Best Results Organizing

According to the news, there’s going to be a massive and prolonged heat dome blanketing the central and eastern parts of the country this week, bringing high humidity and temperatures in the 90s and 100s. The heat index (the “feels like” item in your weather app) could reach upwards of 100° to 110° between now and 4th of July in many places. According to The Weather Channel, this will affect about about 230 million people.

It’s set to be 96° in my neighborhood today, so I’m updating a post from last year to add even more helpful advice on staying organized and productive when it’s hot. Grab a cold beverage and scroll.

WHY IT’S HARD TO STAY PRODUCTIVE WHEN IT’S HOT

When we’re uncomfortably warm, we get cranky. We perspire and our clothes stick to us. Our skin chafes and our hair sticks to our necks. We stick to our car seats and desk chairs. Our mouths get dry, and everyone in our space (strangers in public, colleagues at work, or family members wherever) annoy us more.

But it’s not just mere crankiness and discomfort.

Hot weather is linked to everything icky from mild irritability to aggression, headaches and reduced motivation to decreased memory, focus, and cognition. Productivity doesn’t stand a chance.  

The Science Behind “It’s Too Darn Hot”

According to a 2018 study conducted at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, students in dorms without air conditioning during a heat wave performed significantly worse on cognitive tests than their peers who were able to (literally) chill out, and their reaction times were slower. Elementary school students (and their teachers) in hot classrooms suffer similarly.

Other studies, such as by Soloman Hsiang and Jesse Anttila-Hughes (who study economics and public policy), Joshua Graff Zivin and Matthew Neidell (in global policy and economic research), and Shin-ichi Tanabe, a professor of architecture at Waseda University in Tokyo (studying “thermal comfort”) found that for ever 1° degree rise in temperature beyond 77° degrees Fahrenheit (~25° Celsius), productivity a dropped approximately 2%!

On a typical workday, this works out to thirty minutes less work completed for every single degree rise in temperature, or 2 1/2 hours of lost productivity each week. (If you’re a peri-menopausal or menopausal woman, that productivity drop starts much lower than 77°; if you’re one of those people always complaining that it’s too cold with the A/C on in your office, I respectfully suggest that you back away from the comments section.)

A study published in PLOS Medicine in 2018 found a correlation between high indoor temperatures and impaired working memory and decision-making, particularly for tasks that required focus or logic. 

 via GIPHY

Long story short, being hot isn’t cool if you hope use your brain to get anything done.

In fact, researchers at the Helsinki University of Technology and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the performance of people who work in offices (or what is now generally called “knowledge work”) peaks at around 71.6°F (22°C). So, being able to maintain a fairly cool (or at least tepid) and comfortable office temperature is key to our productivity.

But Mother Nature doesn’t seem to care whether we get our work done, and I’m humming Cole Porter’s “It’s Too Darn Hot” from Kiss Me, Kate. 

  

Why Else Productivity Declines During a Cruel Summer

Humans are like Goldilocks, built for the middle ground, and we prefer our porridge neither too hot nor too cold. Our bodies go into survival mode when we get hot. Our integumentary system diverts resources from elsewhere and toward cooling ourselves such that:

• perspiration increases — Glands in our skin get stimulated by the sympathetic nervous system to produce sweat. (Yes, I know. “Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow.” But when it’s 94° outside, I’m glowing like a nuclear reactor.) Perspiration evaporates, carrying heat away, effectively cooling us and lowering body temperature.
• vasodilation occurs — This is a fancy way of saying that blood vessels in the middle layer of skin widen. It increases blood flow to the skin’s surface, so excess heat gets released (through radiation and convection, which makes it sound like we’re built out of spare microwave oven parts).

Meanwhile, our hypothalamus serves as a thermostat, controlling thermo-regulation. Thermoreceptors send signals to trigger our systems to either dissipate heat (to keep us cool) or generate it to keep our internal temperatures stable. 

The problem? When it’s hot, all those resources used to cool us down leave our organs — including our brains — with less energy to keep things running. Uh, oh.

So it’s not surprising that when we’re hot, our executive function capabilities drop. That means less mental acuity and power for attention, working memory, planning and organization, task initiation, problem solving, metacognition (thinking about our thinking), or time management.

To keep our bodies from feeling like burnt toast, our cognition departs. Next window, please!

