Recently, I had the opportunity to teach in one of our staff meetings. I was asked to teach on productivity in anticipation of life returning to some form of what was considered normal. As I was planning to teach, my mind went to the times I clean out my closet. I think some lessons are transferable to preparing for the new season we will soon be in.

There is a great sense of pride that I feel every time I clean my closet. My shirts all hung, color-coded with the hangers facing the same direction. My jackets all are smartly ordered from casual to formal, hanging organized on another bar. There is a meticulousness to the way my jeans are folded and stacked on a shelf by color; blue, black, and grey. Even my shoes are sorted and put away. Dress shoes in one bin, causal shoes in another bin, and athletic shoes in yet another.

Usually, when I’m finished cleaning out my closet, I fill a large bag with clothes and shoes that I’ve decided to send to Goodwill. The results of this incredible accomplishment that left me so proud, last about three weeks. I don’t know how it happens, my shirts are out of order, jeans are in a pile on the shelf, my shoes are mostly lying on the ground in a heap.

After a couple months of living with this disorganized mess, I repeat the work of cleaning out my closet again. Here lies the mystery. After a short time from when my closet was last cleaned out, I have another large bag of clothes and shoes ready to be delivered to Goodwill. Where does all that stuff come from? A small purchase here, a new shirt there, the white tennis shoes I have to have collected and added to the disorganization and clutter.

I think COVID may end up being like that time between when my closet is clean and organized and right before I need to clean it again. Before COVID, Like me, you may have had a pretty organized routine to your life. You may have had a set schedule, you knew your priorities, you may have even had a functional productivity system.

But some of those priorities look more like my once nicely organized now disheveled jeans piled up on a shelf. I want to remind you of some principles that you can use to clean your “priority” closet. These fundamentals will help you reset your priorities, maybe even filling up a proverbial Goodwill bag with activities that won’t fit you in post-pandemic life.

Growth-Minded People:

A valuable indicator of a growth-minded person is how he or she chooses to use their time. The fact that you’re reading this blog indicates that you would consider yourself a growth-minded person at some level. To continually grow, be productive, and have a sense of ease and balance to your life, you can’t allow your use of time to prohibit you.

Could it be, it’s time to “organize the closet of your life” and re-prioritize your time. When you are clear on your priorities, it clarifies what you say yes to and to what you say no.

This visual reminds me that we really don’t consider time in it’s entirety. We think in moments or in chunks of time. But looking at how, on average, people use time may cause a person to ask, “Am I really okay with where my time is being spent or worse, waisted?”

The most common tool for determining how you will prioritize the activities in your life is the Eisenhower Matrix, which calibrates Urgency and Importance.  Let’s extend the analogy of cleaning our closet and how to organize life using the four quadrants.

 The Essentials:

Things on the top left are Urgent and Important. They are essential to your wellbeing, and they have a timeframe associated with them. These include activities like the responsibilities of a job description, deadline-driven task, paying your bills, and events that need your immediate time and action.

In your closet, you have items that are essential to any wardrobe. For each person, it may be different. For me, it would include blue jeans, black jeans, and black t-shirts. They are foundational to everything else in my closet. Without these essentials, the rest of my wardrobe doesn’t work.

In the same way, some activities have to happen for your life to “work”. This is the group of activities that require your focus, energy, and attention.

The Ugly Christmas Sweater:

On the bottom, left are the things that are Urgent but NOT Important, at minimum, not important to you. Many times these are someone else’s priority. They come in the form of interruptions, unnecessary meetings, or busywork. These activities tend to be inconsistent, but can be predicted based on seasons of life.

They are like the ugly Christmas sweater that you have to keep for when someone has the hair-brained idea to have an ugly sweater contest. You don’t want to disappoint or act like you don’t care, so you hang on to the sweater.

Literally, right now, I have an ugly sweater, a silver sequenced sport jacket, and a complete 80’s outfit to be ready to respond to someone else’s idea.

Just like the ugly sweater contest, these activities in this quadrant should be avoided.

The Little Black Dress or Black Suit:

Supposedly Coco Chanel said, every woman should have a classic, little black dress. And I have heard it said that No man’s wardrobe is complete without at least one classic black suit.  

As a guy, I can’t speak for the black dress, but I can say that having a black suit is really important, but not urgent. That is why I relate it to the activities in the top right quadrant that are NOT Urgent, but they ARE Important.

Like my black suit, these activities are many times forgotten about or cut from our schedules. These could be things like spiritual disciplines, exercise, personal growth, sleep, health, and relationship building.

Because they are not urgent, we don’t see or feel the immediate effect of not doing them. Then the day comes when you have to wear a suit or the dress, and for some reason, it doesn’t fit…it has shrunk while hanging in the closet.

It is crucial to prioritize this area of your life. Get a plan and learn to manage these activities. There are things worse than not being able to fit in your suit. And when the reality of the effects of not prioritizing this area hit, it will be too late.

Trevor Moawad, in his book “It Takes What It Takes,” says it clearly, “Our challenge every day is to ignore the choice that makes us feel better now so we can make the choice that can sustain us.”

Sweatpants and Board Shorts:

Finally, on the bottom are activities that are NOT Urgent and NOT Important. Some of the things in the quadrant would be various forms of entertainment, social media, and gaming. None of which are bad, but binging on any of them is simply a waste of time.

Like sweatpants of board shorts, they are incredibly comfortable to wear. Still, there is definitely an appropriate time and place to wear them. The same with activities in this quadrant. Learn to limit these activities.

Many people spend too much of their time doing things that are not essential or not building them into the person they want to become. These same people would not claim Netflix binging or allowing themselves to be continually interrupted with other people’s agendas to be their priorities. But actions say otherwise.

So if you were to review your life over the last eight to nine weeks, what adjustments could you, would you, should you make to your priorities? No better time than the present to clean out your closet.