I am a great believer in JustDoThisNowism. I see a few dishes that need washing and straight away I give them a quick whiz through some hot water. The floor might be pretty clean but if there’s one dirty patch it will only take a wet rag and a couple of seconds to buff clean. Tidying the cushions on the lounge as I walk past takes almost no time at all. If I didn’t have this attitude, my whole house would constantly be a big project of unfinished tasks.
One thing that helps me with this is my tools-close-at-hand policy. This is despite the fact that as I age, I become more enamoured of the like-with-like attitude of where to store things in my house and my life. I put all my paperwork in the study, all clothes and shoes together, music paraphenalia here, novels there. But there are a couple of instances where I don’t subscribe to the theory. I like to double up on some things to have them on hand for those JustDoThis moments. I have cleaning rags in the ensuite, under the kitchen sink and near the bathroom at the other end of the house. Brooms live at the front and back of the house and in the walk-in pantry. I keep two complete lots of cleaning supplies—one at either end of the house. (It’s a long house so this is a great timesaver.) I have scissors in three places in the home (study, kitchen, ironing station) and in my handbag. Nail files live in bedroom, study and handbag. I know that minimalists believe in having only one of everything, but these double-ups (okay, mostly triple-ups) make my life easier and make it possible to do a little job on the spur of the moment. If I’m not the greatest housekeeper in the world, I’m also not the worst, and it’s a great feeling to think, “That needs attention,” and to do the task straight away. I believe that humans are happier when the originating thought and the resultant action are as close together as possible. There’s no need to write it on a list, no procrastination and pretty much no need for thought except for the original thought (which happens by itself) and whatever thoughts are actually required for doing the job (and they are usuall fairly automatic, background thoughts).
Take the example of making dinner. I can think and think about it, wonder what I’m going to cook, worry about it, plumb the depths of the internet for ideas (thus wasting huge blocks of time) and generally make it into a big concept out of all proportion to the task. Or I can do the think-and-act combo. What’ll I do for dinner? I open the fridge, pull out some makings and go from there, pretty much making it up as I go along, at least on most days. I find that if I can decide on the protein, the rest seems to simply fall into place.
I think we can make life too difficult for ourselves. We’re too intense about getting it RIGHT (gotta do this perfectly or not at all), what other people might think of our choices … you name it, some of us worry about it.
Choosing to simplify life takes thought, time and some effort, which seems kind of counterintuitive. I believe my JustDoThis attitude simplifies my life because I don’t have to think about the task more than the first time it occurs to me that something needs doing. If the idea presents itself and I do the task straight away, isn’t that the way it works in nature? The lion sees its dinner still on the hoof and the chase is on. It doesn’t put the job on a list to be done later. I know our lives are too complex for this simplistic attitude to work with everything and that many of our tasks are not single-step actions … so of course we need our lists and our schedules and plans. But sometimes we just need to do the job that presents itself. It has taken me years for this to come naturally with little tasks, but truly, it makes the house run so much smoother when I immediately do any small chore that can be done in seconds or just a couple of minutes.
It’s quicker this way too. I believe (you’ll see I’m not an expert in physics here, but nonetheless …) the thought has energy. If you act in harmony with the thought, the energy is somehow magically transferred to the action. It’s still alive, it has momentum. If you simply follow up your original thought with another thought, like, “I’ll do it later,” or you take the time to transfer it to a to-do list, the energy wanes. There’s life, a half life, then no life at all. And the little job is so much harder to do from a standing start on a to-do list.