Additionally, when we’re dehydrated, our ability to focus is severely limited. Even a mild case of dehydration (defined as 1-2% loss in body weight from water) can cause headaches, impair our concentration, reduce our short-term memory, and crash our math skills.

And Why It’s Hard to Stay Organized When It’s Hot

All of the above reasons explain why, physically and mentally, it’s hard to be productive when hot, but what about organizing? Both productivity and organizing skills are dependent upon concentration, short-term memory, and (argh, sometimes even) math skills so that we can focus on what to do, prioritize tasks, recognize patterns, make qualitative decisions, and figure out what goes where (and when). 

When it’s too darn hot, our bodies do what they have to, and sometimes that means shutting down our means of production (that is, cognition and productivity). That’s why, on top of the decision fatigue that 21st-century already piles on us, being so uncomfortable makes it harder to decide what chore to do next or what to cook. (My friend, a trained pastry chef, calls being “angry at dinner.”)

None of this means that we can’t achieve our goals, but we’re going to have to take some extra precautions to keep us from losing control during a cruel summer.

  

REDUCE DECISION FATIGUE WHEN THE TEMPERATURES RISE

When you’re already uncomfortable, every little decision feels heavier. Simplify and lighten up!

• Wear a capsule wardrobe as if you were on vacation: fewer options to consider and fewer (and lighter) loads of laundry. Don’t make yourself decide what to wear when everything feels sticky anyway!
• Reduce errands. Anything that can wait until the temperatures cool down means fewer times entering a hot car.
• Keep everything where it belongs. You’re already not feeling up to putting much away; the last thing you need is to keep pulling things out or trying to figure out how to create new systems. Yes, I’m a professional organizer, but I’m telling you this isn’t the time to clean out your closets or move things around in the garage. Let everything that can stay in its home do so. If you’re feeling the itch to nest, re-organize your home on paper and do the heavy lifting when the heat dome pops.
• Opt for “girl dinner” whenever possible. — Instead of pressing yourself to be inventive with cooking, use this week as an opportunity to graze leftovers or eat ingredients as-is. 
  • Pretend you’re camping. 
  • Anything can be a charcuterie board if you lay it out on a tray. Load up with cheese, fruit, hummus, crackers, veggies, olives, and salad and you can pretend you’re on a Mediterranean vacation!
  • Meal prep in the evening or before the hottest part of the day. Think cold foods: pasta or tuna salads, cold cheeses, wraps, salads into which you can toss anything from rotisserie chicken to cut veggies, and cold soups like gazpacho.

Less effort, less cleanup, less electricity!

MODIFY YOUR SCHEDULE ON HOT DAYS

Be patient with yourself (and your colleagues and anyone you supervise) with regard to pace of productivity. If you’re not on an unrelenting deadline, move non-essential tasks to when Heat Miser isn’t trying to make you miserable.

(I dare you to not listen. Just don’t get up and dance. It’s too hot.)

Reorganize your workload so you tackle your highest priorities and deliverables early in the day. Then give yourself permission to let low-priority tasks wait a few days until the A/C (and your brain) can operate at full blast.

Think of this as task-blocking based on temperature instead of time.

• Schedule shopping, appointments, and outdoor activities for the early morning.
• Block the afternoons for desk work, phone calls, and Zooms.
• Do gardening tasks in the evening, taking advantage of the late sunset.
• Save “hot” chores like laundry for nighttime, and run your dishwasher overnight. Generating less heat during the day is good for your electric bill, too.
• Exercise in the evenings after the heat dissipates or if you must run or exercise outside. Better yet, swim!

Speaking of swimming, if you don’t have access to a neighborhood pool or gym, and you’re used to working off your stress outside, did you know that:

• • Municipal recreation centers often have drop-in rates to use the pool that can range from $3-$10?
  • Colleges and universities often offer discounts for pool access during summers and other holiday breaks?
  • RV campgrounds sometimes offer daily pool access to the public for reasonable daily rates?
  • Resort Pass lets you access hotel pools at a discounted rate?   
  • Swimply offers hourly private pool rentals? Like an AirB&B for just a pool, you can rent pool access for $30-$60/hour. (You can also buy a summer or monthly pass for a surprisingly low rate.) If your kids are driving you crazy or you and your family just need a break from the sweltering heat, it’s an alternative to taking a cold shower or running through the sprinkler. 

