What I’ve found helpful about this is that I can more easily divide tasks into “do it now” or “write it down and do it later.” So, when the mail arrives and Lucy is happy on the playmat, I can tear up the junk mail and recycle it, but put things that need to be read carefully onto my desk to do later.

When I had newborn twins, I rarely had more than two minutes “free” to do anything. I broke all my jobs down into two-minute jobs so I could feel like I accomplished something…. and so I didn’t get depressed with all the laundry and dishes and cooking and cleaning which suddenly seemed monumental.

As a result, now 2-1/2 years later, I still think in terms of two-minute tasks. My entire day, minus a few segments intentionally blocked out, is a series of two-minute tasks. I don’t “do laundry” (2 hours) – instead I get clothes from the big kids room and put them in the little kids’ big hamper.

Then (separate job in my mind) I get clothes from my room and put them in the big hamper.

Then (each of these a separate job) lug the hamper to the bathroom where the washer and dryer are. Make piles. Load one pile in. Add detergent/bleach/set washer. Pull clean clothes out of dryer and put on top of machines. Make piles for each room. Carry piles to each room. Fold, per room. Put away, per room. Put wet clean clothes in dryer. Put another load in washer.

And this doesn’t count the two-minute jobs that occur to me while I’m doing laundry related two-minute jobs. Like cutting Daniel’s ripped shirt into cleaning rags. Or getting out a grocery bag and labeling it for my sister, and putting Mac’s too-small clothes into it. Or cutting all the dryer sheets in half to save time ripping them later. Or calling my friend Susie to ask if she wants the latest batch of Chickie’s hand-me-down clothes.

It works…. but when my life is an enormous pile of endless two minute jobs, the advice “if a job takes two minutes just do it” seems suddenly ludicrous… a tyranny of the urgent…. or “obsessed by efficiency” as you put it.

Not sure whether to disregard the “just do it” rule or to learn to think of the whole task and not just the little parts… but it’s taken me this long just to understand why I bristled! I guess that in itself is progress…

I also realized I should never ever “do right away” any two-minute job that involves using the computer. Because I get sucked in and check my RSS feeds “as long as I’m there” and I have to take advantage of the deals at Dealmac right away, and I have to comment on people’s blogs or their flickr pictures… two minutes in front of the computer is rarely less than half an hour. Sigh.

I didn’t know that my dh (I assume that is who wrote the first reply to your post, especially because he has a label maker in his office—LOL) had used this book. I am going to ask for his copy. I need help with organizing my paperwork.

For household and family stuff, I find that FlyLady.net is the most helpful way for me to keep things going. Whenever I follow her program, I do well, and it is lovely the way she says, “You are never behind, just jump in (to the program) wherever you are.”