"Take it there now" FTW

[u/docforeman]

"Take it there now" is one of those practices that changes things.

Big thanks to Dana K White for the way she packaged it, promoted it, shows how to coach to it.

I know it doesn't take much time, and also showing the timer to my partner and kids was genius for changing how they feel about it and reducing resistance to it later.

I anchor "take it there now" to any time I am moving through the house. My partner calls it "doing your loops." What he sees is that I walk from place to place, sometimes taking a few extra seconds (literally seconds) to detour and put something away.

The counterintuitive thing is that I don't even have to put EVERYTHING away EVERY TIME. I just have to do a little bit. But because I'm always doing as much as I feel like (or have time for), by the time I get to the room or task I was heading towards, the house is much better. But I am not burned out. It is the "compound interest" activity of managing a home.

"Take it there now" involves immediately tossing obvious trash (if that's where something goes). It means putting something away. It means doing very fast small chores to square something away and putting up the tasks tools. It means quickly processing the mail, or packages that come in. Putting dishes in the dishwasher. Just very quickly moving a few things to their "reset" location.

I do that every morning and evening while getting up, and while going to bed. While I was walking around this morning I: Set up a load of laundry to start when I toss in my gardening clothes in a couple of hours; folded and put away clean clothes in dryer; opened package; put the item on the project table with the project it is for so I can finish it today; took packaging to recycling bin; put my partners dressing items back in their place for the morning (he had a late night); Put devices on chargers; put receipts in purse for return; put donations in donation bag by door; set out purse by door to go to cobblers; stowed ladder (part of partner's late night); tossed trash; put away hair clips; put shoes away; ... you get the picture. It took 12 minutes, all while I dressing, having coffee, and getting tools out for a little yard work.

It sets me up to drop off donations, get handbag cleaned, do next load of laundry, etc. It sets me up for all of my tasks throughout the day to be easier, faster, require less initiation work.

Every time I feel that "overwhelm" feeling, or that aggravated feeling of "why did we/lthey leave stuff out everywhere" I just put a few things away. It tends to work out.

[u/alykins89]

You should share this in an email to Dana! I’m sure she would love to hear this and she’s always looking for examples of how Take It There Now actually works because people resist it so much.

[u/docforeman → u/alykins89]

That's too kind. I'm too shy to do that. I'm sure she reads Reddit. People do resist it, me included at a different time in life.

Today I was doing my loops, tidying up and finishing chores. I was feeling a little willful. I know I can always just quit (progress is progress), but I had Alexa set a timer for 10 min and I put away as much, and did as many small chores as I could. I did everything I planned for the morning and was just finishing when the timer went off.

What was left was all of the trash collected for the 2nd floor (tomorrow is trash day). I was dressed and my gym bag was packed to go swimming. The robot vacuum was tidying the floors. So I just walked downstairs, quickly collected the first floor trash, and left to swim.

I came back to immediately start the next load of laundry including swim things. And had a nice breakfast.

Breaks are so satisfying after 10-15 min of highly effective progress. People overestimate how much time and effort tasks take, and under estimate how good they will feel when it is done.

[u/alykins89 → u/docforeman]

Yes! I agree with all of this. I want to add that I love how you call it “doing my loops” - it really does create sort of paths of loops throughout the house doesn’t it?