When you’ve got too much to do, it’s a good idea to slow down and focus just on what’s in front of you. If you’re having trouble doing that, roll a piece of paper up into a pretend telescope and look at your desk through that. If you have an empty paper towel tube lying around, that works even better. I learned this technique from Professional Organizer Judith Kolberg. Sounds wacky, I know, but it works!
Why does it work? Everyone has their own personal tipping point regarding how much visual information is too much. When you reach yours, everything that you can see is commanding your attention equally and that puts your brain into gridlock. Will power alone is often not enough to start separating items from the background. Everything gets stuck to the background
Physically cutting down your field of vision will allow you to focus on one thing at a time and not be distracted by whatever else is in your field of vision. Make a decision on that one thing, then move your view scope to the next item. Don’t speed up! Keep going until you mentally process everything and identify next actions.
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