What cleaning up a messy room taught me about productivity

Yeah, I did it! My once incredibly messy room is clean. I can actually see the floor now, and I’ve thrown out a lot of stuff that I had not even touched for years. It took me 4 days of hard and tedious work to get it done and I had many moments where I wanted to quit. But I found different ways to keep going and learned some lessons about productivity along the way.

  1. Do the work and delay your judgement.
    I kept taking stuff out of my room in the beginning, but even after a few hours it still looked like I had gotten nowhere. It was a bummer. But I thought: hey, I’m doing the right things that will ultimately lead me to my goal. Even if I don’t see it now, I will just have to keep going.
  2. Plan, Do, Evaluate, Repeat
    Even a relatively simple job like cleaning a room works better with a plan. Seeing your actions written down helps you think about problems you might run into. When you carry out your plan you only have to think about the single action you’re working on at the moment. After you’ve done some work, check if the plan is working out and change it if needed. I refined my plan a few times as I ran into space problems. After that: back to work.
  3. Small bursts help you through deadlocks
    I had many moments when I felt like stopping and go surf on the internet or whatever. So I told myself: Just pick up 10 things and decide for each one if I throw it away or keep it. What happened is that I kept going after those 10 items. I regained momentum.
  4. Reward yourself during the process
    Whenever a major part of the cleaning was done, I rewarded myself with a break, a walk, some nice food or whatever kept me in a good state. And during the cleaning I always had something to look forward to.
  5. A clean room really makes for a clean mind
    Now my room is structured again, I can find what I need with ease. I’ve thrown out stuff that I don’t need to think about again. And it is a contagious feeling. I find myself cleaning my desk and other parts of the house more often. Less clutter around me leads to less clutter in my mind.

All of these lessons were not new to me, of course, and are probably not new to you. What’s important is that I experienced how each one worked to my advantage. And I can take that over to my other work. So, want to learn about productivity? Go clean a messy room.