Paper Doll

Posted on: October 30th, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 6 Comments

Portions of this post originally appeared in 2015.

PAPER DOLL FEARS FEAR

This week is Halloween, a time for ghosts, goblins, vampires, and other scary creatures. I’ve never been a fan of the fearful aspects of Halloween, opting for silly costumes rather than frightening ones. (More than once, I’ve sewn spare socks and washcloths to a sweatshirt and gone as static cling. Shocking!)

I’ve never understood the appeal of being being frightened in a visceral way: horror films, scary pranks, roller coasters. I’ve never adored the original Bela Lugosi, Eastern European-accented vampires, nor the “hot and sparkly” modern-day Twilight vampires; give me Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s snarky Spike over brooding Angel any day.

That said, nobody can dislike Count von Count from Sesame Street, especially a professional organizer, as numbers offer us so much help in organizing things by date or priority!

(This is about as scary as Paper Doll can handle things.) The point (and I do have one) is that I’ll pass on thrillers, espionage, and creepy demons, whether they’re climbing out of graves or television sets.

The only “fear” I enjoy is when a character fears that all is lost and there is no hope to be united with one’s great love, only to be shocked by a proposal! Jane Austen has my back. Well, the ghost of Jane Austen, anyway. That said, I still don’t know what to say about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I find so uncomfortably scary and gruesome that I can’t bring myself to post the actual video of the trailer!

FEAR HAS BENEFITS

Before I get into how fear intersects with organization, I should point out that fear obviously has some merits. While I’m not entertained by heightened fears and the relief of it brought on by experiences like horror movies and haunted houses, I understand the appeal of the rush of endorphins. 

Beyond entertainment, fear can act as a powerful protective catalyst in multiple ways:

  • Promoting Caution and Safety — When we have fear of a negative result, it can encourage us to exercise caution in order to avoid harm or negative consequences. If we’re afraid of embarrassing ourselves by doing a poor job in a work presentation, we will do more research, seek feedback, and rehearse. If we fear being carjacked or mugged, may make better decisions when we go out and avoid potentially dangerous situations.

Of course, if we take fear to the extremes, it keeps us from taking any kind of actions that could improve our situation. Fear of failure can keep us from accepting a promotion or trying a new hobby, and being overly cautious may prevent us from reaping benefits of new situations.

*Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.* ~Dale Carnegie Share on X

At its best, fear can help us spot potential challenges or adverse circumstances, and motivate us to be proactive, developing and embracing strategies that will mitigate risks, protect us from negative consequences, and develop contingency plans.

If you’re afraid of technology and fear your computer crashing, you can take in the advice of a post I wrote for Write*Publish*Sell entitled 9 Ways to Keep Your Writing Safe. If you’re afraid of situations that where the key person at home won’t be there, check out Cross-Training for Families: Organize for All Eventualities. And for a deeper look at the concept of backing up, October’s Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival is all about The Back-up Plan!

On the downside, when taken to extremes, an excess of caution and preparedness can prompt people to hold onto everything “just in case,” never considering how that sentence ends. Just in case — of what? Too often, people’s fear’s lead to inertia, never recognizing how dangerous inertia can be.

  • Enhancing Alertness and Awareness — Fear triggers the body’s fight, flight, or freeze response. The body releases adrenaline so that we can act quickly and respond to imminent threats. 

At the positive end of the spectrum, fear can heighten our senses. Whether it’s hair standing up on the back of our neck when we enter a dark house or we sense someone’s presence just before we actually see a stranger, fear can help us be more vigilant so we can respond to potential dangers. We can hit that mugger with our umbrella or scream while running down the street.

Conversely, if we believe we cannot escape a scary situation, we tend to freeze. (This is true in active situations, where we fear the oncoming danger, or in passive situations, where we fear what will happen if we let go of possessions we may need in the future.)

  • Enforcing Boundaries — Fear has the potential to encourage us to set personal boundaries, establish limits, and enforce them. When the issue is a creepy dude or an overbearing relative, a (mentally and physically) healthy reaction to fear prompts us to set boundaries for how we allow others to treat us.

Someone who has experienced trauma (like a house fire or financial devastation) may feel unable to ever let possessions go because the excess clutter serves as a buffer against that sense of loss. However, facing fear and setting boundaries regarding what is useful and pleasing vs. what is unnecessary can yield a greater sense of empowerment.

  • Increased Resilience and Growth — Situations that trigger fear can challenge us to confront limitations and overcome obstacles. If we’re afraid of poverty, fear can trigger us to get more education and to be bolder in our job searches.

Realistically facing fears can serve as a catalyst for growth. If someone both anticipates negative emotions related to letting go of clutter and fears being stuck in a house that’s too big and difficult to care for, they may be inspired to call a professional organizer to get help downsizing.

Fear gives us the opportunity grow, develop inner resources, explore coping mechanisms, and deal with uncertainty.

As a professional organizer and productivity coach, I tend to deal with fears related to action-blocking emotions. However, if you’d like the explore the power of fear for more physical protection, one of the most highly recommended references is Gavin De Becker’s The Gift of Fear: Surviving Signals that Protect Us From Violence. It was originally published in 1977, and re-issued in 2021.

HOW FEAR KEEPS US FROM GETTING ORGANIZED

Fear keeps us from moving forward in our lives. It keeps us from going after exciting opportunities and leaving bad situations. In my line of work, every day, I see the ways in which the prospect of getting organized is both prompted by fear and avoided due to fear.

Staying disorganized can be scary. 

When we are disorganized, we spend excess money on items because we either don’t know what we own or we can’t find what we own. We lose time redoing work, whether it’s the file that’s disappeared or the laundry with wrinkles set in because wet clothing never made it from the washer or the dryer.

Being disorganized can risk physical safety, whether that means parents stepping on pieces of LEGO left on the floor or a grandparent falling and breaking a hip because the house has become too full of excess to allow it to be properly put away.

And, of course, too much of too much causes anxiety. Taken to excess, embarrassment over the overwhelm of clutter keeps people from entertaining or maintaining close social ties, and the health risks of social isolation and loneliness have been found to include heart disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, anxiety, addiction, self-harm, dementia and shortened life-span.

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Getting organized can be scary.

Let that idea sink in. It was definitely a surprise to me 21+ years ago when I started my business. I expected people would be excited by the prospect of decluttering and creating new systems, but also anticipated some might have avoided the process because they thought it would be boring or hard work. When I was a novice, I had no idea how powerfully fear was enmeshed with the prospect of getting organized.

Usually, we talk about getting organized from the perspective of practical matters. What’s the most efficient technique? What’s products can streamline the process? That’s what I was expected.

When we do talk about the psychology of getting organized, we’re often focusing on tips and tricks to get us motivated, to eliminate procrastination, or to keep us focused on a system, but we don’t necessarily dig into the idea that there are baseline fears, often unacknowledged, that prevent us from taking the steps we know will improve our lives.

Several year ago, I sat down with John Hunt, host of Smead’s Keeping You Organized video podcast, to record a show called “Fears That Keep You From Getting Organized.” I encourage you to watch and listen (with the understanding that it was recorded before the world — and Paper Doll — had embraced Zoom, videoconferencing, and decent lighting techniques)!

 

On the episode, we talked about some of the fears — unspoken or even unrecognized — that cause us to back away from our organizing challenges without really considering the solutions available. Some of these include:

  • Fear of discarding something — Whether tangible or informational, you may worry that you might need it someday.

We call this the “just in case” fear. A popular piece of advice warrants letting go of something you don’t use if you can replace it for under $20 or in under 20 minutes of asking around.

Remember that “someday” is not a date on the calendar, and the quickest way to vaporizing your fear is to think concretely about the circumstances in which you might need “the thing,” consider how often (if ever) you’ve needed it in the past, and how you might approximate it’s use.

  • Fear of stifling your creativity — Honestly, it’s impossible to use your creativity to the fullest if you can’t find the tools and resources of your creativity amid mountains and piles of clutter.
  • Fear of potential emotional distress after discarding something — The Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20 Rule, reminds us that 80% of our success comes from 20% of our efforts; 80% of the time, we’re wearing 20% of our clothes or using 20% of our apps or gadgets. We professional organizers see every day that letting go of what people never, or hardly ever, use really leads to a greater sense of freedom. 
  • Fear of losing personal or sentimental attachments to people and memories.

It’s important to determine whether something actually has sentimental attachment for us or we just expect that because it’s old, or was a gift, or belonged to someone we loved, that we should have an attachment to it. Very often that’s not the case; when it is, by letting go of the things without true emotional attachment, the things we do keep are more meaningful and resonant.

  • Fear of letting go of things upon which you’ve lavished money, time, or attention — otherwise known as the “sunk cost” fallacy.

I see clients who’ve held onto ancient computers from the 1980s because they cost so much, even though they can still only run DOS and not even the oldest (and entirely unsupported) versions of Windows. Other clients have held on to dresses or suits that they haven’t worn in decades and which no longer fit their bodies or their lifestyles.

It’s similar to staying in a relationship where you’ve put in all the effort and you never get anything back. Letting go of what no longer rewards you grants you the opportunity to spend your resources on things, experiences, and relationships that have the potential to make your life more meaningful.

Letting go of what no longer rewards you grants you the opportunity to spend your resources on things, experiences, and relationships that have the potential to make your life more meaningful. Share on X
  • Fear of the unknown. — The world can be scary, and not knowing what’s coming next can paralyze us with fear.

