Author Archive for Carolyn

corner of day timer with to-do list title at top of page against blue folder and coffee cup on desk. Power in micro goals

How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed by Big Projects

Posted by Carolyn on

February 12, 2026

Why Breaking Tasks Into Smaller Steps Works

If you’re wondering how to stop feeling overwhelmed, the first step is realizing that the size of a task matters. When a project feels too big, your brain often freezes. You know what you want to accomplish, but the path to get there isn’t clear — and that’s when procrastination creeps in.

Breaking tasks into smaller steps creates clarity and momentum. Suddenly, what seemed impossible becomes doable. And the more bite-sized actions you complete, the more confidence you build to tackle the next step.

How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed by Big Projects

Here’s the good news: feeling overwhelmed is normal. It happens to everyone — my clients, colleagues, and even me. The trick is to shrink the project into micro tasks so small that you can’t fail.

Think micro. Tiny. Minuscule. Nano. Whatever word clicks for you.

The goal is an action so small that you are guaranteed to be successful. Not maybe successful but guaranteed. Completing it feels almost silly — but that’s exactly what makes it powerful. These tiny steps bypass resistance and give your brain quick wins, which is the fastest way to overcome overwhelm.

How to Get Unstuck When You’re Procrastinating

When you’re stuck, it’s usually because you haven’t defined the very next step clearly. Sitting down to break a project into manageable pieces and writing them down provides a clear roadmap.

For example, let’s say you want to reduce the number of books in your home. You love your books, they’re everywhere, and the idea of tackling them all at once is overwhelming. Here’s how to break it down:

Micro Task 1: Choose one room.
Micro Task 2: Pick one bookcase in that room.
Micro Task 3: Pick a shelf on that bookcase.
Micro Task 4: Decide which end of the shelf to start from.
Micro Task 5: Choose a limit you can manage — 15 minutes, half a shelf, or 20 books.

Even if it feels ridiculously small, these steps guarantee progress. And when progress starts, momentum follows.

A Simple Decluttering Strategy When You Feel Overwhelmed

This method works for any project — at home or in business. It doesn’t matter if you’re decluttering, planning a new marketing campaign, or writing a big report. Shrinking the first step makes the task manageable and reduces stress.

The size of the step doesn’t matter — starting it does. A tiny, completed task is better than a huge, overwhelming one that keeps you stuck. Quick wins build confidence, which fuels the next action, and the next after that.

Small Steps to Achieve Big Goals in Your Home or Business

To stop feeling overwhelmed, commit to breaking every project into micro steps:

Define your very next action.
Make it so small you are guaranteed to be successful even if it feels almost silly.
Complete it. Celebrate it. Repeat.

By focusing on what’s achievable right now, you reduce overwhelm, minimize procrastination, and build real momentum toward your goals.

Remember, success doesn’t come from giant leaps. It comes from stacking small, achievable actions until they add up to something meaningful.

Tags : micro tasks, organizing strategies, Procrastination, professional organizers

Stepping Back to reflect is a key part of the planning process. It has its own step now.

GRWM: Stepping Back to Reflect

Posted by Carolyn on

January 30, 2026

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Planning for Prosperity Is Now a 5-Step Process

Everyone else was stepping back to reflect. Maybe I ought to as well?

A question landed in my inbox recently:

“Do you actually use that entire four-step planning process yourself — for your business or your life?”

It’s a fair question. Because we all know people who teach systems they don’t actually use or follow their own process and advice. But for me? Yes, completely; and ironically, using my own process this year is exactly why it changed.

For five years, Planning for Prosperity had four steps: Stepping Out, Stepping Up, Stepping In, and Stepping Through. That worked beautifully. Until this year, when my own planning process was unexpectedly influenced by those around me.

I Kept Bumping Into the Same Message: Reflect

During December and into January, I was working through my usual planning routine. Everywhere I turned — I mean everywhere — people were talking about spending more time reflecting. People I follow. My executive coach brother. Accounts I hadn’t paid attention to in a while. Even a workshop leader from one of my professional associations. All of them were emphasizing “Look back before you move forward.”

Now, I did have reflection in my process. But it lived inside what I called Stepping Out. It wasn’t the star of the show and shared space with the task of creating a bold vision that took one out of one’s comfort zone.

This year with so many people telling me that stepping back to reflect deserved more time and attention, I got curious. Instead of rushing past reflection so I could get to the “real” planning, I slowed down and gave it more room.

What I Noticed (And Didn’t Expect)

Let’s be honest — reflection is not always comfortable.

Looking at what didn’t work? Ugh.
Seeing where I played small? Also ugh.
Dreaming big enough to scare myself? Definitely out of my comfort zone.

