The decisions you make relate to different points in time: the past, present, and future. Although you may not always view your choices this way, considering these time parameters can help reduce decision fatigue and create clarity surrounding decision-making.

Making thoughtful decisions can be challenging. Some common decision-making obstacles include:

• Having too many choices

• Lacking clarity

• Feeling rushed

• Asking unhelpful questions

• Deciding when you’re exhausted

• Being afraid to make the wrong choice

Any of these challenges can cause overwhelm, procrastination, or paralysis. However, when you ask questions based on time, it can cut through the noise, clarify your options, and motivate action.

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1. Question to Let Go of the Past

“What’s weighing down your backpack that needs to be released?”

— James Clear

In a recent edition of James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter, he explained how “unfinished tasks” carried in your “invisible backpack” weigh you down. Many of these tasks are ones you will think you “should do,” but will probably never get around to.

Clear suggests two strategies. To “lighten the load: finish the task or let it go.” Applying a past timeframe to your decision about completing or releasing a task can help.

Consider these questions:

• How long have you been worrying about and carrying these tasks with you?

• Are past goals or commitments holding you back?

• Which ones are no longer relevant, important, or necessary?
  
  
  
  

2. Question to Improve the Present

“What small change could you make to your surroundings that would steer you toward good habits and away from distractions?”

— James Clear

In another 3-2-1 newsletter, Clear encourages making tiny tweaks to your environment to support building better habits and reducing distractions. Only you know which habits you want to strengthen and which distractions are getting in your way.

Using the present timeframe idea to make proactive choices can be effective here. To do this, think about a current habit you want to build or improve. For example, let’s say you often run late to appointments. This is a source of stress for you and the people in your life. You want to be more punctual, yet find it challenging to get out of the house on time. Let’s say chronic lateness is caused by disorganization at home or your tendency to hyperfocus, which interrupts your sense of time.

Making a slight change in your environment to mitigate distractions and support a better habit could include things like:

• Gather everything you need the night before

• Wake up earlier to prepare

• Use labeled timers to help with transitions and activation

3. Question to Imagine the Future

“What will my future-self thank me for doing now?”

— Stephanie Sarkis, PhD

In Ari Tuckman’s book The ADHD Productivity Manual, he shares one of his favorite questions posed by Stephanie Sarkis, PhD. She asks, “What will my future-self thank me for doing now?”

Let’s apply the future timeframe lens to this inquiry. While the question asks you to do something in the present, it’s in service of your future self.

Think about a goal you want to achieve. Maybe it’s organizing your legal and end-of-life papers, downsizing, or eating healthier. None of these will be realized in the future without taking action now.

Embrace the future construct. Visualize what ‘done’ will look and feel like. This will motivate you now to take action and accomplish the future results you desire.

How to Make More Thoughtful Choices?

Making wise decisions begins with asking good questions. Including a time perspective can clarify your choices. Do you consider the past, present, and future when making decisions? How does using a time construct affect you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you need support with organizing, letting go, or managing your time? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – Local feel with a global reach.

Let’s talk. You can:

• Schedule a Discovery Call

• Email me at linda@ohsorganized.com or

• Call 914-271-5673

Organizing your time and space is possible, especially with support.

Have you experienced stress and anxiety when working out what to do next? Those negative emotions and thought loops can contribute to doubt and inaction.

What if instead, you chose a more supportive way forward? What if next wasn’t so stressful?

There are lessons to learn about figuring out what’s next from various sources. These can help you progress in a quieter, more curious, and gentler manner. How would it feel if the next step was less contentious?

I will share three sources that have inspired and helped me: a crocus, a quote, and a message. I hope they will be helpful for you, too.

Three Lessons About Next

1. The Purple Crocus

I’m taking one cue about next from nature’s playbook. Spring is my favorite time of year. While I love the entire season, I especially enjoy pre-spring. Seeing tiny signs of color and growth slowly transform the gray winterscape is uplifting.

One of my most joyful sightings is when the purple crocuses with their bright green stems emerge from the dirt to bask in the sunshine. I’ve often written about my delight in spotting the crocuses and the hopeful feelings they evoke.