None of us can predict the future. A few months before COVID-19, I tossed out a few respirator masks, the kinds used for protecting your lungs when you paint. I could have kicked myself for not having masks when the pandemic hit, but instead of giving myself a hard time about not sufficiently fearing the future to ensure I was protected against ALL eventualities, I gave myself permission to face the future as it comes rather than being stuck in a quagmire of holding onto everything because it might somehow have value someday

Of course, there are other fears that prevent us from achieving our organizing and productivity goals that we didn’t even get to, including:

  • Fear of failure —  “What if I spend time trying to create order and it turns out I can’t do it? Or I can’t maintain it?”

Instead of focusing on what might go wrong, we can concentrate on what skills and systems we an implement to lessen the possibility of things going awry and institute  personal policies for catching things before they go too far off the rails.

  • Fear of success — “If I declutter and get more organized, people are going to expect more from me and heap more work and responsibilities on my shoulders.”

This is a reasonable fear. The better we are at doing something, the more we leave ourselves open to being taken advantage of (intentionally or unintentionally). But the better we are at doing something, the more energy we will have to set and enforce our boundaries

  • Fear of loss of serendipity — “Right now, I’m delighted and surprised when I spend hours searching for something I can’t find, but come across something under a pile that I was looking for last week, or six months ago.”

Serendipity can be even better explored when we can access things we need. If we don’t waste our time, money, energy, and resources on re-done work, dual purchases, and scrambling to find lost items, we can turn our attention to our hobbies and interests and find serendipity in what we come across in the world of ideas, things, and people that reside outside our own no-longer-cluttered homes.


There are all kinds of fears. I believe that when we acknowledge our fears, we’re taking the first step toward recognizing that we have control over whether to give in to the inertia of fear or break through and empower ourselves for change. 

May the only scary things in your future be tiny toddlers in more-adorable-than-terrifying costumes.

Posted on: October 23rd, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 16 Comments

RECAPPING THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING A BREAK

Last week, in Take a Break — How Breaks Improve Health and Productivity, we looked at the key benefits of taking breaks in helping us improve our mental and physical well-being as well as achieve our goals. These included:

  • Enhanced physical health
  • Reduced stress
  • Increased energy and motivation
  • Improved focus, memory, and concentration
  • Prevention of decision fatigue
  • Enhanced creativity and problem-solving

We also examined the various durations of breaks and their relative advantages for different purposes, from the teeny 20–20–20 breaks to prevent eyestrain (every 20 minutes of screen time, look away from the screen and focus on something at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds) to the quick breaks as we transition between meetings or tasks.

We looked extensively at the medium-length work breaks we often fail to indulge in (but need so much to refresh our bodies, brains, and spirits). Breaks benefiting the body include time taken for meals and snacks, resting and napping, walking, and even dancing, while pauses that improve mental function and emotional well-being include meditation or mindfulness, time spent in nature, and breaks for doing creative things, appreciating some aspect of life or culture, and socializing.

And, of course, breaks extend all the way to full vacations. 

A SIDEBAR (SIDE TRIP?) FOR VACATIONS

Did you know that the longer a vacation is, the better it is for you, but only up to a certain duration? The average American worker is entitled to about 16 days of paid leave (combining holiday and vacation days), though we should note that about a quarter of workers get no paid leave at all!

Americans have a habit of trying glom vacation days onto long holiday weekends to try to pack month’s worth of need rest and relaxation into four days. While any break break is better than none, such short vacations fail to provide substantive recuperative benefits. Worse, according to a Pew Research Center Survey, 46% of U.S. workers who do get paid time off take less than they are allowed.

The reasons for workers shorting themselves time off vary and overlap: 52% don’t recognize the need, 49% worry that they will fall behind (and reap negative repercussions, including angering supervisors, risking their prospects for advancement (or even risking their jobs), and 43% feel guilty about their workload having to be handled by co-workers taking on additional work.

With all of these reasons not to take vacation, the counter-argument is obvious in the Harvard Business Review piece, You’re Never Going to Be “Caught Up” At work. Stop Feeling Guilty About It. Work keeps coming!

© United States Postal Service

I always tell my clients that not only is Inbox: Zero largely a fallacy, so is Laundry Basket: Zero. Unless you decide to stop sending email or your family members all become nudists, it all keeps coming. We’re humans, not robots, and can do only so much. So, as the article says, we must practice self-compassion, focus on our accomplishments rather than our shortfalls, and use mindfulness.

Don’t guilt yourself into trying to accomplish an inhumane amount of work, and go back to last week’s post to see why you need to take breaks!

Finally, the Pew study didn’t take into account self-employed workers. We have our own reasons for not taking vacations; primarily, if we’re not working, we’re not earning, and without the predictability of a paycheck (and with the fear of clients forgetting we exist if we aren’t there to answer the phone), we’re hesitant.

But we all need vacation breaks for the same reasons we need those multiple daily breaks — to keep us physically and emotionally healthy, mentally sharp, and productive.

So how long should a vacation be?

According to a study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, the ideal length of a vacation is approximately eight days. Researchers found that happiness levels rise over the first few days of vacation (as individuals acclimate to fewer stressful demands and the greater opportunity to sleep in those cushy hotel beds that they don’t have to make up themselves).

As physical and mental distance between work and vacation life expands, happiness peaks on the eighth day.

However, eventually the sense of well-being that comes from vacation starts to taper off, and by day eleven significantly drops. In order to get the most recuperative benefits of a vacation, researchers encourage taking multiple vacations spaced throughout the work year, ideally lasting between seven and 11 days. 

A less academically stringent poll of 1000 respondents by Insider.com found that workers who took an average of 13 days off each year were satisfied and felt they took the “right amount” of time off, while those who wished they had taken more time off took an average of 10 days off. And, interestingly, people who said they took too much used an average of 14 days. (I suspect that’s where guilt starts to set in.)

Obviously, what you do with your vacation matters; you’re far more likely to be bored on day 12 of a staycation in snowy Detroit in January than on the same day of a two-week trip to Italy. Ask me how I know!

Day 12 in Venice, September 2018

Multiple 7-to-11-day vacations throughout the year? What did I say about a quarter of Americans not getting any paid leave at all? We might want to consider the health and productivity benefits of vacation trends around the world.

First, the European Union guarantees four paid weeks off annually. Beyond that:

  • France — French labor law mandates a minimum of 30 working days of paid leave for employees.
  • Finland — Finnish labor law also stipulates a minimum of 30 working days of paid vacation per year for employees.
  • Austria — Austrian labor law guarantees a minimum of 25 working days of paid annual leave.
  • Denmark — Danish labor law provides for a minimum of 25 working days of paid vacation.
  • Germany — German labor law ensures a minimum of 24 working days of paid leave, which can increase based on the collective bargaining agreements and the length of service for an employee.
  • Spain — Spanish labor law provides for a minimum of 22 working days of paid leave, with additional days for particular circumstances such as marriage, relocation, or special personal events.

It’s not just Europe. Brazilian labor law guarantees a minimum of 30 consecutive days of paid annual leave for workers, which can be split into three periods, one of which must be no less than 14 consecutive days! Panamanians get 30 days of paid vacation each year, on top of 10 paid holidays, while workers in India get 18 vacation days a year along with an additional 7 days of “casual leave,” totaling 25 paid (non-holiday) days each year.

But yes, Europeans in particular know how to take recuperative breaks. But what about those medium-length breaks we discussed last week, time taken out of our daily work grind, perhaps mid-morning, mid-day, or during the afternoon? 

INTERNATIONAL TAKES ON BREAKS

Let’s look abroad to see what practices and rituals we might borrow, emulate, or at least appreciate from our international friends to successfully take pauses that refresh us.

Obviously acceptance (and formalization) of these practices vary by workplace and cultural context. Nonetheless, the significance lies in how these practices can promote work-life balance, foster true social connections, and/or enhance overall well-being and productivity.

BREAKS FOR REST

Siesta 

Most of us are well-acquainted with the Spanish and Latin American tradition of siestas or afternoon naps, even if we’ve only learned of it from old movies or novels. A siesta is generally practiced as a nap (or at least rest) break after the mid-day meal, generally lunch.

Historically, the ritual of a siesta was practiced by rural workers to combat the effects of heat and bright sun in warm-climate regions. As the world became increasingly urbanized in the 20th century, the tradition of the siesta began to decline, to mixed results. While many workplaces have eliminated the option of time for a siesta, others have preserved the concept of a two-hour lunch break as a cultural tradition.

Indeed, those who have embraced the extended lunch (whether workers use it for sleep or just mental recovery) find that not only do employees benefit from being able to recharge and improve their work-life balance, but that workplace productivity increases for the latter part of the workday.

The value of a siesta has seen bit of a resurgence. In 2015, the mayor of the municipality of Ador, Valencia in Spain proclaimed a state-sanctioned right to an afternoon nap between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. The edict was, in part, a way to guarantee that employers recognize that manual laborers and agricultural works could take breaks when high temperatures peaked. But the proclamation also encouraged residents to return home to nap, and requested that parents keep their children indoors and that workers refrain from making undue noise.

In 2017, Madrid saw the opening of Spain’s first nap bar in Azca, the Spanish capital’s financial district. Because most city workers can’t get home during the post-lunch afternoon slump, the nap bar provides private rooms (for about 14 Euro (~$14.81/hour) as well as shared rooms with bunk beds 10 Euros (~$10.58)/hour. 

They also offer study nooks and cozy chairs, and if you want a shorter nap/rest time, you can book by the minute, and service includes a wake-up call!) (Germaphobes, worry not. Sheets are changed and professionally cleaned between uses.)

In the years since it opened, Siesta & Go has continued to expand and is now considered a hostel. 

Mesimeri 

In Greece, Cyprus, and many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern nations, Mesimeri refers to the midday break where businesses and offices often close for a few hours during the hottest part of the day. Mesimeri refers to the time between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. where individuals have the opportunity to rest, relax, and enjoy a leisurely meal before resuming work later in the day.

