Tidy Like a BOSS: Nancy’s Untangling Story

Sep 28

3 min read

How a Box on the Floor Changed My Whole House

By Nancy DeFina | BD3 Solutions

I’d walk into my office and see papers piled at least six inches high, old notes I couldn’t decipher, let alone act on, project ideas, thank-you cards from clients, and somewhere beneath it all, a pack of my favorite Pentel mechanical pencils.

I projected productivity, but my desk gave me away.

I couldn’t find what I needed. So I'd procrastinate on the actual work.

Here’s what’s worse: my procrastination was a double whammy. I also procrastinated on cleaning the desk, since the mess had grown so large, tidying up seemed like a huge project on its own. I felt too overwhelmed to work, and too overwhelmed to fix the thing that was making it hard to work. There was no clear way out.

One day, after reading the New York Times Bestseller, Tiny Habits, I had an epiphany. With a wave of high motivation, I decided to scoop everything off the desk into a big box and set it on the floor. Then I took a nap on the desk (just kidding).

That One-Time Action was all it took. The desk was clear in about ninety seconds, and for the first time in years, I actually had a place where I could work.

It brought me real relief. Every time I walked into my office and saw a clean desk, I felt like I could breathe. I was eager to work, because I finally had both the physical and mental space for it.

The box, of course, was still there. I hadn’t really solved the problem; I just moved it to the floor. So I designed a Tiny Habit® Recipe for it: After I walk into my office from the bathroom, I will take the top item from the box and put it where it belongs.

Then I'd point at it, wherever it ended up (usually the trash can, more often than not), and say out loud, "I put that away like a BOSS!"

It felt silly at first; then after a few times, I realized I liked doing it. I had fun with it. I liked that tiny hit of feeling capable, again and again, just for a few seconds each time. The Celebration felt good, and my new habit wired in immediately.

As time went by, my recipe changed. I'd have Siri play a peppy, upbeat song, and for the length of the song, I'd tidy one item, Celebrate, tidy another, Celebrate again, repeating until the song ended. It's what Dr. BJ Fogg calls a Celebration Blitz. By the time the song was over, I was honestly in a great mood. The box emptied quickly after that.

My habit didn't stop with the box. It spread to my computer desktop, then to other areas of my home, and now my whole house is perpetually tidy (It’s official: I am a TIDY BOSS). I still do a Celebration Blitz at the end of each day, tidying my desk before I leave the office.

Best of all, I no longer see myself as a messy person or someone who procrastinates. Now, I think of myself as someone who's tidy and efficient, because I built that identity one small, Celebrated action at a time.

Start your own Untangling story. Get our Breakthrough Bundle here → https://bd3solutions.com/untangleprocrastination#bundle

Andrea Spyros and Nancy DeFina are the founders of BD3 Solutions and creators of Untangle Procrastination™, a behavior science-based program grounded in the models and methods of the Stanford Behavior Design Lab. Learn more at bd3solutions.com.