Last week, while wandering around my house doing 10 things before I go, I stumbled upon another fun, motivating, and interesting (to me at least) organizing technique. I call this the “Why Are You Here Hour” and it goes like this:
1. Pick up an article that has been laying around your house for a while. You can define your own “a while”. Just pick up something that is somewhere it doesn’t belong.
2. Next, look at it closely and ask it “Why are you here?”
I know you probably feel stupid talking to something that can’t respond to you, but trust me. Just do it. You will feel a lot less stupid when you realize this strategy works. So go ahead – ask out loud “Why are you here?”
Then wait. Be patient. It will answer you. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. Just wait.
3. See! It answered, right? I mean, the article didn’t actually speak to you, but a memory as to why you found it where you did came rushing back to you, right? The items I interrogated “told” me things like “You laid me here on Thanksgiving Day when the phone rang.” or “Excuse me – I told you in March that I was homeless and needed a file folder. Did you make that file folder yet?”
I don’t know how it happens. But I do know that it does. And I’m always excited to find this answer, because now I get to solve a problem. And I’m really, really good at solving problems!
4. So the final step of this nifty, ingenious 4-step plan (that probably everyone knows about except me) is that now we simply fix whatever the bottleneck was before, because it appears to be the same bottleneck now, and then we recycle through this whole loop, sneaking up on the next inanimate object and engaging it in a conversation.
Simply repeat these steps for an hour, and you’ve completed your first “Why Are You Here Hour.” Pretty fun, no?
Oh, but I should mention. This technique is probably best used when you’re alone. Some folks might not think talking to stuff is normal. But then, I’m probably not a good judge of “normal”.
So tell me – did you try this? Did it work? Was it as good for you as it was for me? Let me know.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to stuff and straighten up my house for an hour…