The notion isn’t just taking a break, but that everyone is strongly encouraged to be quiet — road work and construction shuts down, and stores close. While the napping aspect of Mesimeri was practiced by almost all individuals until about 30 years ago, Greek laws still define official quiet hours where loud music and work-related noise outside are banned. It’s easy to see how these communal pauses, when everyone is allowed — even expected — to take breaks eliminates any sense of guilt about not powering through at work.

Inemuri

Culturally, it would be hard to find a productivity paradigm more at odds with Spain’s siestas, Mediterranean Mesimeri, or even France’s traditionally long lunches than Japan’s work-centric approach. In Japan, there are no formal, unified times for culturally agreed-upon rest breaks. Instead, there’s Inemuri.

Inemuri translates to “being present while sleeping,” and refers to a sort of cultural acceptance of napping in public, whether in the workplace, on public transportation, or in parks. Rather than “if you see something, say something,” in the U.S., where you might assume a dozing person is unwell, Inemuri suggests that if you see someone conked out, they are less likely to be ill or have been imbibing and more likely to be evincing signs of dedication to their employers and hard work.

Obviously, this work-til-you-drop lifestyle is not something we want to emulate, but the acceptance of Inemuri allows people to take short rest breaks throughout the day. So, at least there’s a culturally accepted practice giving workers the capacity to recharge during Japan’s excessively long work hours.

And, if you don’t feel like sleeping at your desk, there are nap cafés and even vertical nap pods available in many workplaces and cafés to grant privacy (so nobody sees you drool). For example, there’s the GiraffeNap, a TARDIS-like capsule with headrest, cushioned seat, and footrest.

If you’ve got more time to watch a TikTok influencer experience the full Janapese nap pod experience, try this:

Wu Wei

In China, the Taosist concept of Wu Wei can be translated as “non-doing” or “effortless action.” , and it emphasizes the essentiality of taking breaks in order to allowing yourself to be in harmony with the natural flow of life. Wu Wei is less of a specific break ritual, and more a way of thinking, living, and working such that society (and the work place) values time for rest and creating balance in daily activities.

For more about the power of napping and resting:

BREAKS TO EAT AND SOCIALIZE

Merienda

In Spain, Portugal, North Africa, Brazil, and The Philippines, Merienda is the practice of taking a mid-afternoon break from work or school for a light meal or snack. As you might expect, this practice is a more official opportunity granted for individuals to take a brief pause, enjoy some refreshments, and recharge before continuing with their tasks.

After all, as we discussed last week, when our blood glucose suffers, brain fog zaps our ability to learn, remember, focus, or create. A merienda meal generally consists of simple snacks (bread, fruit, yogurt) and beverages (from child-friendly milk, hot chocolate, and fruit juice to more adult-appealing coffee and even light alcoholic drinks).

In South America, particularly Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, the break is later in the day and a bit heavier, while in the Philippines, merienda culture the break for relaxation and rejuvenation comes twice a day, once in the mid-morning and again in mid-afternoon.

As long as you’re taking a break to read this post, want to make some merienda delicacies or read more about Spanish Meal Times and La Merienda — What and When to Eat?

La Merienda, or The Afternoon Meal, 1772, by Luis Meléndez, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tea or Chai Break

Throughout the United Kingdom, places colonized by the UK over centuries, and in Asia, tea breaks for snacks (and not just the beverage tea) and socializing have been popular for the past two hundred years. The break for “a cuppa” is not merely culturally accepted, but respected, and provides the opportunity for workers and students to relax and foster social connections with their cohorts, both (as we discussed last week), improving well-being and productivity.

The equivalent of the tea break in India is the chai break, and similarly involves pausing work to enjoy a hot beverage, a snack, and some convivial conversation.

Riposo

Italy has lots of daily social rituals. La Passeggiata is a leisurely evening stroll designed to shake loose the cobwebs and stressors of the day and ease into the evening; it also gives people the chance to greet their neighbors.

Riposo is a bit of a cross between a siesta and a merienda. Many Italians practice a long riposo lunch break, closing during (varying hours) from Noon to 4 p.m. to go home (or to restaurants) and take an extended pause for lunch and quiet time. While this is less often observed these days by knowledge workers in offices, the riposo custom is still observed by stores, museums, and churches, while restaurants stay open throughout the afternoon to accommodate those not able to return home.

THE SWEDES TAKE THE CAKE FOR TAKING A BREAK

At the risk of sounding like a spokesperson for IKEA or the Swedish Tourism Board, Sweden has cornered the market on taking breaks for the betterment of everyone. They practice two break-reated concepts that are central to feelings of well-being and improved productivity.

Lillördag

Let’s start with the Nordic concept of Lillördag (pronounced lee-lur-dog), a Swedish word meaning “little Saturday.” Conceptually, it encourages breaking up the monotony of the workweek with the spirit of some weekend mojo.

Generally, Swedes practice lillördag on Wednesdays, and it often includes going out for drinks with colleagues. (When I worked in television, I found that this habit (particularly among the sales staff) was called “any day ending in a Y.” But I digress.)

Rather than being seen as a work-related obligation that might contribute to toxic productivity, lillördag generates the sense of a mini-vacaton mid-week, giving workers something to look forward to amid the drudgery of a typical workweek.

The goal is to actually combat toxic productivity, prevent burnout, and promote mental recovery. Participants are sociable, but they aren’t merely moving work-related conversations about client obligations or how annoying Carol in Accounting can be into a more convivial (or boozy) atmosphere. Rather, lillördagers (I made that up) are encouraged to avoid talking about cranky-making things and just be social.

When I first heard about lillördag, it reminded me of Laura Vanderkam’s advice in her book Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters about scheduling little weekly adventures!

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Vanderkam found that to get out of our daily/weekly ruts, we all require more novelty, texture, and richness in our time and our tasks. Vanderkam encouraged everyone to plan life in weeks, and to identify one “big adventure” (lasting perhaps half a weekend day) and one “little adventure” (lasting an hour) each week to introduce novelty. As Vanderkam says, “We don’t ask where did the time go when we remember where the time went.” 

With lillördag, the “little Saturday” break from workweek drudgery on Wednesday can enliven your spirit. But lillördag is truly little in importance when compared with Sweden’s biggest break concept: fika!

Fika

Considering that fika — a quasi mandatory (but relaxing) coffee and cake break — is so ingrained in, and important to, Swedish culture that it’s protected by law, it’s shocking that it’s not better known around the world.

The purpose of fika is not merely taking a snack break. It’s about slowing down, stepping away from work, and connecting or even bonding. Swedes do not grab a cup of coffee and a muffin from the office canteen or break room and then head back to their desks to eat.

Fika by Ea Ehn

Rather, fika breaks are designed to give people an opportunity to savor — the time away, the company, and the confections. (We’ve talked before about the importance of savoring for attending, appreciating, and enhancing positive experiences in life. If we don’t step away from our work to appreciate other aspects of life, everything turns into “All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy.”

As you might guess from last week’s post, the Swedish taking of fika breaks is positively correlated not only with enhanced physical and emotional well-being, but also improved productivity and efficiency. Decades ago, researchers found that the most workplace accidents occurred around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., and a practice was instituted for workers to take breaks at those two times.

The name fika, used as both a noun and verb, comes from a twisting of the letters in kaffi (coffee). It’s not about the coffee and pastries, per se, though the options are mouth-watering, such as those shown in The Culinary Art of Fika.

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Fika works as a pressure valve, an opportunity not only to clear one’s head for a reset and refresh, but also an opportunity to step away from work culture. It’s considered bad manners to talk about work during fika. Instead, share a photo of your dog (or your kid), discuss everyone’s recent or upcoming vacations, or just get to know someone better. 

Traditionally, fika breaks are taken in the workplace. Individual employees or work teams may take turns bringing pastries like fikabröd, Swedish for fikabread, which they either make at home or purchase from local bakeries.

And it’s not just a little square of coffee cake or a doughnut from a box! Fika is a bit of a multi-course meal, with a bit of a social protocol around the order in which things are eaten. For example, some fika folks encourage eating the yummies from least fancy to most; for example, starting with a cinnamon bun, moving on to small cookies, and ending with a Princess Cake. (Don’t worry, I didn’t know what a Princess Cake was, either.)

Carbohydrate heaven! (While fika delicacies lean toward the sweet, savory options are allowed.)

Fika is such a big deal, culturally, that a popular podcast designed to introduce Sweden to the world is called A Swedish Fika.

Fika reminds me very much of a ritual we had at my dorm at Cornell. I lived in the International Living Centre, a mix of 144 international students ranging in age from 16-year-old freshman to 30something graduate students. Campus-wide, 11 p.m. was designated the time for a “primal scream,” where students all over campus would open their windows and howl at the indignit of too many exams and problem set.

The ILC, however, took a multicultural approach to letting off steam. From 11 p.m. onward, people would drop in and fade away from the main lounge for Coffee Hour. The dorm provided coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and a rotating bevy of store-bought (and occasionally homemade) desserts, and students would wander around the room, plunking down to chat with small cliques and reapportioning themselves, comfortably leaning against the fireplace, hanging over the ends of couches, and splaying themselves on the floor.

As the nighttime waned, some folks meandered off to sleep, while most returned to their rooms, the smaller study lounges, or back to campus for late night library sessions, energized from the caffeine, sugar, and social lubrication of Coffee Hour. Now I wonder if a Swedish ILC-er started the tradition! 


Are you familiar with any international cultural practices for break-taking that I didn’t mention? And which of these breaks would you most like to incorporate into your work day? Would you like to fika mid-morning? Riposo or siesta in the late afternoon?

