Time Management Tuesday: Habit Falls Apart, Leading To Disordered Surroundings

This past April, I wrote about whether or not a disordered environment could have an impact on work. A recent study suggested it could cause "reduced stamina on tasks that require advanced thinking skills." At that time I also wrote about my own disordered office environment and how the system I'd set up the year before for keeping filing done and order maintained had fallen apart.

Well, things haven't improved. They're, uh, actually somewhat worse. Back in April, I thought I needed to get some kind of cleaning routine back into my life. Now I'm wondering if routine is the problem.

My self-discipline goddess, Kelly McGonigal, has voiced doubts about the value of habit, saying that it's a nonthinking behavior that works best for small tasks. Managing my environment doesn't appear to be a small task. What advice does she have that I could somehow apply to this issue?

Automatic Goal Pursuit--Keep a goal in mind instead of relying on automatic habits. Remember that I need to maintain order so I can have more time to work instead of relying on automatically and mindlessly doing it.

Implementations--Plan what to do in certain situations. In this case, planning to work on the office at certain times of day. This worked well when I was planning to work on the office every morning. When I started implementing work sprints in the morning, the office cleaning got lost. Yikes.

Well, I know habit isn't working for me on this one. I'm going to try to combo automatic goal pursuit and an implementation. It's worth a try. My office, as it is, is definitely making me feel out of control and undermining my discipline.