But something shifted when I treated reflection as its own phase instead of a quick exercise to get through. My emotional reaction changed.

Instead of anxious, I felt curious.
>Instead of frustrated, I felt… surprisingly grateful.
>Instead of pressure, I felt grounded.

It stopped being “let’s review what went wrong” and became “ohhh… this is what I’m learning about myself.” Information learned from reflection on our past year informs our approach going forward. The process needs the energy of your attention to pull out all the information you can garner. That information feeds into the rest of the planning. What to do more, or less of? What needs a different approach? The reflection process needs strength and depth to support the other four steps with concrete information.

Step One Is Now “Stepping Back to Reflect”

Planning for Prosperity is now a five-step process, and it starts with Stepping Back. This step is about intentional reflection before planning forward. It creates awareness, emotional readiness, and clarity — not just a to-do list.

I was already using the exercise: What you wanted vs. what you got vs. how you contributed to that outcome. This is a powerful exercise that I love. It illuminates what was working and what wasn’t. The exercise spotlights one’s own behaviour – good back or indifferent – that contributed to that outcomes. It’s a fact-finding mission that produces insight and information.

With the reflection process taking the main stage in its own step, I added journaling prompts that took me deeper. For example:

What am I ready to leave behind?
What am I excited to carry forward?
When did I do hard things?
What actions actually moved the needle?

Those questions changed the tone of my planning. Instead of focusing on the gaps, I was looking at the gain. (Check out Dan Sullivan’s book The Gap and the Gain). I also started seeing evidence — resilience, growth, consistency, courage. From that place, visioning the year ahead felt energizing instead of forced. Once I had that clarity, the rest of the process felt more grounded and realistic.

Stepping Out — choosing goals that stretch me beyond what’s comfortable
Stepping Up — putting the real work, time, and money on the calendar, what is possible
Stepping In — managing the work by fine-tuning goals in focused 90-day blocks
Stepping Through — dealing with the fear, resistance, procrastination, and “gremlins” that always show up when we grow and evolve.

The structure is the same just better.

Why My Business Is Called Caldwell Evolution

As humans we are constantly evolving. That’s why my business is Caldwell Evolution – I’m here to support clients on their evolutionary journey. Our businesses evolve. Our tools should evolve too. This wasn’t a rebrand or a theory update. It came from sitting at my own desk, with my own plans, noticing what actually helped — and being willing to adjust.

Adding Stepping Back doesn’t slow the process down. It makes everything that follows more intentional, more sustainable, and honestly… a lot more helpful and therefore kinder.

And that’s a way better place to build a year from.

Planning Productivity

a journal, pen and coffee cup with coffee on an outdoor wood table in the sunshine Graphic of GRWM planning 2026 demonstrating the intention to plan the year.

GRWM: Planning for 2026

Posted by Carolyn on

December 29, 2025

· 6 Comments

It’s planning season and time to plan for 2026 as the New Year looms on the horizon.

I’ve identified four steps to the planning process. While I primarily teach this as a business planning tool, it can be used for planning out any set of goals or dreams you might have. Loosing weight? Landscaping a yard? These for steps apply just as well. Here we go.

Stepping Out – of your comfort zone

This first step has two parts each with its own function. Both require stepping out of your comfort zone and both will help with planning for 2026.

Part One

The process begins with a review of the previous year. This review not only helps to identify successes and challenges from the previous year, but all provides a stable platform from which to move forward.

Start by taking a piece of paper and dividing it into three columns. Title the first column “What I Wanted” and write down in this column the goals and achievements that you wanted for 2025. The second column is titled “What I Got”. In this column, beside the list of what you wanted, write down what you actually got. You may have achieved your goals or you may have supercharged them. Some of you may be disappointed with the results of some of your goals. Suspend judgement in this exercise and simply write the truth as you see it.

The third column is titled “How did I Contribute to this Result?”. What hard things did you do? Where did you hold back and play small? Here is the out of the comfort zone space for you. Suspend judgement and simply review and acknowledge what you wanted, what you got and how you contributed to the outcome, both positive and negative.

My clients often find this to be a very revealing exercise. In some cases, things didn’t happen because they simply failed to continue as a priority. In other cases, things happened because they worked consistently in the direction of their goals. Recognizing how we contribute to success provides us with tools to move forward into planning 2026.

There may be things you choose to leave behind in 2025. Not everything undone needs to move forward. Leave behind what no longer serves your purposes.

You now have a stable platform from which to work moving forward.

Part Two

The second part is a visioning exercise. I call it the view from the top of the mountain. Other coaches have different names for it but the process is the same. Some call it magic wand thinking!