©2026 Swimply

I have a pool in my complex, but if I didn’t, Swimply found me an option 8 miles from my house. For $32, it not only offers a lovely pool, restroom access, free Wi-Fi, inflatable floats, pool toys, and speakers!  

Time-shift your productivity. Embrace the Mediterranean and South American models and take a siesta. Again, wherever possible, get your deep work done early in the morning and schedule light, less brain-intensive tasks during those hot midday hours. To get a handle on this international approach to dealing with steamy workdays, embrace the advice in  Take a Break for Productivity — The International Perspective.

If you, like Paper Doll, are a night owl, see if you can schedule follow-up tasks (particularly those where you don’t have to interact with others) in the cooler evening hours. 

The productivity strategies we’ve discussed at length at Paper Doll HQ over the years, like the Pomodoro Technique, or the approach discussed in Frogs, Tomatoes, and Bees: Time Techniques to Get Things Done, accent the importance of employing breaks to clear your head. For more on these kinds of breaks, see Take a Break — How Breaks Improve Health and Productivity.

REDESIGN YOUR WORKSPACE TO BEAT THE HEAT

If you work from home, consider working in the coolest room in your house. Get away from windows and trade that hot, bright midday sunlight for more subdued lighting.

Do the limbo, by which I mean, go lower!

  

Heat rises, so you may just find it cooler to get down on the floor to work. And when the atmosphere in your home is steamy, basements are often darker and cooler. If you don’t have a finished basement, it may lack the creature comforts you depend upon, but when the alternative is suffering while your A/C limps along, you may not mind roughing it. Think of hanging out in the basement as similar to camping out, only with running water, a nearby fridge, and bathroom facilities.

Use blackout curtains (or at least pull down your shades and close your curtains). Position fans to create a cross-breeze — but either don’t point them directly at your workspace; otherwise, grab some coasters or cans from the kitchen to use as paperweights. If you have to chase your papers all over the room, you’re going to feel hot and bothered, not cool and collected.

RELOCATE YOUR WORKSPACE TO WHERE IT’S COOLER

If your air conditioning has conked out or is on the way to its final reward, or if you never had an A/C to begin with, consider relocating your workspace elsewhere for the days the heat is oppressive. Some options include:

• the public library — Although you generally need a library card to check materials out, any member of the public can occupy table space and enjoy the air conditioning and rest room facilities of the public library.
• a college library — University libraries are more likely to limit access to current students, faculty, and staff. However, if you’re an alum, or if there’s a university (or perhaps a community college) nearby with more lenient policies, you may find a cool, quiet place (perhaps a carrel in the graduate student stacks) to focus for a few hours.
• a coffee house — Long before COVID drove people to work from home, coffee houses were the in spot for creating your own remote office. Just be sure to buy food or beverages in exchange for that free Wi-Fi, and tip your servers.
• a cafeteria space — Massive stores like IKEA and Costco often have food courts or cafeterias. If you’ve got noise-canceling headphones, get yourself some gravlax or a hot dog, tuck yourself into a corner, cool down, and focus with an un-fried brain.
• a hotel lobby or business center — Most cities have hotel conference centers with lots of empty/unused space. Think of all the times you’ve been at a conference and tucked yourself away in a quiet corner to read or a make a call without schlepping all the way to your room. 
• your local community center — Many community centers are remodeled schools with a variety of rooms, and most community centers have quiet spaces set aside for working or studying.
• a friend’s house — I’m not saying to descend on a friend’s house and take over her dining room or guest room. But if you’ve got friends who love you and they have the chilly air that you’re lacking, especially if they’ll be off to their offices, why not ask? You’d do the same for them, right? 
• a co-working space — While co-working spaces aren’t generally free, you may be able to buy an affordable day pass. Google “co-working” and your geographic location, or check out an online directory, like CoWorker, Liquid Space, Peerspace, Commercial Cafe, or Co-Working Cafe.

REDUCE TECH USE TO KEEP YOUR COOL

Ever notice how your lap gets extraordinarily toasty when you’ve had your laptop balanced on your legs for a while? Or touched the back of your desktop computer on a hot day? Yikes!