Posted on: October 16th, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 17 Comments

If I asked what the single best thing you could do to improve your productivity was, what would you say? Would it be doing a brain dump of your tasks? Prioritizing what you need to do? Making a list? Avoiding multi-tasking? Eliminating interruptions?

What would you think if I told you that the best way to get the most out of everything you are doing is to stop doing it for a little while?

I know, it may sound counterintuitive, but taking a break instead of spending your day trying to power through is exactly what’s needed for your body, your brain, and your spirit, not to mention the actual work.

It may sound counterintuitive, but taking a break instead of spending your day trying to power through is exactly what's needed for your body, your brain, and your spirit, not to mention the actual work. Share on X

Let us not forget the trouble Alexander Hamilton found himself in when he failed to take a break. First, Eliza begged him to step away from his efforts to create a national banking system and pay attention to his son’s performance. (It’s a pity Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t insert a verse from Cat’s In the Cradle!) Then his wife and sister-in-law begged him to “take a break,” and join them at their father’s place in upstate New York instead of struggling on in New York City.

(And, as fans of history and/or the musical Hamilton know, the failure to take a break from single-mindedly focusing on defeating Jefferson, et. al., and controlling the American economic future led, at least in part, to Hamilton making a poor personal decision (regarding Maria Reynolds), which led to others thinking he’d made a poor ethical and professional decision, which led to Hamilton blowing up his personal and professional lives. The whole second act is a testimonial for the vital importance of taking a break!)

But we don’t have to interpret musicals to know that taking breaks from our work or studying is essential for happy, productive lives. In “Give me a break!” A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance, researchers analyzed the results of 22 independent studies on the efficacy of work breaks for “enhancing well-being (vigor and fatigue) and performance.” They found that breaks were essential for replenishing mental and physical energy after work-related depletion, and that the more depleting a task is, the longer a duration of break is needed.  

And if neither musical arts nor academic research is enough to convince you, how about the effect, not only on workers, but on work? Eight years ago, an NPR piece, We’re Not Taking Enough Lunch Breaks. Why That’s Bad For Business, noted that only one in five people were stepping out of the office at lunchtime. The point wasn’t eating at work, but not stepping away from work. As we’ll see, that undermines our bodies, our minds, and the quality of the work we perform.

WHAT COUNTS AS A BREAK?

A break can be of varying durations for varying activities. How long does a break need to be to have a positive effect? That depends on the work you’re doing, how much energy it depletes, and the kind of break you’re taking.

How to Take Better Breaks at Work, According to Research from the Harvard Business Review, notes that shorter breaks can be effective but that the timing of breaks is also vital. For example, because fatigue intensifies as the day goes on, short (or at least shorter) breaks are more effective in the morning, but by late afternoon, longer breaks are necessary to yield positive results. 

So, what length breaks should we consider? 

20–20–20 Rule

This rule simply instructs that every twenty minutes of screen time, look away from the screen and focus on something at least twenty feet away for at least twenty seconds.

The 20–20–20 Rule is designed to prevent computer vision syndrome, particularly digitally-induced eye strain. Taking a break like this can also help reduce blurred vision, headaches, dry eyes, and neck and shoulder pain.

Eye Chart Photo by David Travis on Unsplash

Regular screen breaks of just one-third of a minute will give your baby blues (or browns or greens) much-needed rest, but maybe more. When something (like a phone alarm or alert on your screen telling you, “Look away! Look away!”) prompts you to take this momentary break for your vision, you’re likely to adjust more than your eyesight.

When you’ve been in flow, focused intently on what you’re reading on the screen, you’ve probably failed to pay attention to your posture (so you maybe slumped forward toward your screen) and your breathing. This super-quick break shakes everything loose.

Short Breaks 

A short break would be anything that takes less than 5 or ten minutes. Consider the break you might take when doing a series of Pomodoros, where you work for 25 minutes, then step away from the task at hand — and step away from your desk — to stretch, spend a few minutes on a puzzle, or play with your puppy.

Moderate Breaks

These are the kind we’ll be looking at in great detail over this post and the next one. There’s quite a bit of cross-over between the breaks that primarily help reset the body vs. the brain, but in broad strokes, these categories might include:

Breaks primarily for the body
  • Meal and snack breaks — Working through lunch is so bad for your physical and mental health that France outlawed eating at your desk all the way back in 1894! It’s called la pause déjeuner, and granted, it was for hygienic reasons, but now it’s recognized as good mental hygiene to step away to eat lunch mid-day and onboard some healthy(ish) snacks to energize the body, concentration, and focus. 
  • Nap breaks — Sure, not everyone is physically (or socially) able to take a power nap, but these mini-sleepytimes can pump up our energy and improve our ability to concentrate. In the US, this is more likely to be your jam if you work from home, unless your company has invested in nap pods, but there are many cultures where a nap break is considered part of the work day.
  • Walk breaks — Personally, nothing allows me to refresh my brain as well as getting my 10,000+ steps. While the prescription for 10K steps was made up by a Japanese pedometer company (and your personal peak number of steps depends on age and health), there’s something magical about pounding the pavement (or the lawn or the forest). Each successive step seems to clear mental fog; if I take a walk break when I’m facing a work problem (like how to tackle a blog post), the solution comes to me by the time my walk break is over.
  • Dance breaks — Pump up the jam! The advent of personal surround-sound means you can listen to music without Lloyd Dobbler standing outside your bedroom, hoisting a boom box playing “In Your Eyes” over his head. If you work alone, blast your tunes; otherwise, put on those Beats or Airpods, and play on your favorite song to make your own music video.

Find a conference room or classroom where nobody’s likely to disturb you, or head out behind the building, and shake your groove thang! Consider these suggestions for finding your go-do dance-along video:

Breaks primarily for the brain

Additionally, there are a variety of guided meditations on YouTube. For example:

Whether you aim for more formal guided meditations or gentle mindfulness activities like deep breathing, you’ll find that this kind of break can reduce your stress when you feel like you’re constantly tumbling <bleep>-over-teakettle.

  • Nature breaks — I’m probably the last person to think about communing with nature. I hate wind and rain and bugs and heat and the sound of frogs and crickets. I am generally an in-of-doors girl. But the Japanese practice of “forest bathing” (Shinrin-yoku) has been found to reduce blood pressure, alleviate depression, improve mental health, boost immune function, and more. Beyond that, getting away from your computer and focusing your eyeballs (and the rest of your sensory receptors) on something other than work will recharge the body and the brain, making the return to work more inviting.

And even I can find ways to enjoy nature! This past weekend, my friend and colleague Sara Skillen and I drove from our respective cities to meet at Sewanee — University of the South for lunch and a bit of a meander.

I love exploring college campus architecture, and we were both excited to walk the labyrinth in Abbo’s Alley, acres of campus with forest/woods, streams, stone bridges, a butterfly garden, gazebo, and other goodies. 

We spent over an hour in search of the labyrinth (not even shown in the calming video, above), ambling (and occasionally tripping) over tree roots and wobbly rocks. However, the combination of Sara’s stellar company, perfect temperatures, and the lack of bugs made our jaunt an ideal break from the typical workweek.

The intriguing thing is that taking a break to “touch grass” works even if you’re not walking or otherwise moving around enough to pump your blood; just sitting outside, even if your “outside” isn’t at all what most people would think of as “nature,” can still have a calming effect. 

  • Creativity breaks — Even if your workday involves creating, a creativity break can blow that layer of dust off of your mental capacity. You can’t usually step away from work to spend half a day creating, but you can blend your lunch break with some time for painting, drawing, playing a musical instrument, or journaling (by hand, if possible).
  • Appreciation breaks — Not every break requires producing something. Sometimes, when your brain is full of one thing, the solution is to fill it with something else, particularly something serene or delightful. Consider taking your lunch break at a nearby museum or art gallery, or just watch tiny humans playing in the park. Appreciate the elegance of ducks swimming on a pond or enjoy the colors and sounds of an open air market.
  • Social breaks — While reading social media has downsides, being social does not. I’m an extrovert, and there’s nothing that pumps me up more than taking a break to socialize. Of course, if you’re an introvert, you may not want to wade into loud, involved conversations with colleagues (or, heaven-forbid, strangers), because it may drain you of the mental energy you’re aiming to refresh. 

Whatever kind of break you take from daily work, select types of activities that will use different aspects of your brain than you were using to write reports, design web sites, study economics, etc. This allows the “part” of the brain that was overworked to rest and re-set. 

Full-Length Breaks: Vacations

I could (and probably should) write a post about the mental, physical, and productivity benefits for taking a long break, whether that’s a real weekend without looking at email or a two-week immersive vacation. Of course, not everyone gets paid vacation, but vacation-length breaks are essential to our health and vigor, which in turn, keep us productive, whether that means making the widgets to building society by raising a family (or, as is often the case, both).

THE BENEFITS OF TAKING A BREAK

When we take breaks throughout the workday, we reap the benefits of better overall physical and mental health, enhanced cognitive function, and improved job performance, all of which will improve our productivity. Let’s look at some of the key advantages of incorporating regular breaks in your work routine.

Enhanced Physical Health

When we incorporate any breaks in our day that involve physical activity or movement, whether it’s stretching, walking, or exercise, it contributes to improved physical health. We improve the blood circulation throughout our bodies (including to our brains!) while reducing the muscle tension that leads to headaches, body strain, and repetitive stress disorders like carpal tunnel syndrome.