Close your eyes and imagine yourself one year from now at the close of 2026. What goals have you achieved. What are you doing? Who is with your? How are you feeling? What can you do now that your goals have been achieved? What else did you accomplish? Imagine the tastes, smells, sights, sounds that are all around you now that you have accomplished your goals. Make this vision as vibrant and as detailed as possible.

The world of high performance sport and the research in neuroscience that has followed, has revealed that your brain can’t tell the difference between what you imagined you did and what you actually did. If you imagine yourself getting up and running 5 am each morning for 28 days straight, then when you actually do get up at 5 am and go running, your brain is convinced this is something it has done before. Rather than feeling fear or conflict, if feels familiarity and comfort.

Once you are really clear on what the end of 2026 looks, feels, tastes, smells like, turn around and look back towards the beginning of the year. Look at the path that has brought you to the top of the mountain. What did you accomplish and when? What did you do halfway through the year? A quarter of the way? Three- quarters of the way?

Stepping Up – to identify the work that needs to be done

This second step requires stepping up to the real work that would need to be done if you are to accomplish your goals. Pull out a calendar. When would the work happen? What else do you have on your plate? Do you have other commitments that might impede your progress? What things might you have to let go? Stepping up includes creating a financial plan for your goals. Match up your financial resources with your calendar so that the funds you need are available when you need them. If you are planning for your business, map out what income and expenses will happen in each month.

Stepping In – to create a plan

The third step is where the detailed planning takes place. While its title is “Stepping In”, I like to think of it as “leaning into” the work. In the Twelve Week Year, Moran and Lennington identify that most people work best with 90-day deadlines. Conveniently that creates three-month time frames. With a clear and detailed vision in your mind for the end of the year, what will you have accomplished at the 3, 6, 9 month markers of the year? Create a detailed plan for the first 90 days. Each subsequent 90 day block is less detailed. You will have a chance to review and revise at the end of each 90 day block for the next three months.

Stepping Through – the gremlins that stand in our way and try and pull us down

While planning for 2026 to be successful is essential, equally important is to planning for the gremlins. They will show up. I’ve identified four key gremlins that tend to show up consistently for my clients. They include Fear of Criticism, Fear of Failure, Dislike of a Task, and Impatience. I’ve created a cheat sheet with tricks to conquer all four of the gremlins. Click here for your free copy.

Planning for 2026 success will include a plan for the gremlins. Put this in place a head of time and you are armed for when they show up. You won’t be surprised – you will be prepared. Preparation matched with planning leads to success.

Mindfully I AM Evolving Coaching Planning

Tags : Goals, Planning, Procrastination

Your brain uses neuroplasticity to create new neuropathways that can be associated with new habits and beliefs.

Rewire Your Brain to Get Organized: Neuroplasticity in Action

Posted by Carolyn on

October 21, 2025

· 1 Comment

Have you ever wished you could just be more organized without feeling like it’s a constant struggle? The good news: your brain is capable of change. By leveraging neuroplasticity, you can make organization an easier, more natural habit.

Neuroplasticity is your brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. This doesn’t just help with memory or learning a new skill. It also allows you to retrain your habits, including how you approach organization. A recent InsideHook article notes, London taxi drivers’ brains grew in the hippocampus over years of navigating the city’s streets, showing that consistent practice changes the brain structurally.

What is Neuroplasticity and Why Does it Matter?

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s remarkable ability to rewire itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. This doesn’t just help you memorize a new skill or learn a language—it allows you to retrain habits that may have seemed “hardwired,” including how you handle clutter, manage tasks, or maintain systems in your business. Studies show that consistent practice can physically change the structure of the brain. For example, London taxi drivers develop a larger hippocampus over years of navigating complex streets, illustrating that sustained mental effort leads to measurable brain growth.

The late Dr. James Doty, previously a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University and founder of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, extensively studied how our minds can influence our reality. In his book Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything, Doty explained how practices like attention, meditation, visualization, and compassion can change our brain structures, allowing us to move through the world in ways that help us see clearly and realize our dreams.

Whether you’re trying to clear the clutter from your home, streamline your workflow, or get consistent with marketing tasks, understanding how your brain forms habits gives you a roadmap to success.

Here’s how you can harness these principles in your daily life:

1. Neuroplasticity and Mindfulness: Awareness is the First Step

Before you can change a habit, or the beliefs ingrained into your subconscious, you have to notice it. You have to be aware that the beliefs exist. Mindfulness allows you to become aware of routines that come from subconscious thought patterns or beliefs. Although the book is listed as a biography, the late Dr. James Doty’s landmark book Into the Magic Shop outlines clearly both the mindfulness strategies for changing beliefs and the neuroscience behind it. For example, do you automatically pile items instead of putting them away? Do you avoiding starting a project because you are afraid it won’t be perfect? Do you avoid making yourself and your business visible because you are afraid you might fail – or be successful? By noticing these habits without judgment, you create a window for neuroplastic change. Mindful awareness is your first step toward rewiring your brain to support great organization of your home, office, to-do list or business activities.

