Last week, I was feeling trapped, overwhelmed and underwater. I had piles of to-do’s near by laptop, on my desk, on the kitchen table. I had flashes of that I Love Lucy episode where the conveyor belt moves faster and faster and Lucy is unable to put the chocolates in the box fast enough. Out of desperation, she stuffs them in her pocket and in her mouth.

I had an epiphany while talking to a friend about how he handles similar situations in his own life. Well, first I was dumbstruck and then my aha followed. My friend told me that wherever he goes, he creates piles. He’s a pile maker and he likes it that way. I’m learning new perspectives on piles. Piles pile up until the time is right to focus on the pile, when it moves to the top of the priorities.

My aha came next. If you’ve ever observed other people cooking, you’ll see that some people clean up as they go and others clean up at the end. In the latter case, the cook is comfortable with letting things “pile up” until the time is right to focus on clean up—either at the end of cooking or the end of the meal or maybe the end of the day. And then the cook focuses on just that, cleaning up.

I’m a clean up as I go person. The problem comes in when stuff is coming in too fast for me to keep up and clean up as I go. Then it fails miserably. And leaves me feeling anxious as the pile gets bigger and bigger.

So I’m trying the "pile it up" approach. Expect things to pile up and create focused time to work on the pile, just when it needs to be addressed. And no sooner.

In addition to trying this new approach, I’m reviving an old approach, the low information diet. I’ve got my inbox under 100 emails and hope to keep it that way. I’ll let you know how it goes.