We also prevent the various negative health effects of prolonged sedentary behavior. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “Sitting is the new smoking.” As I explained in Paper Doll on The Truth(s) About Standing Desks, it’s not that standing desks are that much better. Sitting is bad because when you sit all day, your telomeres (the tiny caps on the ends of DNA strands) get shorter, and the rate at which the body ages and decays speeds up. However, standing all day (like at a standing desk) isn’t necessary all that much better. What is important is movement, and you generally have to take a break from work to get moving! 

Walking Photo by Arek Adeoye on Unsplash

Stress Reduction

Varying reports note that workplace-related stress affects up to 80% of American workers. That’s estimated to cost anywhere from $150 billion to $300 billion. That economy-busting stress isn’t going to disappear if we add a few extra breaks each day for mental clarity, but we can turn this around on a personal level.

Breaks in our workday give us the opportunity to reduce stress levels and alleviate the pressure of constantly being focused on work (and the related external expectations place on us). When we engage in any kind of activity that promotes relaxation, we can lower blood pressure (which is good for both the body and the psyche), improve mood, and enhance a sense of well-being. 

When we think about stress-reduction activities, we often focus on time-intensive tasks, like a yoga class or long hike, but short-term activities like mindfulness exercises, deep breathing, and brief walks (around the building or around the block) can have similar mental health benefits for reducing stress.

Take a Break Photo by Tara Winstead 

Increased Energy and Motivation

When we take breaks throughout the workday, the physical and mental health benefits described above will have a domino effect, knocking down (and out) other problems.

When we take stop what we’re working on to eat, nap, socialize, exercise, or just remove ourselves from hyper-focus on our work, we replenish our energy, both our physical capacity (with improved blood pressure and balanced blood glucose levels) but also our mental capacity.

Conversely, if we don’t take breaks, we’re more likely to suffer from burnout. A 2022 study from Aflac found that 59% of workers were experiencing burnout, and 86% of those reported experiencing anxiety, depression, and sleep difficulties in the prior year, so this is not a negligible concern.

Setting aside time for physical movement, relaxation, and self-care boosts our sense of well-being, which tops off our enthusiasm, and in turn, that improved motivation boosts our ability to perform and sustain our productivity. Whoohoo!

Improved Focus, Memory, Concentration

Contrary to our assumptions that we should always power through our work, our brains need novelty. Researchers at the University of Illinois found that the longer we focus on something, the more likely the occurrence of a “vigilance decrement,” where our “attentional resources” start to plummet. It’s like how we are aware of how cold the ocean is when we jump in, but the longer we’re exposed, the more we get used to it. Or, to use a clichéd metaphor, we’re the frog in the boiling water. 

Our brains respond to change, and the longer we go without change, the less efficient they are. Breaks don’t just rev us up; they help prevent the mental fatigue that sets in when we’ve tried to work too hard or too long. When we get lost in those mid-afternoon cobwebs, a break can enhance concentration, allowing the brain to rest and recharge.

Periods of mental rest, whether through mindfulness, activity, or sleep have the power to help us consolidate our memories and improve learning. And this is all as true for kids as for adults!

Short break periods jazz our bodies. We might imagine that a vigorous walk or dancing around to Taylor Swift would pump too much blood to our brains, making it hard to focus, but the opposite is true. Relaxation, whether it’s arrived at through calming activities like meditation or energizing ones like physical activity, will boost cognitive resources. In turn, it enables people to improve and maintain attention, allowing more effective and efficient focus on the work at hand!

Prevention of Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue occurs when we are faced with too many overwhelming choices without adequate rest, whether for our bodies or our brains. However, breaks can play a crucial role in preventing decision fatigue; just a short pause for the right kind of physical or mental stimulation and/or relaxation can reset cognitive resources.

When we have decision fatigue, we may make poor choices, or procrastinate on making any choices at all. Breaks can give us the resilience to make better decisions and maintain a higher level of productivity, using those decisions to move our projects forward.

Enhanced Creativity and Problem-Solving

We all know what it feels like when our brains get stale. We cease coming up with fresh takes (or even fresh words), which turns into a vicious cycle. If we’re not feeling creative and can’t solve our problems, we’re going to feel bored, unenthusiastic, and stressed out!

Taking breaks fosters divergent thinking and spikes creativity, so we can approach tasks from fresh perspectives. Just stepping away from work for a short time — and focusing on the right energy-boosting replacement tasks — can stimulate more innovative ideas and solutions, improving our problem-solving skills and pumping up our creative mojo.

Per the NPR piece I quoted earlier, Kimberly Elsbach (a Professor Emerita Fellow, Academy of Management University at the California Davis Graduate School of Management), an expert in workplace psychology, noted that never leaving your office or your desk is “…really detrimental to creative thinking. It’s also detrimental to doing that rumination that’s needed for ideas to percolate and gestate and allow a person to arrive at an ‘aha’ moment.” Aha, indeed!

It’s essential to recognize the positive impact of breaks on physical, mental, and emotional well-being so that we can remember to prioritize these pauses and integrate them into our daily work routines. This is key to us fostering balanced, productive approaches to taking on our responsibilities.

Not all breaks are created equal

Pausing work to scroll through social media won’t have the same benefits as the kinds of breaks discussed earlier in this post. First, everything from the death-grip on our phones to the poor posture of arching necks over screens to the blue light of cell phones is bad for physical health; plus, you’re likely to remain just as stationary as when you were working! Beyond that, social media rarely reflects the kind of psychologically neutral or uplifting content that boosts mood or cognition.

Similarly, smoke breaks aren’t good breaks. While they may yield some social benefit, data on smoking’s physical devastation on the body and brain is clear. Moreover, research finds that smokers have thinner cerebral cortex than non-smokers. (The cerebral cortex is essential for learning and memory, so thicker tissue is better.) Smoking reduces the ability to learn and remember, key requirements for productivity!

TAKE A READING BREAK

For further reading on the importance of breaks for health and productivity, you may wish to read:

Breaks During the Workday (Michigan State University)

Give Us a Break (Compass Group)

How to Take Better Breaks at Work, According to Research (Harvard Business Review)

BETTER BREAKS AROUND THE WORLD

In full disclosure, this post started out as a look at how other cultures embrace taking breaks as part of coping with excessive workloads. Instead, this is the prequel, a what-and-why for improving your vitality and productivity with breaks. Next week’s follow-up post, Take a Break for Productivity: the International Perspective is where the real fun will be, as we look at fun and tasty examples of “take a break” culture around the world. 

Spoilers: the Swedes take the cake (figuratively and literally) and first place when it comes to taking breaks!

Posted on: October 9th, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 19 Comments

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on October 9, 2023. Some content has been added or modified to provide more robust explanations.]

In more than two decades as a professional organizer, I’ve found that people have disorganized papers because they don’t create and maintain working systems for organizing what they need and letting go of what they don’t. Eight years ago, I talked about how fear plays a huge role in what people decide to keep (or fail to decide, and thus end up keeping).

If I ask someone, “Why do you have this?” whether “this” is a document or a never-worn article of clothing or a piece of broken furniture, the answer often betrays an unspoken fear. Sometimes, that fear may be related to anticipation of an unpleasant emotion — if you give away the itchy sweater (in a color that makes you look like you have the flu) that Aunt Gertrude gave you, will you eventually feel you are betraying late Aunt Gertrude?

Other times, particularly with papers, people hold onto documents long after they’ve served any useful purpose out of fear of what might happen if they need, but don’t have, that paper. This is why I developed Do I Have To Keep This Piece Of Paper?

I can tell you that that the item I see clients keep the most of, and the most often, and the longest after they’ve ceased being necessary, are health insurance Explanation of Benefits documents.

Sometimes, organizing clients ask, “How long do I need to keep these?” but more often, they don’t ask at all. Explanation of Benefits can often seem mysterious or scary. People know they aren’t medical bills, per se, but they don’t know what they are, or what they’re supposed to do with them. Understandably, if you don’t know why you have something, you’re going to be afraid to let it go. But that way, madness lies.

EXPLAINING THE EXPLANATION OF BENEFITS

First, I should clarify that while many insurance companies call these pieces of mystery mail “Explanation of Benefits” (EOBs for short), they go by other names. Depending on your insurance provider and your region of the country, the title of the document may be any of the following:

  • Explanation of Payment (EOP) — Used interchangeably with EOB — a document explaining the payment or coverage details for a healthcare claim.
  • Explanation of Review (EOR) — This serves the same purpose as an EOB or EOP.
  • Benefits Statement or Statement of Benefits — Either term emphasizes the benefits of one’s health insurance policy re: covering (or not covering) a specific healthcare claim.
  • Claim Summary or Claim Explanation — Some insurance providers use these terms to describe how a medical claim was processed, including the payment details and any patient responsibilities.

You might also see payment summary, healthcare summary, coverage explanation or remittance advice. Whatever they’re called, the purpose is to inform you about how a medical claim has been processed, including what portion of the claim is covered by insurance and what you (may) owe.

It’s a summary of the whole process from what the provider charged to what each responsible party owes, and it’s supposed to make it easier for you to understand what has happened. The problem? EOBs are often designed to be as clear as mud.

What does an EOB show?