On days when the heat is excessive, use less electricity and feel less burnt out by making changes to how you use computers and mobile devices:

• Dim your monitor’s brightness — The brighter your computer or phone, the more battery and energy your screen is using, and the more heat it may give off.
• Close unused browser tabs — Too many open tabs in your brain keeps you from working at top speed; the same goes for your browser. If that article has been sitting in an open tab for weeks, you’re probably never going to read it. If you’re not inclined to read it today, save it to Evernote, add a bookmark, or ask ChatGPT to summarize it for you. 
• Unplug chargers and unnecessary lights and devices — They radiate heat and add to your discomfort during a heat wave.
• Unplug yourself — If you’re not on a deadline, go analog! Power down your computer and grab a notebook. Obviously, you aren’t going to replace email with passing notes (across the country), but if you just need to write a draft or brainstorm, power down your tech. Conserve the energy — your device’s and your own.

KEEP YOUR COOL AND PROTECT YOUR HEAT-SENSITIVE ITEMS

Extreme heat causes damage. Organize your space when you exit your car. Make sure you’ve removed anything heat can damage:

• Medications
• Crayons
• Batteries
• Groceries
• Aerosol cans
• Lipsticks
• Canned and bottled beverages
• Chocolate and other melty candies
• Phones and laptops
• People!

Don’t leave plastic water bottles in the car; sun reflecting off bottles can burn holes in your auto’s upholstery!

 

REDUCE FRICTION WHEN YOUR BRAIN IS MELTING — CREATE A GRAB-AND-GO KIT 

We’ve substantiated that the heat keeps our brains from working optimally. Whether you’re working at the office, taking care of the family, vacationing, or just trying to cope, the last thing you need is to find yourself without what you need because you forgot to grab it. If you have to get out of the car and go back inside, you’ll avoid doing so — and then regret it later.

This pattern is called Island Breeze. Doesn’t it make you feel cooler already?

Assemble a dedicated hot-day kit to store in an insulated grocery carrier:

• sunscreen
• foldable hat
• sunglasses
• portable fan
• small cooling towels
• water bottle 
• electrolyte packets
• extra phone charging cables
• medication that shouldn’t stay in a hot car
• bug repellant

It’s like your travel toiletry kit, only this stays near the launch pad at your exit door so you can take it with you whenever you have to face the heat.

PRACTICE SELF-CARE WHEN THE TEMPERATURES RISE

You know that your car doesn’t work as well in extreme heat. You need to check the radiator, keep the fluids topped off, shade your windshield, maintain a fairly full gas tank. Take similar precautions to keep yourself running smoothly.

• Hydrate — Keep one of those reusable bottles (whether it’s named Stanley or YETI or nicknamed George Clooney) on hand. Fill it with icy water (and not caffeinated beverages) to sip throughout the day. Use a visual water tracker (like a bottle with time markers) or try a hydration app to prompt you to drink more. Popular apps with free tiers (and annual costs of $10-$30) include:

• • WaterLlama (iOS)
  • WaterMinder (iOS, Apple Watch, Android)
  • HydroCoach (iOS, Android)
  • Plant Nanny (iOS, Android)
  • Waterful (which has a cute Octopus mascot — you hydrate to keep him (and yourself) healthy).

(Don’t like drinking prompts but still want to be aware of your hydration? There’s actually an app called P where you track your, um, outflow instead of your intake.)

Create a hydration station in your fridge during the cool of the evening so you’re set for the next day. Fill one accessible shelf with water bottles, electrolyte drinks, and containers of washed grapes and cubed fruit so everyone and hydrate without having to pester you.

• Eat smaller meals more often, and focus on snacks with high water makeup, like salads and fruits (hello, watermelon!), and select lean proteins. Reduce excess sodium intake. A heavy meal full of fats, carbs, and sodium make us sloth-like and lethargic at any time of year. Add high temps, and the 3 o’clock slump becomes the all-afternoon crash-out.
• Nap —The more we are exposed to heat, the less time we spend sleeping, and the pejorative effects are stronger under a heat dome. 
• Relax your dress code — Don’t show up to Teams meetings in your PJs. But switch out form-fitting clothes for looser cuts (and looser weaves) to let the air circulate around you.
• Brush your teeth — I mean, I hope you’re probably already brushing your teeth. But there’s something about a minty fresh mouth that helps cool your system down.
• Run your wrists under cold water or rest them on soft, squishy ice packs (like chilly wrist rests) while typing or reading.
• Consider a personal cooling tool device. — A few years ago, Paper Mommy bought me a bladeless neck fan and it directs a lovely (and not-too-noisy) breeze up under my hair, cooling my neck and head.