About a month ago, I started what is probably the biggest organizational project I’ve ever tackled.
Not in someone’s house.
In my business.
We’re rebuilding Balagan Be Gone and Journey to Organization from the ground up, documenting every product, every policy, every workflow, and every system.
It’s exciting.
It’s overwhelming.
My brain currently has approximately 47 browser tabs open. Only half of them are on my computer.
Every time I think, “Okay, I think we’ve got it,” we discover one more thing that should have happened before the thing we already did.
Somewhere around revision… honestly, I’ve lost count… I realized that almost every revision came down to one thing.
I had done the right work, just in the wrong order.
I didn’t skip the planning, but as I worked through the project, I understood it better, discovering dependencies I didn’t initially know about, realizing some things needed to happen earlier, and others could wait until later.
The plan didn’t fail.
It evolved.
And that’s exactly what a good plan should do.
Whether you’re cooking for Shabbat and dinner suddenly decides it has plans of its own, moving to a new home, organizing a closet, or rebuilding an entire business, the order you do things matters.
When the tribes of Reuven and Gad asked to remain on the eastern side of the Jordan in this week’s double parsha, Matot-Masei, they told Moshe they would build pens for their livestock and cities for their children.
The first time I learned this, I remember thinking, “How could they put their animals before their children?”
This year, though, I found myself defending Reuven and Gad.
Which was surprising because for years I was firmly on Team Moshe.
If you’ve got thousands of animals wandering around, corralling them first doesn’t sound completely unreasonable. In fact, it could even protect the children.
I can understand why they thought that should come first.
But Moshe immediately changes the order.
He tells them to build cities for their children first, and then pens for their livestock.
The tasks stay the same, but the order of operations changes because the priorities shift.
I certainly learned that lesson this week, and it’s a good reminder that even if you are organized, you can still do things out of order.
A lot of my clients get overwhelmed because they have a lot to do, but that’s only part of the problem. They haven’t stopped long enough to decide what comes first.
Side note: the word “priorities” has always made me laugh because a priority is supposed to be the number one thing, yet somehow we all seem to have ten of them. I think that’s exactly where Reuven and Gad got stuck. Moshe wasn’t changing the tasks. He was simply deciding which one came first.
Here are three questions I’ve started asking myself before tackling almost any project.
1. What has to happen first?
Before I start, I try to brain dump every step I can think of, then decide what order they belong in.
Will the order change? Probably.
Projects evolve. You learn things you couldn’t have known when you started. Sometimes you have to pivot.
That’s okay.
It’s much easier to adjust a plan than it is to wing it from the beginning.
2. What’s the purpose?
It’s easy to get distracted by side quests. Sometimes they really are important, but they’re not necessarily important right now.
Side quests have a sneaky way of making us feel productive while keeping us from finishing the thing we actually set out to do.
Keep coming back to why you’re doing the project in the first place.
Ironically, Reuven and Gad had a side quest too.
Before they could settle the land they had chosen, they first had to cross the Jordan and help the other tribes conquer theirs.
That wasn’t their original plan, but it was part of the bigger purpose.
When you really do have to step away from your project, do it intentionally. Finish what needs to be done, then come back and keep moving forward.
3. What’s good enough for today?
Some projects are never going to be finished in one afternoon.
Some are multi-step, multi-day, or even multi-month projects.
Don’t expect yourself to do everything at once.
(I’m writing this as much for myself as I am for you!)
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is get up, take a short break, and come back with fresh eyes.
I’ve solved more problems by walking away for five minutes than staring at them for another hour.
If you’ve been staring at a project and thinking, “I don’t even know where to start,” I’d love to invite you to join us for a Tidy Together session.
A lot of people think Tidy Together is a group of people organizing the same thing together.
It’s not.
It’s a live, virtual 55-minute session where everyone works on their own project.
One person might be clearing out a kitchen cabinet.
Someone else might be unpacking after a move.
Another person might be organizing paperwork, planning a renovation, preparing for a holiday, or finally making progress on a business project that’s been sitting on the back burner for months.
We work in three focused 18-minute sprints with short check-ins in between.
During those check-ins, you can ask questions, get unstuck, celebrate progress, or simply share what you’re working on.
I try to keep the talking to a minimum because the goal is to help you make progress, not listen to me talk.
If you’re stuck, I’m there to help you think it through.
If you simply need body doubling and accountability, you can work in our quiet room, and I’ll check in with you there.
That’s one of my favorite parts of Tidy Together.
People think they’re coming to organize a drawer.
Very often they leave having figured out the next step for an entire project.
The magic isn’t that everyone is working on the same thing, it’s that everyone leaves having moved their project forward.
If you’ve been waiting until you “have time” to get organized, maybe what you really need isn’t more time.
Maybe you just need help figuring out what comes first.
Try your first Tidy Together session for just $1.
For first-time Tidy Together participants only.
Because sometimes the hardest thing to organize isn’t your home.
It’s your order of operations.