These documents are designed to convey the following:

  • Who received treatment or service — This could be you or anyone included on your policy, like a spouse or child.
  • The date of a medical service or procedure  — Your child may have had a well-child visit, or perhaps you had the yuckies and needed a full workup and blood tests. If you had an appendectomy, not only will your surgeon’s actions be listed, but so will the services of the anesthesiologist and other specialists in attendance, plus medications, tests, and other details of your hospital stay.
  • The name of the physician, lab, clinic, etc. — You may not recognize the name listed if your medical provider sends blood or tissue to a lab for analysis, or an X-ray, CT scan, or MRI requires review.
  • Non-covered codes — Not everything done for your health is covered by your insurance policy. In a perfect world, whatever your provider felt was necessary would be covered, but (sigh) that’s not how it works. There may be random letters or numbers indicating why something wasn’t covered due to a wide variety of circumstances, including
    • a provider, clinic, or hospital is not in-network for you (meaning, not on a list of pre-approved providers).
    • a procedure or treatment not included among the items covered by your policy.
    • a procedure or treatment requires pre-approval but you didn’t get it pre-approved — This may not be covered even though, if you had asked for it to be pre-approved, they would have approved it and covered it (that is, paid for it).
    • a procedure or treatment is allowed, but only so often in a given time frame — For example, mental health appointments or physical therapy sessions may be limited to (for example) 10 sessions in a calendar year.

Also, while some appointments may be allowed at any time in a given year, others must be scheduled 365+ days apart. So, if you had your eye exam or mammogram 363 days ago, you may be out of luck in terms of your insurance company paying.

The A1C blood test allows physicians to track blood glucose levels over a rolling period of time; most insurance companies require 90+ days in between tests. Sometimes, medical offices are good about making sure your appointments aren’t scheduled closer than 90 days apart so that you can actually get your A1C test done (and covered), but as a patient, it’s in your best interest to know what your policy covers, and how often, so you don’t pay extra.

  • The total charged by the physician, clinic, lab, hospital, or pharmacy.
  • The network savings — OK, I get it your eyes have glazed over at this point. If you’ve never had much reason to see lots of doctors, go to the hospital, have a baby, or just use much of your medical insurance, this may be one of the mysteries that causes you to toss your EOBs on top of the microwave or stuff them in a drawer. I promise you a sidebar in a minute to answer all of your questions!
  • The amount the insurance company paid your provider — This is self-explanatory, or it should be. If there are no codes in the “Non-covered codes” section, then you should be able to eventually match up all of your numbers to see why your insurer paid your provider as it did. We’ll get back to that.
  • Your co-pay — Your policy might require you to pay a specific amount for each medical visit or pharmacy purchase. It’s common for there to be one level of charge (say, $20) for your primary care physician and another (perhaps $60) for specialists; similarly, you may have different levels of co-pays for generic, preferred, and non-preferred prescriptions.
  • Your co-insurance — Co-insurance is the percentage of your medical healthcare costs you share with your insurance company, usually after meeting your deductible. For example, if you have an 80/20 co-insurance, once you hit your deductible, your insurance company will pay 80% of covered (that is, allowed) costs, and you’ll pay the remaining 20%…until you hit your out-of-pocket maximum.
  • Other insurance — Depending on your stage in life, you might only be familiar with having one kind of health insurance at a time. However, if you have (for example) Medicare, you might also have a secondary health insurance policy that covers a percentage of what’s left over after your primary policy (or Medicare) pays.
  • “You owe(d) provider” — This is usually the bottom line, and it tells you what, all-told, you should have to pay your doctor, the pharmacy, the clinic, the lab, or whomever. In a perfect world, the bill you get matches that amount, it’s what you expect, and everyone’s happy.

Still with me? Health insurance in the United States can be confusing, though many insurers try to make it more comprehensible.

But how does it all work?

Here’s how you imagine it works. You have a tiny booboo and you have insurance. You go to your doctor and she fixes your booboo. You pay the doctor your co-pay of $20 and you leave. After you walk out the door, someone who works for your doctor does the typey-typey thing on a computer, relaying codes for the procedure you had done, and the insurance company pays the doctor the rest of what the doctor charges, and everyone’s happy. Right?

Well…not necessarily. Things may be more complicated, and you may find yourself lost:

  • If the typey-typey person types the wrong code, perhaps for something your insurance doesn’t cover, then you may get an EOB full of “Nuh-uh, we’re not going to pay for this!” codes and then you’ll get a bill from the doctor for hundreds or thousands of dollars you weren’t expecting.
  • The typey-typey person may not get around to billing the insurance company, or the insurance company may be pokey and not pay them as fast as they want, and you might get a bill for the whole amount. This is why, when you get a bill you aren’t expecting, you must always:
    • Look at the bill to see if it lists the insurance company’s paid portion
    • Look at the EOB to see if the insurance company is saying they paid something that the administrative office (the typey-typey folks) haven’t yet processed.
  • The numbers don’t add up. Before you get stressed about this, it helps to know how insurance works. Too often, I hear clients say, “I hit my deductible already this year, so I don’t know why the doctor is sending me a bill” or “The amount the insurance company paid the provider plus the amount I paid doesn’t add up to what it says the doctor is charging.” Both of these are easy to explain, but because they don’t teach any of this in school, most people don’t learn it until or unless they experience serious medical situations.

“Why am I still getting billed if I’ve already hit my deductible?”

The deductible issue often confuses people. First, you pay a monthly premium (think of it like a subscription) to have insurance. Only instead of getting to watch the newest juicy goodness on Netflix, your premium gives you some benefits.

Along with the premium, you get may get certain things for which you don’t have to pay extra, like a flu shot or an annual exam. But for lots of other things, like doctors’ appointments and procedures, you will likely have a copay or co-insurance, as we discussed above. All of these charges add up until you hit your deductible.

Your deductible is the amount you must pay out of pocket for covered healthcare services before your insurance plan starts to pay. Once you’ve met your deductible, then your insurance plan will usually cover a percentage of the remaining costs as defined by your plan.

Then, if you keep racking up medical expenses, there’s a point at which you may hit your out-of-pocket maximum. As you may have guessed, that’s the maximum you’ll have to pay out of your own pocket, after which (not counting your monthly premiums), the insurance company pays for everything…until you hit the end of the year. And then on January 1st, everything re-sets to zero.

Happy New Year by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Let’s say your deductible is $1000 and your out-of-pocket maximum is $5000. That means that until you hit your deductible (and paid $1000) you will pay providers whatever your insurance policy says you must pay up to that amount. That includes co-pays and co-insurance for doctors, pharmacies, and everyone else.

Once you’ve paid $1000 (either in one lump sum or in a bunch smaller payments), your insurance kicks in, and from the next dollar of medical expenses (so, $1001) up to $5000 (your out-of-pocket maximum), your insurance company will pay a percentage (often 80%) and you’ll only be responsible for the remaining (often 20%) until you reach your out-of-pocket maximum.

But why don’t the numbers add up?

Remember those “network savings?” Insurance companies and the providers in their networks have a deal. Their contractual agreements say that if their policyholders are serviced by these doctors (or hospitals or pharmacies), there’s a limit on how much they can charge. 

Let’s look at it in action.

If you have no insurance: Your doctor fixes your booboo and charges you $1000. You pay your doctor $1000. No coupons, no discounts. No paperwork.

If you have insurance, but haven’t hit your deductible for the year: Your doctor fixes your booboo and charges $1000. The insurance company immediately says, “Hey, Doc, we’ve got a deal. You aren’t allowed to charge our policyholders $1000. You can only charge $400!” The doctor grumbles.

The insurance company pays nothing (because you haven’t hit your deductible) but you get the benefit of a discounted total cost that is much lower than what the doctor wanted to charge. And everything you pay, including this $400, adds up until you hit your deductible.

If you have insurance, have hit your deductible, but haven’t hit your out-of-pocket maximum: Now, the insurance company pays a big chunk (like 80%) of covered costs and you pay the rest. Everything you’ve paid toward your deductible, plus everything you pay now, piles up as you head toward your out-of-pocket maximum.

If you have insurance, have hit your deductible, and have hit your out-of-pocket maximum: This is that weird circumstance where you’ve had so many medical expenses in a year (boo!) that you finally end up not having to pay for anything (yay!).

So, fixed booboos and tonsils removed and whatnot later, all of your out-of-pocket expenses reach your maximum, $5000. As of the next dollar of medical expenses, $5001, insurance pays for everything, and you shouldn’t even have to peek at the paperwork beyond eyeballing those great “You owe provider $0.00” lines.

WHY DO YOU NEED AN EOB?

So, now that you know what an EOB says and why the numbers are sometimes wacky, you may be wondering why you need them, and perhaps more importantly, how long you have to keep them. This is why, when my clients ask me, “Do I have to keep these EOBs?” or “How long do I have to keep these EOBs?” the answer is, it depends.

(Sorry, campers. With so much in the world of paper and information organizing, the answer is always some variation on “it depends.”)

As much as you don’t want to do it, as a policyholder, it’s really important to review your EOBs carefully to ensure accuracy so you understand your financial obligations related to healthcare services.

If you pay every bill the doctor sends, without checking it against your EOBs, you might be overpaying by either duplicating what insurance has already paid (or is in the process of paying) or paying more than the discounted rate you’re due because of network savings.

If you pay every medical bill w/o checking it against your EOBs, you might be overpaying by either duplicating what insurance has already paid or paying more than the discounted rate you're due because of network savings. Share on X

EOBs exist so that:

  • You can understand real healthcare costs. Your EOB breaks down what the doctor charged, what the insurance company actually “lets” them charge, and what (if anything) the insurance company paid on your behalf. When you see all the actual numbers, you may get a sense of whether you’re overpaying for health insurance (vs. the coverage you’re getting for your needs), and you’ll definitely have a better sense of how U.S. healthcare finances work. (Sorry. You’ll probably want a cookie or a nap to cheer you up after that.) 

There’s transparency so the process doesn’t seem so opaque. Yes, unless you take delight in checking the math, just seeing the billed charges, allowed amounts, network savings/contractual adjustments, and your responsibility (including deductibles, copayments, and/or coinsurance) gives you the opportunity (whether or not you take it) to get a handle on what the real costs of your health issues are.