Lesson for Finding Next: Channel the confidence and energy of the crocus. Envision yourself emerging from indecision and gently take your next step. Allow the hopeful feeling that new growth brings to guide you forward. The crocuses bloom, and so will you.

2. The Quiet Quote

In Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks, he shared a Carl Jung quote about next that resonated with me. I thought you would appreciate it, too. Jung said,

“. . . quietly do the next most necessary thing.”

I love the emphasis on “quietly.” Do you often go forth loudly, brimming with self-doubt, putting up obstacles, or fighting every step of the way? Instead, what if you approached that next thing in a calmer, lower volume manner?

Lesson for Finding Next: Change the volume of your approach to next. Turn down the sound and minimize the obstacles to help you find next with greater clarity, curiosity, and focus.

“. . . quietly do the next most necessary thing.”

— Carl Jung

3. The Internal Message

The messages you tell yourself can help or hinder progress. I recently wrote about deviating from my routine for wrapping up last year and planning the current year. My departure from previous patterns, wasn’t just a change. It was more like I didn’t do any of those rituals, at least, not in the formal way I had been for many years.

Wrapping up the year and planning for the future involves several steps and requires considerable time. Given all that was going on, it didn’t happen. Here we are and it’s almost spring. I officially decided to stop berating myself for not accomplishing my self-imposed expectation, and instead focus on what makes sense at this juncture.

One of the tasks was figuring out my motto for the new year. It didn’t happen. Instead, I decided that the theme from last year, which served me well, gets to have another year to work its magic. With quiet ease and a gentle prompt, I remind myself, “You got this.”

Lesson for Finding Next: Repeating something that works isn’t cheating. Using the familiar to build from is a kinder, gentler path forward. Next doesn’t have to be complicated or completely different. Let next make sense for this present moment.

Reimagining How Next Happens

There are various ways to reduce stress and anxiety about determining your next steps. Nature's prompts, inspired quotes, and reframed internal messages can help you change how you navigate next.

How would reimagining next make a difference in your life? Which of these ideas resonate with you? What helps you figure out next? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, editing, planning, or figuring out your next step? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Figuring out next is possible, especially with support.

Are there times when figuring out your next step is challenging? Maybe you need more information, fear making mistakes, or feel overwhelmed with decision-making.

If the next step is a one-and-done task, it can seem more manageable. However, the next step can feel elusive and unclear when working on a long-term project or making a significant life change.

There are many ways to approach finding next, which I’ve written a lot about. Some of these ideas to get unstuck and determine what’s next included:

• Releasing your negative list

• Making time to regroup

• Focusing on “small awe”

• Working The Progress Cycle

• Taking small steps

• Engaging in mindfulness

Recently, I discovered an inspired question, which approaches next in a refreshing way.

Making Next Transformational

In James Clear’s “3-2-1 Thursday” newsletter, he posed this thought-provoking question:

“What single habit if implemented consistently for the rest of this year, would transform your life the most?”

I love this question for three reasons:

Reason 1. The query focuses your attention to developing just one new habit. Most of us tend to take on too much at once, making it difficult to make progress on anything.

Reason 2. The question encourages you to consider which habit change would have the most impact. You are investing your time in doing something different. Selecting the habit that will be most transformative will give you the most for your efforts.

Reason 3. The ask supports consistent, small efforts that will result in monumental, positive change over a specific, doable time frame, “rest of this year.”

““What single habit if implemented consistently for the rest of this year, would transform your life the most?””

— James Clear

What Will You Invite In?

Let’s remember and imagine.

Remember - Think about a time you successfully developed a new habit. What did you learn from that experience? Is it a habit you still engage in? What positive affect resulted?

Imagine - Future think to the end of this year. What positive change happened as a result of your consistent habit? Which area of your life did it affect? Was it related to your relationships, finances, health, work, home, personal development, or another category?

As you consider what new habit to adopt, remember that your future self will thank you.

One Significant Habit Change

I’ve changed many habits in my life, including my reading habits. I love reading and typically do so at night before bed. However, that’s also when I’m most tired. When I’m sleepy, I read more slowly, read fewer pages because I drift off, and don’t retain the material as well.

One morning, after meditating, I changed things up and read before getting out of bed. I was motivated to finish the book, which I had almost completed the night before. Reading while fully awake was such an uplifting experience that I integrated this new habit into my morning routine.