2. Neuroplasticity and Fun: Everyday Challenges and Novelty

Your brain thrives on novelty and challenge. Everyday activities that stretch your mind — from solving puzzles to taking a new route on your walk — stimulate neuroplasticity. Traveling is a perfect example: navigating unfamiliar places forces your brain to adapt to new patterns, strengthening memory and problem-solving pathways. You don’t need a plane ticket to reap the benefits. Small changes in your daily routine, like changing your walking or driving route, engage your brain in the same way. Experiment with a digital app to use it differently. Change the time of routine activities in your day. Or simply, change how and where you eat lunch.

3. Locking in Neuroplasticity: Emotion, Interest, and Positive Associations

Our brains learn most effectively when experiences are tied to emotion, interest, or pleasure. Music, for instance, can prime your brain to form stronger connections. This is why pairing tasks with enjoyable stimuli makes new habits stick. Linking desired behaviors, like putting items away immediately or scheduling your day intentionally, with positive feelings makes them more likely to enter your subconscious and become automatic over time. Music, smell, taste are all senses that generate emotional responses based on previous experiences. These can be tied to activity to help you build new neuropathways and therefore habit. For example, play a favourite group of songs from a very happy time in your life to create an upbeat mood while you are sorting clothes. Drinking your favourite tea or coffee while working on a project can have the same impact.

Putting It All Together: 3 Tips to Apply These Strategies

Be Mindful of Small Habits: Pause before you act and notice what your brain is doing automatically. Catch the “default” behaviors and replace them with intentional ones.
Add Novelty to Routine Tasks: Change your environment, rearrange spaces, or try new methods for tasks you usually do on autopilot — this challenges your brain and strengthens new neural pathways.
Pair Tasks with Positive Stimuli: Listen to music you enjoy, light a favorite candle, or give yourself a mini reward while practicing new organizational, productivity or marketing activities. Emotion strengthens memory and habit formation.

By incorporating mindfulness, novelty, and positive associations, you’re not just organizing your environment — you’re training your brain to support the behaviors you want, making organization feel more natural and less of a chore. The more you practice, the easier it becomes, and the more your brain rewards you with clarity, focus, and confidence.

Mindfully I AM Evolving Coaching Mindfulness Organizing Strategies Productivity

Gratitude is a Mindset Power Tool

Posted by Carolyn on

October 16, 2025

· No Comments

The Power of Gratitude: Calm Your Mind, Get Organized, and Create Success 🧠✨

We’re in the season of gratitude. Canadian Thanksgiving has just passed, and American Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This is the perfect time to explore how gratitude can transform more than just your mood.

Gratitude is akin to a powerful mindset tool. Whether decluttering, looking for more productivity, or running a business, gratitude changes your brain chemistry. It reduces fear and helps you move from chaos to clarity.

The Neuroscience of Gratitude

Gratitude isn’t just a “nice thought.” Research shows it has measurable effects on the brain and nervous system:

Gratitude practice activates brain regions associated with reward and well-being, reinforcing positive emotions (PositivePsychology.com).
It helps reduce stress and promote resilience, improving emotional regulation and overall mental health (Baylor University, 2024).
Gratitude can also calm the amygdala, the part of your brain responsible for fear and the fight–flight–freeze response, lowering stress hormones like cortisol and creating space to think clearly and act with confidence (Forbes, 2024).

This means when you approach organizing, productivity, or business decisions with gratitude as a powerful tool, your brain literally shifts from fear to clarity. Emotional attachment loosens, stress reduces, and decision-making becomes more confident.

When your nervous system is calm, organizing feels easier, productivity flows naturally, and business success becomes more attainable — all without the constant stress or pressure that so often holds us back.

3 Ways to Use Gratitude as a Mindset Power Tool

1. Get Organized with Gratitude
When decluttering or reworking a space, pause and thank the items for how they have supported you. Seeing gratitude as a power tool reduces fear and emotional attachment. This makes it easier to release what no longer serves you.

2. Be More Productive with Gratitude
Start your day by naming three things that are working — in your schedule, systems, or in yourself. Gratitude reduces stress. It also improves focus. Together, these allow you to prioritize tasks from a calm, clear perspective rather than from panic or pressure.

3. Build Your Business with Gratitude
Instead of worrying about what’s not happening fast enough, thank yourself for every small step and every client who’s trusted you. Using gratitude as a mindset tool rewires your brain to notice progress, not problems — and that builds momentum. From this state, you make braver, more aligned decisions. As a result, you attract more of what you want.

