You may find this to be the absolute dumbest thing, but I don’t care because this realization has actually helped me in my personal life and in my business. So hear me out.

My Love Affair with Beauty Products

I am somebody that loves beauty products. I love trying things, buying things, sampling, testing things out—whether it’s skincare, products for my hair, makeup, shampoo, all the things. And honestly, I don’t mind this about myself because it is this very thing that kind of pushed me into starting a PR firm.

I’ve always had a passion and a love for the beauty industry and products. I knew somebody who was super fabulous and had a sample closet in her home. She was a beauty publicist, and that’s when I started asking, “What is it that you do? How do you work? How do you get paid?” When I realized I would want to leave law and start my own PR firm versus going and getting a job somewhere, it all traced back to this love of beauty.

I was just shopping in this professional-to-the-trade beauty store in my area with my best friend. They were having this big Cyber Monday, Black Friday sale, and we were wandering around. They had this table of closeout stuff that nobody wanted. I walked by and there was this little circular blue LaFemme eyeshadow. This was the eyeshadow that my mom had in the eighties—I’m talking eighties blue. One circle. They must’ve been selling it for 50 cents because nobody wanted it.

I almost bought it because it was so nostalgic for me. I used to smear it on my eyes and I thought I looked so great. I would show my mom like, “Look, I’m wearing makeup!” and she’d be like, “Oh dear, what are you doing?” I was probably seven years old. Always, always loved makeup. I just think it’s fun. It’s fun to play. I also like to paint, and to me, makeup artistry is like your face is a canvas and you can kind of play with it.

The Overflow Problem

All of this to say: I love products. So I have so much stuff—whether it is client samples, gift bags, industry access, or even just a Lure beauty box. And then there are products on sale at such a good deal that I want to test them. I’ll think, “I wouldn’t buy this at full price, but for this price I’ll give it a try.”

So I tend to use a lot of things, and my medicine cabinet is packed to the brim. My shower is overflowing—not with water, but with products. If I could show you my “back stock,” my best friend was here the other day and she was like, “This is insane. You have so much stuff.” I told her, “Just pick whatever you want because clearly I am not going to get to it. I’m never going to use it.”

And the funny thing is, I always say this: I don’t get younger looking. I don’t get better looking. It’s just fun, I guess, at this point. But you use these products hoping you notice something different, and it’s all about consistency—which is also kind of a problem here.

The Realization

So what did this teach me about productivity?

I will get something new and I’ll be excited to try it and I’ll open it. And it will just be in the same category as a different serum that I have that I still haven’t finished—or another product that I probably can’t use now because if I’m going to be using this new version, I can’t combine the two. So the other one will sit open.

I’ll have a bunch of shampoo, conditioner, body lotions, all the things in the shower. When I get something new, I will just put it in the shower versus actually going in and either getting rid of something or finishing it.

So I made a conscious effort to not add anything new. Now, we’re still working on the acquiring stuff part. I still see something and I’m like, “Ooh, that’s interesting, I should get it and hang on to it and I’ll try it when I have some time.” I still have a little bit of shiny object syndrome when it comes to buying something that’s cool and interesting to me, or I’ve heard of it and I want to try it, or they had their Black Friday sale and I wanted to get it at a discount.

But in terms of opening a product and adding it to wherever I’m storing my stuff that I’m actively using, I realized I cannot keep doing that. I have to actually use up the products that I have.

Now this might be so obvious to you, but when you are excited about a lot of different things, you might decide that you can’t wait and you want to open something new and give it a try. That’s how I am. And so it is hard for me to resist the temptation to open a brand new bottle of something—or a package or a little container—and not use it until the thing that I’m currently using instead of this is done and used up.

If I don’t love it and I don’t plan to use it, pass it to someone else. And if I do love it—or it’s expensive and I’m like, “You know what, let me just finish it”—I have to use the bottle, use the jar all the way until I buy a new one or until I open a new one.

The Visual Backlog

The reason this matters: visually, I could see the backlog of stuff that I had opened, and I had all of these half-finished bottles. Like hyaluronic acid serum—I am working through three different bottles. And also, once you open something, the clock on how long you have to use it starts to decline. Once it’s exposed to oxygen or it’s used, you can’t keep it as long as you can if it sits in the box on the shelf with its expiration date.

Visually, I am seeing the backlog of stuff because I am starting new things without actually finishing the thing that came before it.

Do you see the complete, absolute tie-in to projects and productivity?

That’s also how I am when it comes to projects in my life, goals, or things that I’m working on. I will start a lot of projects—whether it’s a project around my house, organizing something, or working on something in my garden. Sometimes I move plants around and relocate them, repot them. Sometimes I will just pull everything out and then move on to something else without finishing that task first.

And when it comes to work, I have a lot of ideas. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are the same way. We get very excited about things that we think would be a really cool thing to implement in our business, or a new business opportunity or idea we want to explore. And so we still have all of these open-ended things that haven’t been completed and we’re now moving on to something else.

Time is a finite resource, right? Just like when I have all these products, I only have one face and body, and I’m not gonna be sitting home all day just slathering products on for the sake of finishing the bottle. So it doesn’t make sense to open new things until the old things are used up and gone.

The Light Bulb Moment

Once I saw my medicine cabinet and my shower so overloaded with stuff—I mean, it is embarrassing if somebody walks in the bathroom because the bottles are marching towards me like little soldiers, like “Pick me, use me”—I had to make a concerted effort. Okay, these five things that are out here, I have to use them up before I open something new. Because unless they are gone, there’s no need to start something new.