It’s been amazing! Not only am I enjoying and assimilating what I’m reading even more, but I’m also reading twice as many books. This habit supports my thirst for learning and understanding, which I highly value.

What area of your life would you like to change? What new habit can enhance your life? What will be next for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, developing new habits, or figuring out your next step? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Change is possible, especially with support.

When you think about change, which emotions bubble up? As someone who has observed, experienced, and helped others make changes, I’ve noticed many reactions. When anticipating change, we can experience mixed emotions, including fear, frustration, anxiety, doubt, overwhelm, sadness, ambivalence, excitement, relief, and hope.

Emotions are powerful. They can paralyze or propel us, depending on which ones are in play.

• What if you could stack the deck in your favor?

• What if you could shift your perspective to encourage a more joyful experience for your desired changes?

• How would that alter your journey?

When you think about making a change, it can feel enormous, confusing, and unreachable. For example, let’s say you feel overwhelmed and frustrated by the clutter and disorganization in your life. You want things to change but don’t know what to do or how to begin. As a result, you do nothing.

A common organizing philosophy encourages breaking down large projects or goals into small, doable parts or tasks. Using this strategy is an effective path forward. You keep the larger goal in mind while focusing your effort on tiny, baby steps. This process reduces overwhelm and facilitates forward movement.

Encourage Change by Shifting Your Perspective

During a recent meditation and writing retreat led by my friend and colleague, Yota Schneider, she shared an insightful question. We considered it in a particular context around focusing.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I recognized how you could use the question to encourage change through a lens of positive expectations.

The question Yota shared was from neuropsychologist and author Dr. Rick Hanson. He asked,

“What will I be glad I did today?”

I appreciate the question’s simplicity and graciousness. What will I be glad I did today? The question has several fascinating effects.

• Contemplate – It invites you to consider joy, happiness, gratification, or satisfaction as the driving force. In other words, you are taking action inspired by this positive perspective.

• Strengthen – It offers a nonjudgmental inquiry while strengthening activation confidence. You imagine this positive change or task as if you have already accomplished it. The question boosts agency.

• Reduce – While it doesn’t overtly state this, the question implies a narrower, singular focus. Dialing down the possibilities to something smaller can reduce or eliminate overwhelm.

• Imagine – It merges present action with positive, immediate future results. You are doing something now that you will be happy you did later today.

• Build – Using this question to navigate change gently promotes a repeat-and-build pattern versus a one-and-done method.

• Act – The question is non-confrontational. It’s even kind of fun. You’re focusing on how good you’ll feel or “glad” you are when you do that thing today. 

“Encourage change through a lens of positive expectations.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

Work the Present and the Future

Once you gear your mind toward a “glad I did today” focus, you will experience many positive changes that connect with your larger goals. Here are several of the positives I’ve experienced recently and the change categories they influenced. I am glad I:

Relationships – Nurture and Strengthen

• Celebrated my husband’s birthday

• Cooked with my daughter

• Sent packages and notes to our kiddos in advance of Valentine’s Day

• Had assorted conversations with friends, family, and colleagues, including a friend I hadn’t spoken with in way too many years

Professional – Lead and Learn

• Completed the edits and returned my chapter for a new ICD book on chronic disorganization

• Led a planning meeting for my organizing colleagues for NAPO Westchester

• Had virtual organizing sessions with my clients

• Wrote my blog

Finances – Manage and Build

• Gave our accountant a preliminary tax summary

• Paid bills

• Reconciled accounts

Household – Maintain and Edit

• Cleared out the 2024 files and set up the 2025 files

• Did laundry

• Added a few clothing items to the donation bag

Well-Being – Calm and Care

• Scheduled vaccines

• Didn’t eat that extra piece of cake

• Took a walk along the river even though it was cold

• Slept later than usual

• Went to yoga class

• Meditated

It’s Your Turn to Invite Change

Which categories in your life are you looking to change? What is one thing you can do today that will bring you closer to that goal? With this in mind, what will you be glad you did today? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, planning, or inviting positive change? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – local feel with a global reach.

Please email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, call 914-271-5673, or schedule a Discovery Call. Change is possible, especially with support.