Like many life lessons, OHIO—formerly just a state to me—became the seed of a lesson that would take decades to really learn, and it all started on the first day of my first (real) job. In my early twenties, fresh out of school and covering up all my early adult awkwardness with a $100 pants suit I’d found on sale and plastic pearls, I listened to the HR Director, talk about the importance of email management. I imagine I stared at her dutifully, the glaze in my eyes matching the glaze of my earrings, until she spoke the words OHIO – Only handle it once. I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open. She might as well have had “free lunch catered daily” in blinking lights above her head.  As a word person I love a good acronym, but as an ADD-riddled writer, I worship a pneumonic that keeps me on task. 

For years OHIO stuck in my head, pulling at my subconscious during belaboring tasks that kept me in when I wanted to be out at a bar, or out running errands when I wanted to be home with my feet up. But as nagging as it was, OHIO never really took root. Fast forward twenty years later and I often find myself thinking about how much of my time is wasted managing things I need to get done, especially with multiple people’s to-do lists running through my head, and while strangely alluring task management provides a weird sense of gratification for having done absolutely nothing at all. This became painfully apparent to me as I realized my deluded sense of productivity was keeping me from time with my kids and one day, in the middle of a panic about how frantic and fleeting life felt, I was reminded of those bright shiny words. 

OHIO—only handle it once. HR had meant it with respect to email, but what if it could provide perspective on ABSOLUTELY everything?

Like most “aha” moments, this one is not as smooth or simple as it appeared to me in my vision, but it does cut down my time doing busy work. Here are some places I try to use OHIO in my everyday life:

• Email: I set 15 minutes aside to go through my email 3-4 times a day depending on my day and within that time I try to address any to-dos that come through my inbox. Unless it’s emergent, I won’t stop to handle it until my designated email time. 
• Texts: Same with texts, though these I check more frequently—roughly about once every hour or two. 
• Laundry: I do one load of wash every day and separate and fold clothes right out of the drying and immediately put them away. Less wrinkles, too!
• Meal prep: I leave extra time after bringing in the groceries to prep my food and set aside specific amounts I need for recipes (cutting/mixing what I can) before storing it in the fridge. 
• Dates and calendaring: I put dates in my phone as I come across them—usually using Siri—rather than snapping a picture to input in my calendar later. 

Now, it’s not to say this method is foolproof, some weeks I’m digging through the clean laundry on the guest bed looking for underwear, but I’ve been doing this enough years that I’ve built a good habit around it and I’m usually habitually prompted to OHIO!

When I first started my job fresh out of grad school in PR, the Director of Human Resources Ann ???? told me something that has stuck with me to this day, and I’ve referenced throughout my life; an acronym, “OHIO,” which stands for only handle it once!

Before this conversation with Ann, Ohio was merely a state to me, until I went to grad school and understood the intensity of Big Ten Football, and the

In this context she was referencing the daunting task of email management, and back in the day of 2008 that was serious business. Ann made the great point that if the email is something you can respond to or finish quickly without going back to it, you save time and energy you would spend contemplating it, putting it on a to do list, transferring it to a new to do list. I have read studies and found that the things we procrastinate most frequently are items that actually take the least amount of time to do, in many cases and that often when we push them off once we are likely to push them off again and they become discouraging reminders of all we didn’t get done instead of a positive reminder of what we haven’t gotten done every time we move it to a new to do list. 

In addition to email management, here are some real-life examples of OHIO: 

In the kitchen: Food Prep

Dishes: When putting away dishes don’t set them out to dry, but dry them as you’re walking to put them away

Laundry