  • You can verify how a claim was processed — I’m sure most administrative offices for medical practitioners and hospitals are stellar professionals. But people make mistakes, and computers make it easy to make mistakes, and those mistakes can have real consequences for you as a healthcare consumer. If you get a bill that doesn’t match your EOBs, it gives you the opportunity to call attention to the discrepancy. EOBs help you verify that your insurance claims were processed correctly and that your insurance benefits (for which you pay!) get applied accurately. 

Gavel: Creative Commons/U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Aspen Reid/af.milvv

  • You have documentation to help with disputes and appeals — Again, the EOB lays out the process by which a claim was handled. When you see in black-and-white that a procedure or treatment wasn’t covered due to a “non-covered code” that you don’t think is applicable, you can chase down the error to dispute it or work with your medical provider to appeal. 
  • You get documentation for your medical and financial records. — You don’t need to keep your EOBs for tax purposes, per se. The IRS doesn’t consider your EOBs as proof of your medical costs; that’s because EOBs don’t say what you paid, but what the insurance company paid. Yes, an EOB indicates what the insurance company believes you owed the doctor, pharmacy, or hospital, but is not proof that you actually paid for those expenses.

EOBs document what healthcare services you received and the associated costs. As such, they can help you track information to accurately prepare your taxes with regard to healthcare-related tax deductions and remember what reimbursement you want to seek from health savings accounts (HSAs) or flexible spending accounts (FSAs).

  • You can use EOBs to help you plan your future healthcare expenses. Eyeballing your EOBs will help you estimate the out-of-pocket costs you and your family generally use. This might help you plan how you budget for anticipated medical expenses (especially early in each calendar year, before you’ve hit your deductible).

HOW LONG SHOULD YOU KEEP YOUR EOBs?

I find that almost everyone saves their EOBs much longer than necessary. 

For Typical Individuals and Families

If your medical history is uncomplicated (and your insurance company allows you to access your EOBs online in your health insurance portal), especially if the EOBs are accessible for at least one year, you may want to request that they cease sending you paper copies.

If, in a typical year, you get one EOB after your annual checkup and another after you get a mammogram, and that’s about it, just check your EOBs online. If you like to keep your own records, download the digital version as a PDF you can keep in your own digital records on your computer or in the cloud. As always, keep your digital records backed up!

For most people, I recommend keeping your EOBs for about one year, or at least until you do your taxes for the prior calendar year. This way, you can track your healthcare expenses, compare them with any medical bills you receive, and ensure that insurance claims have been processed correctly.

Most of my clients will actually compare and contrast numbers when paper documents are set side-by-side; highlight, circle, or otherwise note important figures. Start the year with one folder, like “EOBs 2024.” If you tend to have a lot of medical bills (perhaps if you’re dealing with an ongoing health concern for which you have lots of medical appointments), make a folder for each calendar quarter.

For Complex or Special Situations

If you get involved in a dispute or lawsuit with either a medical provider or your insurance company, keep all of the relevant bills, EOBs, correspondence, and contemporaneous notes you take during phone calls or meetings until the dispute is resolved or the lawsuit is settled or adjudicated.

If you have difficulty wrangling these EOBs and bills, work with a professional organizer (like me!) who can make sense of paperwork. Find one near you (or who works virtually) at the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals.

And if you have trouble resolving a claim, enlist the help of an independent Claims Assistance Professional (CAP) through the The Alliance of Claims Assistance Professionals.

When An EOB Is Not Really What You Need

EOBs are designed to track financial information about your medical experiences.

So, yes if you’ve got complicated or chronic long-term conditions, EOBs may help you track the history of your illness, the dates of important procedures, and the physicians you have seen.

However, I encourage clients to either scan older EOBs or use them to develop a log of the timeline and essential information in a spreadsheet before discarding the actual paperwork. Reduce the paperwork and streamline the data!

For more information on maintaining your health records, read Reference Files Master Class (Part 3) — Medical Papers.

No matter what, be sure to protect your (and your family’s) privacy and your personal information. Shred EOBs to prevent identity theft or unauthorized access to your health information.


As we reach the last quarter of the year, it’s helpful to review EOBs to get a sense of your medical benefit usage so you can plan whether it makes sense to have a procedure this year (if you’ve already hit, or are close to hitting, your out-of-pocket) of see if you’ve been over- or under-insured this year in order to plan next year’s coverage.

Stay organized, stay safe, and be healthy!

Posted on: October 2nd, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 16 Comments

It’s Monday — the first Monday of a new month, of a new quarter, and the last quarter of the year. It may suddenly feel like a lot is riding on getting things crossed of your list so you can make those dreams come true before 2023 is in the rear-view mirror.

RECAPPING THE ESSENTIALS OF TACKLING YOUR TO-DO LIST

Back in May, in Frogs, Tomatoes, and Bees: Time Techniques to Get Things Done, we looked at a spate of productivity concepts for breaking down the hours of your (preferably time-blocked) day to effectively use your discretionary time (that is, the part of your schedule not determined by your boss, school, or firmly-scheduled obligations). We started with the essential elements of accomplishing things:

Knowing what to do — This involves a brain dump to capture every potential task stuck in your head, adding to it from everything in your various in-boxes and buckets (GTD-style), and creating a master list, whether that’s pen-on-paper or a task app.

Knowing what to do first — Prioritizing tasks involves a complex intersection of what is important and urgent. We shorthanded the process with the Eisenhower Matrix (which, as explained in Paper Doll Shares Presidential Wisdom on Productivity, wasn’t invented by the Ike we like, but was attributed to him due to a speech he gave and was made more famous by Stephen Covey).

The Eisenhower Matrix gives you the opportunity to (literally or just figuratively) graph each task from your massive brain-dumped list to identify where it falls along a continuum of importance and urgency. From January through mid-April, filing your taxes is important, but it only becomes more urgent as St. Patrick’s Day is behind you and April 15th draws nearer.

Conversely, this Friday’s registration date for an adult education class on French cooking has what appears to be an urgent task; however, if learning how to make Julia Child’s famed Boeuf Bourguignon isn’t that compelling and you were only doing it to please your mother-in-law, it may fall low on the importance scale.

Julia Child on KUHT/By KUHT via wikimedia commons

A big part of identifying the value of a task may involve looking at what your motivation is. You perform extrinsically-motivated behaviors in order to receive some external reward (or to avoid an external punishment). You might work at a job for a paycheck, work hard in a class to get the grades that allow you to get a scholarship, or make that Boeuf Bourguignon to keep the peace between family members (because it’s hard for people to snipe when their mouths are full).

Intrinsically-motivated behaviors are those that you do because they fulfill you personally. These include passion projects like volunteering, participating in hobbies and sports, or even simultaneously compelling but challenging life activities, like parenting. 

Sometimes, you may find yourself frustrated that the very things you value for your sanity-preserving self-care are less valued by society. (This is largely because, as we discussed in our series on toxic productivity, late-stage capitalism values producing work that yields revenue, generally for the people above you in the hierarchy. Sigh.)

Of course, the ideal is to find opportunities for extrinsically- and intrinsically-motivating behaviors to dovetail. When that happens, the things that are important are easier to accomplish because they give you personal fulfillment and extrinsic rewards.

Making something a high priority, per se, doesn’t ensure that you’ll do it, but if that task is important, not just for keeping you out of debtor’s prison but also making your heart sing, you’ll do it less begrudgingly, and if it’s urgent, you’ll find you’re less likely to procrastinate. 

You’re probably not going to find that your love of the game will allow you to become a professional pickleball player — more power to you if you do! — but you may find that by becoming more efficient and effective at your for-a-paycheck job will yield more free time to pursue a passion that could turn into a new livelihood.

Once you gauge your each task’s relative importance and urgency, you can move forward to knowing what to get done today (vs. delaying to later in the week), what you might delegate, and what you can hang it in the maybe/someday closet.

Do it! — The final piece of the puzzle involves making time to do what you’ve decided to accomplish.

MANAGING OUR DAYS BY MANAGING OUR HOURS

Back in that post I referenced, Frogs, Tomatoes, and Bees: Time Techniques to Get Things Done, I reviewed well-known and lesser techniques for hunkering down and getting tasks done. I encourage you to read the prior post for details of the methods you find less familiar, but in general, the post reviewed:

Pomodoro Timer by Michael Mayer CC By 2.0 Deed

  • The Pomodoro Technique — At its most basic, the process involves identifying a task to work on now, setting a timer for 25 minutes, focusing on that task for 25 minutes without interruption, and taking a short break. Proponents believe it short-circuits procrastination but detractors note that it prevents getting into a flow state.
  • Tocks — This variation on the Pomodoro Technique involves working 45 minutes rather than 25, and adds the step of taking note of distractions as they arise for later analysis.
  • The 90-Minute Focus Block — Here, the work blocks expand to 90 minutes and the breaks extend to 20. The expanded time frame is based on research in neurobiology and how our brains use potassium and sodium ions to conduct electrical signals indicates a biological component to our ability to effectively focus.
  • 52/17 Method — Splitting the difference between the traditional Pomodoro and the 90-Minute Focus Block, this accents 52-minute sprints of dedicated and intense work followed by mentally-refreshing breaks. It’s backed by behavioral analysis rather than neurobiology. 
  • The Flowtime Technique — This method starts like all of the others, with uninterrupted work sessions, but instead of ceasing at the behest of an alarm or other external force, you work until you start to feel distracted or mentally or physically fatigued. While this method involves a lot of administrative work for logging both distractions and statistics regarding work patterns, it’s probably the most ideal for creative endeavors, as you ignore the clock and embrace the flow.

