It only takes an extra minute to do it right or fix a problem but it will take a lot longer to fix it if you let it go. This holds true for anything and everything. Forget to change the oil on your car, if you let it go long enough it will damage your engine. Instead of spending 20 minutes changing your oil. Now your car is in the shop for 5 days while they rebuild your engine. Even the simplest of tasks can pile up. A bad habit I have is not shredding papers at the time. I throw the papers in a box and once a month I shred papers. This task now takes me 30 minutes or longer. Instead of taking one second to turn around and drop the paper into the shredder. If I did that I wouldn’t have to have a box for papers that need to be shredded. Less clutter in my office.
To combat this, I have been making a conscience effort in creating a habit of just doing the task or fixing the issue when I see it. It has helped me keep organized. At times it doesn’t seem that way. Some days it feels like all I do is clean, fix problems, and do everything but what I want to get done. Then I remember fixing it now will help me save me time in the future. Because if it is clean and organized I can find things easily and do what is truly important.
Don’t even think about the excuse “I’ll come back to it later”. You never do. And if you do it will take you longer to figure out exactly what was wrong. So instead just fix it at the time so you don’t have to worry about it later.