A Final Thought

Gratitude isn’t just about saying “thank you.” It’s a powerful neurological reset — one that quiets fear, builds resilience, and strengthens your belief in what’s possible.

So as you move through this season, try using this gratitude practice as a free, mindset power tool. And remember: the more you ground yourself in gratitude, the more peace, productivity, and prosperity you invite into your life. 💛

Organizing Strategies

Celebrating a successful organizing project with a client

Celebrating 20 Years

Posted by Carolyn on

September 18, 2025

· No Comments

Celebrating 20 Years: And 3 Lessons I’ve Learned

In the summer of 2025, Caldwell Evolution Inc, previously Wellrich Organizers, is celebrating 20 years in business. The time passed quickly; I achieved credentials, helped hundred of clients get – and stay – organized, coached, mentored and created courses. It has been quite a ride.

Meanwhile, how things have changed. In July 2005 I had no idea that the world would revert to an online focus, my business would follow, that AI would become a household name or that I would develop a fascination with marketing and neuroscience.

3 Lessons I’ve Learned

While I love to take course, read and study, I’ve learned 3 lessons while running a business as a solopreneur in the organizing and productivity industry. While I celebrate 20 years in business, I also celebrate significant lessons I have learned along the way.

1. Staying current keeps us engaged, healthier and happier.

To stay engaged and involved one must stay up-to-date. Digital communications relay information around the world in fractions of seconds and give us access to information on how to stay engaged and involved. Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast, and you’ll learn that staying active (sweat, lift, balance), ditching the cell phone and maintaining a healthy social life are keep to staying healthier and happier for longer.

Over on the social platforms, I’ve found other fascinating information, much of which I integrate into my client work. Take Emilie Leyes, for example, a young brain training specialist and hypnotherapist. Her work has given me several tools to support clients through sorting and developing new habits. As someone who has developed an entire coaching model around mindset and habits, these are very important tools for my coaching toolkit. She is one of several professionals working with brain science whom I follow and study. Another is the late Dr. James Doty, author of Mind Magic. Dr. Doty is famous for explaining, in easy-to-understand terms, the neuroscience behind manifestation.

As my fascination with the science of marketing grew, so did my curiosity and quest to find the leaders in online marketing to inform my work. Enter Amy Porterfield, course creator extraordinaire and online marketing maven. Add in a dose of Seth Godin, author of Seths Blog and 22 best selling books on marketing and business.

A bonus lesson? Carefully, regularly and thoughtfully curate your online content. That alone will keep you healthier, longer.

2. Our businesses change regularly and consistently

Mine has. If you have a business yours will too. I may be celebrating 20 years of business however that business was evolved significantly. I started as a professional organizer and soon found my client list mostly those with a hoarding disorder or behaviour diagnosis. With the addition of coaching skills my business evolved to include mostly clients with ADHD. By 2010 I had added business mentoring, my first course (Kickstarting Your Organizing Business) and by 2020 business coaching.

What all my clients have in common is they are all disorganized. Whether in their home with stuff, their time with tasks and to-do lists or their business, getting organized without frustration and overwhelm is the common pain point. Today I coach new service-based solopreneurs in the set up of their social platforms to be visible so their clients can find them. I coach neurodivergent, fascinating individuals with ADHD to get stuff done and get on with their dreams and goals. And occasionally, I still help people manage their physical stuff. Nowadays, that mostly happens through virtual organizing.

3. People can, and will, change.

This has been the most interesting lesson of all. Did you know we can change our brains? Or that we can use our thoughts and our actions to rewire our brains to get a different result in our lives. Yup. Just ask any brain-training specialist. People can build new habits – and – ditch the hold, not-so-helpful ones at the same time. Using the principles of neuroscience and brain training, we can carve new neuropathways to help us “manifest” our desires, create new habits, learn new skills and move our lives in the direction of our goals and dreams. That is my goal for my clients – to manifest their goals.

The past 20 years has been fun, interesting and challenging. I have evolved along with my business. When I rebranded in 2015 to Caldwell Evolution Inc., I didn’t realize how prophetic that name would turn out to be. Let’s see what the next 20 years brings.

Caldwell Evolution News Mentored for Momentum Coaching Mindfully I AM Evolving Coaching

Tags : business coach, Caldwell Evolution Inc., Carolyn Caldwell, celebrations, productivity coach, professional organizers

the lower legs and feet of two people running on a dirt path. Taking small steps

Big Power in Micro Steps

Posted by Carolyn on

August 27, 2025

· No Comments

It started with a challenge…

and ended with using micro steps to accomplish 17 trips from point A to point B over 9 weeks. It would have been 18 if I hadn’t had the flu.

