit.

I did Steps 1-4. I had already done step 5 last fall so I limped through that one by just updating and decluttering. And I quit before I got to steps 6 and 7.

I know what you are thinking. What a loser! Way to go Anne!

I know, I know.

And the guilt is killing me.

I am so close to being finished that it is just insane to stop now. But that is how I operate. Oh, I might call it something else, but it is quitting none-the-less.

• I have plastic-canvas coasters that are 45% completed... from Christmas 7 years ago.
  
• I have 20% of a baby blanket started in 2000.
  
• I have thousands of dollars in scrapbook supplies that will *eventually* get mated with photos and stuck into albums.
  
• I have thrown away so much food because I got through 2 days of Freezer cooking and gave up before I got to the chicken day.
  
• I clean the entire kitchen and ignore the crumbs on the table.
  

Yep, I quit a lot.

But that is part of what this is helping me with.... the new system is so easy that I feel stupid for not using it.

And I already identified that it is easy that makes me use things, so what more excuse is there?

Loss of interest?

Could be... but no, I have enjoyed this process.

And you have all been so incredibly supportive.

So I quit quitting.

ANYWAY... I am working beyond belief to catch up and have a post for you all.

I need to share with you how I got off my butt and out of my own rut and completed all 7 steps and blogged about it. (that was a run-on sentence, I am pretty sure about that.)

Look for my final post next week with all the details.

Thanks for understanding!

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Anne's busy working through 7 easy steps to organise your office. If you'd like to check it out, have a read.

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Hi everyone, Marcia here

I love Anne's honesty in this post; don't you?

But more importantly, I want to use this as an organising lesson so we can all benefit.

The truth is that we ALL face obstacles in life when we try to do worthwhile things, whether they're organising projects, getting fit, eating more nutritious food or just improving our relationships.

That's life.

The way to overcome those obstacles is to realise that it's normal and brainstorm ways to navigate those obstacles.

Think about it like this - when you're getting your house painted, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's going to be messy and smelly while you're painting but afterwards, you're going to have a gorgeous, fresh room/house.

In the same way, the road to our dreams always has an obstacle or eleven :)

A couple of ways you can navigate those obstacles is:

1. realise that obstacles happen to everybody - it's not because you're a bad person, lack discipline, etc.
   
2. get some help (if you can) just to get you over the hump - even someone just sitting there and encouraging you is help
   
3. make yourself accountable to someone (I have the utmost faith in Anne and I know she will finish, and she will finish strong, but I do know that part of it is because she's made herself accountable to 600-odd of my blog readers. There's something about that accountability that propels you forward toward your goals)

Now, over to you.

Post about any project you've started where you've encountered obstacles