And it is that decision, that concerted effort, that focused “okay, let’s focus on completing this before we start something new.” I had that light bulb moment.

I was actually in the shower—that sort of quiet white noise, nobody bothering you, cone of silence. My best thinking happens in there. I actually have this waterproof notepad; it’s kind of like rubber paper and you can write on it with a pencil. They’re called shower notes. Super cool. I would write down all my ideas that I’d come up with in the shower.

But it was in the shower when I realized: oh, things are starting to thin out a little bit. And I feel less mentally cluttered because there aren’t so many physical things that are taking my attention, that are keeping me from finishing—let’s call it a bottle of shampoo or a bottle of shower gel—a goal, right?

Once I decided I cannot move on to another task, to another bottle, whatever, until this one is done, gone, and out of here, that decision alone and that focused effort—it sounds so dumb—but this is how it works for me now with productivity and things that I’m working on in my business.

The New Rule

I will not start a new project. I will not move on to something else.

I’m still a work in progress. I’ve mentioned before I have ADD or ADHD—I was just diagnosed with that general inattentive type. I get hyper-focused on something when I’m very interested in it. Like I could sit outside in my garden and literally pick all of the leaves off of my succulents that aren’t healthy anymore, pot plants—I could get hyper-fixated on it. But there are other things that I just absolutely, if I’m not interested, I cannot focus on. And that’s very challenging for me.

So it is an effort to force myself to do non-desired or less interesting tasks. And that’s when I will sometimes get up and bounce to something else. And now I have all of these open loops, all of these loose ends that are not tied up. And that causes me more of a challenge to focus and actually get something done.

So when I could visually see the overflow of products because I wasn’t completing something all the way and throwing it out and eliminating it from something I’m thinking about, something that I’m housing, something that I’m trying to work into my regular routine—it didn’t require any more mental energy. I had more bandwidth. And in this case, also more medicine cabinet space for products that I wanted to try.

That visual allowed me to also draw this parallel with productivity.

How I Capture Ideas Without Starting Them

Part of this is not getting in this perfection paralysis state. If you’re wanting to just move on, and I’m never gonna put something out that’s mediocre—it’s gonna be great—but sometimes I will not finish something because I don’t have that focus, that mental bandwidth to give it 100% and make it absolutely perfect.

Now when I say to myself, “It doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be completed and we can iterate.” That also helps me move things across the finish line.

One of the ways I’ve worked around my tendency to start something because otherwise I’m going to forget about it: I have a page in my journal that’s a backlog page—back burner ideas. I also keep it in my phone just to capture it somewhere where I will revisit it, and I assign it a timeline, a little bit of a “revisit this in Q2.”

I don’t want to lose those ideas and that excitement for something new while I’m waiting to finish the other things that I have prioritized because they’re half done or in some stage of being incomplete. I need to tackle that, check the box, and move on.

The Reward of Finishing

And that feeling of getting something done—I have to tell you, when I throw away a bottle that I have used up and I’m using every drop—I flip them upside down, or if it’s a tube, I will cut the end of it off because there’s so much product inside that you’re not getting when you squeeze it—when I can actually toss something, it feels really good because I finished something. To me, it’s like a task. I’m done. I can move on.

The little reward is I get to try something new. I get to try one of these products that I have in my back stock that I’ve been waiting to put in the shower or put in my medicine cabinet until I finished this other thing.

So that gave me the visual that allowed me to draw this parallel with how I am focusing on the tasks ahead of me that are the most important, the biggest priority, or something that is just almost across the finish line. And if I just focus on it, I can finish it, check the box, get that going in my business or in my home or whatever, and implement it.

And then I can finally start something new. And that’s the reward.

When you have all these ideas that are very exciting to you, you have this shiny object syndrome. It’s a lot of mental bandwidth to manage: Where am I in this project? What is needed from me? When am I going to find time to work on it? How can I block out my calendar? When there are too many things, nothing gets done.

So that’s my concerted effort, my mental decision. Like: You, Jen, cannot start something new—whether it’s a project or a program you want to create or a feature that you want to add to your community or your programs. We can’t implement that until the things that we have in the works are done, in the can, and ready to be shipped.

The Bottom Line

I hope you see the parallel there: my medicine cabinet is overflowing and my little serum bottles are marching towards me like soldiers asking to be used up and finished. The visual clarity and the freedom in my mind that I get when my surfaces are cleared, when my to-do list is cleared, and I have my ideas that don’t get stored in my head but on a list—back burner ideas or ideas to explore at another time—they’re still getting captured. I don’t have to start them right now just because I came up with the idea.

And I am committed to completing the things that are on my plate that we have decided are important, freeing up my mental, emotional, and time bandwidth. When you’re able to check the box and move on, it feels great. And now you can start something new that you’re really excited about. Like that new hyaluronic acid serum that’s going to make your skin so plump and hydrated. Or a brand new website. Or a photo shoot. Whatever.

Finish the two or three most important things on your list. See them through and feel that lightness that comes from getting things done.

Random tip, but I was just thinking about it. I hope you liked it. Go out there and crush it this week. I’ll be over here crushing it too, applying all my serums and thinking of how random it is that I just shared this with you. But I don’t care—I thought it was useful.