If you have been hanging around this blog for awhile, you know that I coach alpine skiing during the winter. So what does that have to do with micro steps?

This year, due to maintenance requirements, the coaches’ meeting location was changed from one building (South lodge) to another (North lodge). The challenge was that my boots, helmet, extra gear, skis etc all live at South. The meeting was called each Saturday and Sunday morning BEFORE the ski lifts opened. Which meant that

Could it be that micro tasks could be even more successful than a daily 15 minute declutter routine? I say yes; I think they can and that we ought to all jump on this bandwagon. Micro tasks could possibly even replace the 15 minute declutter routine.

How it Started

Mindlessly, I was stared at the shelf beside my desk. I had done so countless times before, while thinking through yet another online tech challenge. I have no recollection of sorting out the tech issue. It was clear there were things on the shelf I had not used in years and was never likely to use. In a split second, I decided to clear the shelf, wipe it off and remove to a donation pile those things I would not use. Like the audio CD for learning Spanish. I no longer have a CD player on my computer or portable device to play it.

In less than 5 minutes I had a clean shelf that was now half empty, a small bag of denotable items and a few items in recycling and garbage. The result of my micro task was a very satisfying declutter. The shelf is half empty, clean and can be used more effectively.

Micro Tasks

I soon determined that micro tasks could be done almost anywhere, almost any time. I’ve made a game of it. Just this morning, while waiting on the front door step for my son to load the car before leaving, I clipped back the trailing plants in the planter. The micro task took 5 minutes. Later while waiting for a video clip to upload, I wiped the windows sill, rinsed the stained-glass ornaments, took away the ones I no longer wanted and put everything back. Another 5 minutes.

I’ve defined micro task as a 5-10 minute task that can be completed with little or no additional equipment and contributes to clutter free living. Two days ago I took the ski jackets out of the front hall cupboard, inspected for rips and tears and transported to our off-season storage rack in the basement. I’ve got my eye on a shoe rack with 5 pairs of flip flops that haven’t left the rack in awhile – maybe 2 years. While waiting for the kettle to boil, I can scoop up the flip flops, inspect for integrity and bag for donation. This last task makes use of the concept of time layering along with micro tasks.

The Game

Try it.

Look for 5 minutes either between other projects or activities or while waiting for something else to happen (standing in line)
Look around for a 5 minute task that is super easy to accomplish. For example, while waiting for the pasta water to boil, take the cutlery out of the cutlery tray, wash the tray and replace the cutlery.
Make a game out of finding a micro task that doesn’t require any extra equipment (except maybe a cleaning cloth).
Make sure that the task contributes to either decluttering or getting something done. For example, I filed the top few items on my paper filing pile waiting for yet another video to upload,.
See how many of these you can do in one day.

The Benefit

Five minutes may not seem like alot of time. Those 5 minute tasks, however, all add up. The paper requires filing. The shelf requires decluttering and the flip flops require a new home. Add all those micro tasks together, all those 5 minute games, and eventually, you have a clutter free house.

Try it, and let me know how it goes.

Organizing Strategies Productivity

Tags : Goals, organizing strategies, Procrastination

How to Organize Your Out of Control Email Inbox

Posted by Carolyn on

January 31, 2025

· 2 Comments

Is your email inbox out of control? Are you trying to stay organized and feeling overwhelmed when the next batch of email arrives? There is no doubt that staying on top of inbox digital clutter is a challenge with the ease that email can be sent and received. As Brendon Burchard reminds us in The Charge your email inbox is NOT your To Do list. In fact, your email inbox is usually someone else’s to do list and if you have receive their email their to do is done and they think your’s is just begun.

Here is a strategy to organize your email inbox on an ongoing basis as well as getting on top of the out of control inbox.

Control the Email When it Arrives

As a professional organizer I am frequently asked how I recommend people stay on top of their email. There are a variety of strategies to organize and email inbox, and manage the email when you first open it.

Use folders to file by topic or person – there is no right answer it depends on how you think. I think by time frame so I use sender and time for my folders
Flag action items right away. If you can accomplish the action in under 15 minutes then take the time to do it. If it needs to be scheduled into your calendar, right it down and flag the emailing action items for example.

When the Email Inbox is Out of Control

When it comes to the emails that have been left in your Inbox too long here is a process I call the 10 percent solution.

