Divided into two columns, at left is my actual and pending work list, and to the right are personal and household matters needing attention. Though it is all calendared, this where I prioritize an actual day’s activities.

Like a bar graph in an article charting home sales and foreclosures over time, the left hand column has shrunk as the right hand list has grown. A lot. Had I kept all the lists after the tasks they delineated were done, I’d have my own visual representation of the economic events of the past year.

If you have lost your job, you had zero time to adjust. For entrepreneurs, it’s a little different, in that the slow down may have crept up on you.

If your actual work life is taking up less (or none) of your time, you may be spending more time marketing, or sending out resumes and filling out applications.

And, you may have a surplus of free time. No matter how organized your professional life may have been, this infusion of extra time into your personal life may result in something of an unorganized mess in your household, or even in your head.

Now that these two segments of my life are rearranged, my dreams are filled with chaotic images, and I often awake feeling dazed and confused.

In the middle of a recent night, trying to banish those wacky dreams, I actually arose and wrote this on my to-do list so that I wouldn’t forget to take care of it the next day: “Clip fingernails.”

If you can relate to this situation, perhaps it’s a good time to apply some of your successful office organization principles to your personal life so as to regain control of the big picture, which is actually your life.

You didn’t have time to keep your closets or kitchen cabinets decluttered and organized before? Well, you do now!

For some help with these tasks, and how to keep them from undermining your ability to focus, try these resources:

OnlineOrganizing.com (search for these keywords: “disorganization,” “the mental side”)

Unload some of what you don’t need (and someone else DOES need) using your nearest Freecycle group

Share how you are managing your new found freetime!

That describes my recent approach to handcrafts.

Started two new sewing projects and three knitted items within the past two weeks.

Usually I knit for pure kinesthetic pleasure of fiber in my hands and the miracle of seeing the project take form. When I go into overdrive, however, my toil acquires a manic quality as I race to see just how many sets of needles and patterns I can juggle without tangling them all up.

Ever feel that way at work? Like, you can’t possibly ask a colleague for help when you are overloaded, or, if you’re a Solopreneur, can’t say no to every job that comes along?

According to some recent studies, having too much to do (and therefore trying to multitask too many hours a day) can have harmful effects and undermine what you believe to be your amazing (right!) effectiveness.

Take a look at why you think you can handle it all and why you, perhaps, fear turning down a project when you are already at capacity. Without some mind clearing time every day, I believe we end up in the realm of mind numb, wherein we lose both our perspective and sense of self.

And, now for a liberal dose of my own medicine.

My current bout with knitting overdrive coincides with recent arrival of news of a loved one’s worrisome health concern. I think I WANTED to be mind-numbed, and so I kept busy every second and late into the night. Late LAST night, in fact, I discovered that on the most complicated project, a beautiful merino lace shawl, I was making errors in every row, as I knit ever faster and ever more erratically, mentally racing from the terror I was feeling and leaving its evidence in myriad dropped stitches. Working without the lace knitter’s “lifeline,” that shawl is now looking a little sad.

Surveying the mounting pile of yarn and tools and patterns on my living room floor, I realized I needed to regain some control, and stop flitting back and forth between all of those projects.

My goal for today is to get each one of them to them point where they can be good take-along-projects, and to keep at it (one at a time) until that is achieved.

What I have now is:

1. First leg of lavender baby bell bottoms done.

2. Merino wool shawl is to the “repeat last two rows for 45 more inches” point.

3. Baby blanket for next granddaughter is at the 3/4 done mark and can go along with me in the car for those invariable waiting situations.

4. Apple green hemp socks… well they are languishing in the bottom of the bag. You can’t be too perfect.

Pictures later, when I have it all back under control and have repaired the mistakes.

Speaking of this, here are some related posts from the Loosely Speaking archives:

Carrying Capacity

Carrying Capacity II