These methods work in concert with the principles we’ve discussed regarding time blocking, particularly from these two posts:

Struggling To Get Things Done? Paper Doll’s Advice & The Task Management & Time Blocking Virtual Summit 2022

Highlights from the 2023 Task Management & Time Blocking Summit

Putting it all together, you figure out what you need to do (overall), identify your priorities, and block your time to ensure ample space in your schedule for accomplishing tasks. Then you get to it!

USE THE RULE OF 3 TO KEEP LIFE FROM GETTING IN THE WAY

All of the above is great for once you get your butt in the chair and have identified a specific task, but let’s face it, getting to that point? It’s a lot.

If you work in an environment where most of your daily schedule can be firmly set in stone (or bytes) with very little to distract you, you’re lucky. But most people experience a multitude of interruptions from co-workers and bosses and tiny humans and senior parents (whether they have physical challenges or just need tech support). Others are dealing with mental and physical health crises and have limited spoons (that is, energy and capacity) to get through the day, let alone accomplish prioritized tasks.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, there’s a productivity principle that can help you get a foothold when things feel like their going off the rails.

It’s called the Rule of 3

At its most basic, the Rule of 3 asks you to apply your focused attention, intentionally, to three goals or main tasks for a specific time frame. Generally, and the way we’re going to examine it, that time frame is a day, but you could apply it to a week (or a four-day conference, or a working weekend) or whatever period of time you need.

The key is that you are concentrating on a small number of crucial tasks to maximize your focus, your effectiveness, and your overall productivity. The steps are simple:

Identify three key tasks. 

When you plan your day, identify the three most important goals or tasks that you want to accomplish. These may all be work tasks, or they could be a combination: one key work task, one goal item for your family, and one for self-care.

1, 2, 3 Photo by Magda Ehlers

These three should be whatever you think will have the most significant impact on your personal projects, your work projects, or whatever matters the most to you.

And obviously these aren’t the only three things you’re going to get done in a day. You’re not going to skip processing email or picking your kid up from Drama Club or brushing your teeth. We ALL do more than three things in the day. But the Rule of 3 says:

Whatever else I’m doing today, I am absolutely focusing my time and attention to

GET THESE THREE GLORIOUS TASKS COMPLETED!

We’ve already talked at length about the value of the Eisenhower Matrix in prioritizing, and that’s a great place to start, but there are other concepts to help you pick your three key tasks.

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. We’ve all had days where we fiddled around and didn’t start working on “the thing” until just about the time we knew we had to being in order to finish on time.

But imagine not doing that. Imagine getting the thing done. And then the next thing. And one more. Imagine not taking all the time available and just taking the time necessary. 

Limiting yourself to three tasks creates a sense of urgency. If you recognize that to honor your obligation to yourself, you will focus on achieving the three key tasks, you cut procrastination off at the pass. No fiddling.

Next, experts in cognitive psychology have found that we generally have limited attention and cognitive resources. We get tired. We get bored. We get distracted. We get antsy. We get hangry. By narrowing your focus to a small number of tasks, you are able allocate your attention and mental energy more effectively, which aligns with the Rule of 3’s idea of prioritization.

Finally, Hick’s Law is a psychological principle that says that the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices. Once you limit your choices for the day to just three key tasks, you are reducing the signal-to-noise ratio and the decision-making complexity. The less you must think about doing, the more you can focus on the task at hand. (And remember, you can always do more of your important (and urgent) things once you’ve done your big three!) 

Commit to each of the three priorities and focus.

OK, yes, you still have three things, and you’ll have to decide which of these to do first, and second, and third. You’ll have to figure out into which time block you’ll slot each item. And then you’ll have to blur out two of them while you focus on a third.

In theory, the Rule of 3 calls on you to focus your energy and attention on completing these tasks before moving on to less critical or lower-priority activities. And obviously it discourages multitasking and giving into distractions while working toward finishing the key goals. You can use any of the focused work-session techniques listed up above once you sit down to focus on the task, but before you can focus on the tasks, you have to commit to them, to the idea that you WILL do these three key tasks today.

OK, let’s step back.

Paper Doll recognizes the need for a reality check. You will not always be able to tackle all three key tasks first before getting on with your day unless your efforts do not require the involvement of other human beings (whether tiny humans or large egos).

For example, last Friday, my car was finally ready for pickup. It’s been a long two months since it was stolen, recovered, and had to go through many, many repairs. (For reference, Organize to Prevent (or Recover From) a Car Theft tells the initial tale; everything since has been a nightmare of dropped balls, global supply chain failures, and random poopyheads.) But I also wanted to get my flu shot and had two essential financial tasks.

The car issue was actually a series of interlocking tasks. I had to confirm the specifics with the body shop, and wanted to view and approve all the work before paying my deductible and returning the rental car, which involved more phone calls and scheduling, and I needed to approve the last round of digital insurance payments.

The car goal was both important and urgent, as I didn’t want to be charged for further days of the rental car, and frankly, I missed my adorable red Kia Soul as if it were a child away at summer camp for far too long. But while most of the car’s mechanical and body work were completed, there were a few painting-related flaws, and a review of the final no-longer-estimated estimate yielded lots of new questions. However, by staying single-minded on the task and not being distracted by calls, texts, and emails, it eventually got done, and I felt an immense sense of relief and completing this key task for my day.

Getting my flu shot involved confirming that my pharmacy had the flu vaccine and that no appointment was necessary. (Last year, appointments were required and only given on certain days of the week, which often conflicted with my client schedule.) And the bank tasks, though easy, were dependent in part on the arrival of the mail, and the fill-in postal carrier did not deliver the mail until close to 6 p.m.

Celebrate your wins! 

Being successful with the Rule of 3 means acknowledging completion of the task and feeling satisfaction. Far too often, we rush through what we must do without celebrating that we’ve actually done it. However, taking the time to celebrate wins improves your confidence, boosts your motivation, and will make it easier to approach other tasks (especially long-avoided ones) with verve.

For a sense of psychological benefit of this step in completing key tasks (particularly those we might define as “adulting,”) I direct you to Hazel Thornton’s recent post, High Five Friday. She explores turning this celebration of completion of key tasks from a solitary act into a social one, and as I’ve watched people follow Hazel’s lead, the evident delight people experience is palpable!

Re-evaluate, or Lather/Rinse/Repeat: The “What’s Next?” Step.

OK, so you figured out what to do, did it, and gave yourself an atta-girl or atta-boy. Now review the process. Evaluate your progress to determine the big question: what’s next?

(Fans of The West Wing recognize the power of those two words. Lin-Manuel Miranda created this video for the late, great The West Wing Weekly podcast. There are two profanities within (at :50 and 1:04), so please be forewarned.)

This is the time to evaluate your progress (and your process for getting there). Determine the next three most important tasks to focus on, whether that’s for the remainder of today, or for tomorrow, or your next key time period.

You’re creating a continuing cycle of identifying key tasks, prioritizing them, completing them, doing a happy dance and high-fiving yourself, and reevaluating what worked and what didn’t. All of this is designed to help you maintain a higher level of the good, non-toxic kind of productivity that keeps you aligned with your ultimate goals.

Why does the Rule of 3 work?

First, it’s simple, so you may actually try it. Everyone loves a new productivity technique, but the more working parts, the less likely you will be to do more than think about using it.

Second, three is a magic number.

Whether it’s “lions and tigers and bears” or “faith, hope, and charity” or if you’ve been hearing a lot about the Roman Empire lately, “friends, Romans, countrymen.” It’s easy to keep three daily priorities in your head, so if you check in with yourself at lunchtime or mid-afternoon to see how you’re doing on your goals, you can mentally measure your progress in seconds.

Finally, and most importantly, the Rule of 3 is an effective approach because it prevents the overwhelm and decision fatigue that often results from having a long, fiddly, and overwhelming to-do list.

The Rule of 3 is an effective approach because it prevents the overwhelm and decision fatigue that often results from having a long, fiddly, and overwhelming to-do list. Share on X

Narrowing your focus to just three tasks sets you up to more efficiently allocate your time and energy, so you can accomplish more meaningful things. Again, this may be work, but could be personal enrichment or self-care. Completing a project for work may be important, but exercising and having essential medical appointments and living a fulfilled life are of inestimable importance and urgency. In other words, you matter. Paper Doll says so!

ADAPT THE RULE OF 3 TO YOUR NEEDS

As with any productivity concept, the Rule of 3 is a only guideline. There is no “boss” of the Rule of 3 in the same way that practitioners of GTD look to David Allen; indeed, I’ve done extensive research and have yet to find an originator. I originally read about the Rule of 3 almost ten years ago in Chris Bailey‘s The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy.

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Bailey, in turn, learned of it from J D Meier in his book, Getting Results the Agile Way.

I strongly believe that the “rules” in productivity only exist to give us lanes to follow. Stick to the rules until you identify ways you can modify them to more effectively support you. Then head off-road. Do you, boo!

You may choose to use the Rule of 3 daily, or only on work days. Perhaps you’ll find you only need it when life gets overwhelming, or when you’re counting down days to vacation and have to focus on what allows you to actually get out of Dodge and get to someplace sun-drenched.

However you apply it, the key concept is that you’re going to maintain a balance between setting ambitious goals and being realistic about what you can accomplish within a specific timeframe with your entirely human, non-robot, body.

For Further Exploration

If you’d like to read more about the Rule of 3, consider the following:

Get More Done With the Rule of 3 (The Art of Manliness)

How to Use the Rule of 3 to Get More Done and Regain Control of your Day (The Ladders)

The Rule Of Three: A Productivity Hack to Achieve Your Goals Right Now (Dan Silvestre)


If you focused on just three things today, what would they be?