Pick a time of day to commit 10 minutes to email management. Stick to this commitment until that Inbox is under control.
Change the sorting order of the Inbox. If you normally sort by date, try sorting by sender or subject. This has the impact of immediately changing the context of the emails. With a different context sorting is easier.
Check the total number of emails and then identify what 10% would be. This is your target; the number of emails you are going to file or delete in your designated 10 minutes. For example, if you have 1000 emails sitting in your Inbox, try and remove 100 at the first sitting.
Quickly scroll through the list and try and delete as many as possible i.e. the easy ones you know are no longer needed. If you get stuck or bogged down, switch the sort again and keep going. Try sorting by email topic. This will sometimes allow you to delete the backlog of emails on one particularly topic and then the last one, with all the accompanying conversation, will be the email to file.You will be surprised how easy it is to remove 100 emails when you have changed the context.

Practice these strategies regularly to organize your email inbox and keep it organized.

Business Organizing Declutter Office Organizing Organizing Strategies Strategy

Tags : Accumulation, Clearing Clutter, E-files, Email, home office, organizing strategies

full coffee cup, note book with goals 2025 written and 1, 2, 3 plus white pen on green background

Planning for Success and the Dichotomy of Control

Posted by Carolyn on

January 7, 2025

· No Comments

Is there any point in planning for success or for the year ahead?

For those of us in the productivity and organizing field the answer is very simple.

Yes. If you plan your work, activities, schedule, career, day or anything for that matter, you are far more likely to be available when opportunity appears. I’ve blogged before about the planning and luck relationship. However, you are also more likely to be equipped to respond to adversity when it show up.

But sometime external circumstances can make planning feel futile. What about the uncertainty of the world we live in today as 2025 greets us? What about the political turmoil around the world we read about every day? Add to that the economic uncertainty that both those situations create and planning feels like a lost cause.

The Dichotomy of Control

It is true that most of us don’t have any control over what is happening politically on the other side of the world. While we may have reason to worry and be concerned about it, we don’t have any control over it.

However, the dichotomy of control reminds us that there are many things over which we DO have control. The concept is a very old one dating from the Roman Stoic Epictetus. According to the Stoics, there were really only two things we had direct control over. They are our actions and what or how we think about things. The past, what other people think or do, and even our bodily sensations (versus voluntary actions) are in fact outside our control.

Planning and Control

It is the things within our control that we can use to plan for success. There are four steps needed to create a plan for the year and they all include elements within our control.

Step 1

Step OUTSIDE of our comfort zone. This is where learning and expansion occurs. This is where were take a risk to create a new lead magnet, try a new exercise routine or commit to an accountability partner. Actions here include creation of a vision and overall goals for the year.

Step 2

Step UP to figure out the real work. What actually needs to be done to accomplish your goal? Who would you need to become to make it a reality? Actions here might include figuring out how many days a week you can work or work out. Do you have the time to train for a marathon and support for the rest of your life while you are training?

Step 3

Step IN to create a map or menu of actions to turn your vision into a reality. What are the outcome goals for each quarter, month and week that you would have to attain? Outcome goals are the markers along our path that tell us whether or not we are heading in the direction of our larger vision. What are the process goals – the specific actions you would take – to accomplish those outcome goals? If you are looking for 1000 followers on YouTube for your business, how often do you need to post to get that result? How big a calorie deficit do you need, and how will you ensure that happens, to lose that 10 lbs?

Step 4

Step THROUGH the fog that gremlins of self doubt, fear, procrastination create when they show up. What tools that you can access easily, consistently and quickly when you are discouraged frustrated or putting off trying to post that lead magnet?

Planning for Success

The Stoics believe “We need to focus on “controlling the controllables” and cultivate an attitude of detachment from everything else”. When we focus on what we can control, which includes all four steps of the planning process, we set ourselves up for success. This focus together with equipping ourselves with strategies and tactics to manage our response to those things outside of our control, is planning for success.

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Tags : Planning

woman sitting in field looking upward as if thoughtful.

Learning Through Awareness: Does it Work?

Posted by Carolyn on

November 1, 2024

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Is self-awareness a useful teaching tool? By being more mindful can were learn new skills or habits through awareness?

It may sound simple but I say we can. In fact, I believe that learning through awareness is one of the most powerful tools we can use to change behaviour and develop new habits.

The Issue: A Lack of Awareness

Virtual organizing has underlined for the organizing industry the importance of recognizing unconscious behaviour in our clients. We all develop habits – subconscious behaviours that we regularly repeat based on the same stimuli. Often, we don’t even realize we do them. Drivers sometimes report driving home and not even remembering the drive because they were preoccupied other thoughts. Meanwhile, their subconscious brain made all the decisions necessary to drive to home while their conscious thoughts were preoccupied.

When the subconscious brain is engaged, we often aren’t even noticing what we are doing. When was the last time you thought about tying a shoe lace, taking a shower or brushing. your teeth. Our dentists might like us all to be more aware during that latter exercise to be more thorough. Many people say they do their best thinking in the shower. Why not? For most adults the shower process is habitual, something the subconscious mind takes care of. That leaves the conscious mind to tackle the next scheduling or budgeting challenge in your day.

