The mess you notice but can't get to right now
When right now isn't always an option
Okay so you told me to notice.
I’m noticing. I’m in the shower. I just pulled out my ponytail and it landed on the little shelf next to the shampoo. There are also three other ponytails on that shelf from earlier this week. I’m noticing all of them.
I’m also soaking wet and I have conditioner in my hair.
What exactly am I supposed to do right now?
I’m not getting out of the shower to walk a hair tie back to the bedroom. And by the time I’m out, I’m grabbing my towel, I’m reaching for my clothes, I’m thinking about whether I need to shave my legs before Thursday. The ponytails are not making the list.
So they stay. And they multiply. And now the shower shelf has a small hair tie colony that I definitely noticed but never once responded to.
You noticed the friction.
That's the first move. But noticing doesn’t always mean you can respond right now. Sometimes you’re in the shower. Sometimes your hands are full of raw chicken. Sometimes you’re halfway out the door and the thing you just noticed is going to have to wait.
The question isn’t how to fix it in the moment. It’s how to make sure your next path catches it.
That’s what cues are for.
A cue is anything in your space that says this goes here or deal with this next. You’re not solving the problem now. You’re placing it where you’ll find it later, on a path you’re already going to walk.
You know you’ll be back in this bathroom. Washing your hands. Brushing your teeth. So instead of leaving the hair ties wherever they landed, you stack them on the edge of the tub. Somewhere visible. Somewhere your eyes go the next time you walk in.
Your next path through the bathroom picks them up. Back they go.
You know yourself.
You don’t think about your hair until the water hits it. That’s just where the ponytail comes out.
So instead of trying to fix the habit, you work with it. You place the cue where a future path will find it.
Maybe you also put a small tray on the dresser, and one day the bedroom path catches you first. Now you have two cues on two paths. One of them will work.
You already do this without calling it anything.
The basket at the bottom of the stairs holds whatever needs to go up. You don’t carry each thing the moment you spot it. You wait until your path takes you upstairs and grab what’s there on the way. The basket is the cue. The path does the work.
The ponytail is the same thing, just smaller.
You noticed friction you couldn’t respond to yet. So you placed it where your next path would find it.
The cue holds the noticing until your hands are free.