I am reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird about writing and life. It is a pretty famous book about how writing and other things in life many times happen little by little.
I am applying it in many other areas of my life. Just recently I was cleaning out some closets upstairs. I had so much stuff to bring down and the piles in the rooms were overwhelming.
My tendency is to calendar a two hour block and knock it out at some point. However, usually that calendar block gets moved several times if I do it at all because carrying old stuff out of a closet sounds dreadfully bad.
So instead I tried grabbing a few things every time I came down the stairs. And in the course of 2–3 days everything is about out of the rooms. Simple and easy!
I am noticing where else this can happen…where I let things pile up instead of attending to them bird by bird or a little by little.
Now every time a task, writing or something else seems overwhelming I am just starting to say bird by bird. It is my new motto. Because the act of starting or getting into the practice is the most important part.
