We moved houses when Gal Smiley, my middle kid, was just five weeks old, and my oldest, Captain Jelly Belly, was a year-and-a-half. So I was very pregnant, and also taking care of a toddler, and faced with having to pack our entire house.

I couldn’t pack up much in advance because having a kid in the house means you need a lot of stuff on a daily basis. With just a few weeks until Gal Smiley’s birth to get it all done, I was SO TIRED. I’d go into a room and immediately get overwhelmed with how much stuff there was, and then I couldn’t get started because it was TOO MUCH, and then I’d just go nap and nothing would get done.

This was when I invented the “You touch it, you pack it” approach.

This is how it works:

Assemble a box.

Go into a room that has stuff that needs packing.

Reach out your hand and touch something, anything.

Put it in the box.

There’s no thinking about what makes the most sense to group together, or how to get things into boxes in the most efficient manner. There’s no creative thought about how to best cushion things or take advantage of little nooks and crannies of space, or time spent trying to find the right size box for the right items.

You touch it, you pack it.

And in this manner, it eventually got done. We probably ended up with many more boxes than needed. We probably ended up taking twice as long unpacking as everything ended up in a jumble and who knows what was where and in what room.

But our stuff got packed. And it arrived at the new house. And we all lived.

I am surprised at how often I still find myself chanting this phrase to myself when things get overwhelming. Like, I just got home last night from New York City – I drove there, went to two back-to-back concerts, then drove home, and not gonna lie, I’m getting too old for that kind of college-level bullshit. (It was SUCH A GOOD TIME though, OMG.)

When I got home, the house was a shambles. I’d left little piles of everything all over the place while packing. There were clean dishes to put away, loads of laundry to do. Even now I look around me and every table surface is covered with books/ papers/ toiletries/ dishes/ embroidery/ cookies…

It’s overwhelming.

Today’s motto: You touch it, you clean it.

It’s not the most efficient, it’s not the easiest, it’s not the best. But it’ll work, and it’ll get you there.