But what about when those habits are not helpful and we don’t realize the habit exists or the impact of our behaviour. This is where a professional organizer and productivity coach, becomes the detective. I pull out my figurative magnifying glass and look for subconscious behaviour that undermines goal completion, leaves clutter on horizontal surfaces and results in procrastination.

The Challenge: It’s Subconscious

TT, a client who recently engaged my assistance for a move, previously lived in a very small, junior 1 bedroom apartment. I helped her move to a more spacious unit where she could set up her small business office in a corner of the living room. In the previous unit, TT would have to stand up with her laptop, cross the room, balance the computer on a bookshelf, connect the cable to the printer and hit the return key to print an item. The unit was just too small to have the printer closer to the computer. In the new unit the printer cable and printer were right beside TT’s right arm. What happened the first time TT went to print an item? She found herself picking up the computer and walking to the other side of the room. Her subconscious brain still working on the assumption the printer was across the room.

When I pointed out to TT what she had done, we both had a good chuckle and then got to work using the principles of neuroplasticity to lay down a new neuropathway. The new pathway was that TT would turn to the right, pick up the printer cable, plug it into her laptop and print whatever was required.

The Solution: Develop Awareness

TT’s awareness of her habit allowed her to develop a new habit.

When one becomes aware, they can change their behaviour. This is where the learning through awareness comes in. With a conscious effort to be more mindful, one can become aware of any habit that is undermining goal achievement. I call these tripping habits. We can learn to change those tripping habits when we are aware that we are doing them.

The How: Become Mindful

How can you learn to change your tripping habits through awareness? By becoming more mindful. Do some research on your own behaviour simply by consciously noticing what you are doing.

For example, if you are constantly loosing your car keys and delayed each morning trying to find them, become mindful, and more aware, of what you do with your keys when you walk in the door each day. Do you drop them in a coat? In a purse? On a horizontal surface? Maybe your hands are often full so you subconsciously drop them anywhere to free up your hands. Once you know what you are doing, you can retrain your brain to subconsciously do something else with the keys (like drop them in a bowl or on a hook) so that they are always present.

Use an experimental approach; don’t be too attached to the outcome simply notice what you are doing. Once you know what the unconscious behaviour is, you have the power to change it for one that gives you behaviour you do want.

Awareness is a simple, inexpensive tool that we all possess that can help us learn. It can show us why we are chronically late, always early or habitually loosing our keys. And because it shows us our own behaviour, which we have the power to change, it can be a powerful learning tool.

Habits Mindfully I AM Evolving Coaching Mindfulness Organizing Strategies

Tags : awareness, habits, mindfulness, productivity

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Author Archive for Carolyn

Why Breaking Tasks Into Smaller Steps Works

How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed by Big Projects

How to Get Unstuck When You’re Procrastinating

A Simple Decluttering Strategy When You Feel Overwhelmed

Small Steps to Achieve Big Goals in Your Home or Business

Planning for Prosperity Is Now a 5-Step Process

I Kept Bumping Into the Same Message: Reflect

What I Noticed (And Didn’t Expect)

Step One Is Now “Stepping Back to Reflect”

Why My Business Is Called Caldwell Evolution

Stepping Out – of your comfort zone

Part One

Part Two

Stepping Up – to identify the work that needs to be done

Stepping In – to create a plan

Stepping Through – the gremlins that stand in our way and try and pull us down

What is Neuroplasticity and Why Does it Matter?

1. Neuroplasticity and Mindfulness: Awareness is the First Step

2. Neuroplasticity and Fun: Everyday Challenges and Novelty

3. Locking in Neuroplasticity: Emotion, Interest, and Positive Associations

Putting It All Together: 3 Tips to Apply These Strategies

The Power of Gratitude: Calm Your Mind, Get Organized, and Create Success 🧠✨

The Neuroscience of Gratitude

3 Ways to Use Gratitude as a Mindset Power Tool

A Final Thought

Celebrating 20 Years: And 3 Lessons I’ve Learned

3 Lessons I’ve Learned

1. Staying current keeps us engaged, healthier and happier.

2. Our businesses change regularly and consistently

3. People can, and will, change.

It started with a challenge…

How it Started

Micro Tasks

The Game

The Benefit

Control the Email When it Arrives

When the Email Inbox is Out of Control

The Dichotomy of Control

Planning and Control

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Planning for Success

The Issue: A Lack of Awareness

The Challenge: It’s Subconscious

The Solution: Develop Awareness

The How: Become Mindful

Banish those procrastination gremlins!

Conquer Procrastination Cheat Sheet