I spent today ‘helping’ my son put together a new filing cabinet in my office. Once he’d left, I transferred all my filing and made beautiful, label-maker labels and arranged them in lovely diagonal lines. Yes, I’m a stationery and organization nerd. I love the feeling of going into the new year organized and ready. I have new calendars, new notebooks – it’s like going back to school. But, I can tell you, that on Monday afternoon, my office will be the usual ‘in the middle of 18 things’ mess. My to-do list will look like it’s had mice with inky feet running all over it and there will be post-it notes in random places.

I am no more organized than anyone else. What I’ve learnt though, is that it’s ok to start well and then let it slide. It’s to be expected. The secret is to make the time between starting shorter. You can start the new year with a clean and organized desk and slide till April. Or, every night you can tidy up before you leave and start every morning clean and organized.

What made me think about this today was a forum post (http://www.manager-tools.com/forums-4822#comment-64728). In it gazman says he started out well with O3s and other helpful behaviours and then let them slide and he was feeling bad about it. If you find yourself in this position, don’t feel bad. It’s natural to find new (and old) things hard and to slide. The secret is, as soon as you’ve realized you’re sliding, get back to the start. If you can make the gaps between good starts smaller, you’ll be closer to having continual new, desired behaviour. So, start tomorrow for the new year, and start again as soon as you need to.