It’s totally human to just keep piling on the “yeah, sure, I’ll do thats” without checking to see whether they line up with reality. Unfortunately, this habit also makes you a pre-holiday spaz.

See, overwhelm is a product of being unconscious about your agreements with yourself (and others). If you create awareness, the overwhelm can dissipate.

Shed a little consciousness on the next week.

Feel like doing a little activity?

• Grab a piece of paper or use the comment box below
• Write down how you’d like to feel this holiday (peaceful, happy, calm, etc.)
• Write down the things you want to accomplish before Christmas Eve (business, personal, etc.)
• Look over the list
• Cross off anything that doesn’t bring you closer to how you want to feel this holiday.

This may seem harsh, but it will help you prevent the overwhelm of having so much to do in a short period of time. It will also prevent the collapsed feeling that often follows.

Tomorrow begins my 16- day vacation. Soon, yours will begin too. What will you consciously cut out so you can have the kind of holiday you truly want?

I’m curious. How are doing?

Are you:

• a. What? December’s here?
• b. I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving last week, thankyouvurrymuch.
• c. Hanging on to my hat and praying that Christmas break gets here soon.
• d. No time to reflect on this. Too busy. I should be doing something else right now.
• e. Pretty good – not too stressed – thanks for asking.
• f. Other (fill in blank): _______________________________

I’ll start.

Personally, my Thanksgiving holiday was pretty restful (plus I got to hang out with Sharon, Theresa, and Tim.) and I’m feeling more grounded than I have in a while.

I’ve also made that age-old mistake of booking myself solid the first few days “back”. (Note to self: Um, could you please not do that?) Like today. But I’m managing. And breathing.

So, December’s tomorrow. How are you?

Shall we explore why? Let’s start with a fun little pie graph.

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Let’s say that this is an image of what an ideal day looks like for the average creative person. You might not agree with everything there, but it’s a stand-in for the kind of life you’d like to have. Balanced, fulfilling, sane.

With me so far?

Okay, good. Let’s say that you have this balanced schedule in mind most of the time as your ideal in life.

Lots of perfectly intelligent people believe they can keep the same schedule while also entertaining, traveling, shopping for gifts, etc. It’ll all work out somehow. “Oh, I’m planning to work on my So-And-So and finish it over the holiday break.” (Sound familiar?) And then January 1 rolls around and they’re internally thrashing themselves for not having completed anything.

Forgetting reality

Time is kind of like the Pauli exclusion principle: two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. You can’t be working 100% on your business when you’re trying to relax and visit.

The chart above is a circle to represent the fact that there are a finite number of hours in the day. 24 to be exact. In that first wheel, the “work” slice of time has 8 hours. Now, in the big holiday celebration scenario, watch what happens:
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There’s still balance, it’s just different balance. Work goes down to a measly 3 hours. Instead of solid productivity, those work hours might be an hour here, 30 minutes there checking email.

The trade-off? All the other fun things like more time with family and friends! More yummy food and hanging out snacking on hors d’ouvres! Yay for holidays!

Then why does it feel so not-fun?

Holiday stress comes from not knowing how you’ll fit it all in. From rushing in blindly with a can-do-attitude. You can’t have all those activities and a normal work life. Or you’ll spend half of January recovering.

You can’t. You can’t fit it all in. There isn’t enough time.

So, let’s suppose that you want to enjoy your break and work less (or not at all). If that’s true, then lower your standards. Cut in half (or more) whatever it is you’re planning to do work-wise over the holiday break.

This way, you actually get a chance to be where you are. You can actually enjoy the people you’re with. You might be truly present (what a gift!) and even relax for a change.

Holiday “breaks” don’t happen by themselves.

You have to treat your holiday break like a pie. (Mmmm. Pie…)

Imagine your ideal work day as a yummy pie – and then imagine using a lovely silver serving utensil to cut out a slice. Decide how big a portion of spaciousness you want. Go ahead.

Decide now what work and to-dos are optional before it starts getting crazy. Then set that slice of work aside. It’ll keep. When the holidays are over you can munch on it all you like.

Persuaded?

What will you cut out over the holidays so you enjoy them more? And for bonus points, do share what kind of pie you’d like to have!

Do you remember the last time you took a walk in the woods?

Maybe you can recall the quality of the light, the views and scenes that passed you, the kinds of plants and trees along the way, or the companions who accompanied you. There’s something meditative about the woods.

Practically speaking, most people find that a walk in the woods is fairly easy to do. You simply choose a place to begin and then start walking. It’s so obvious how to take a walk in the woods that it hardly seems worthwhile to explain it.

You just start.

You don’t worry about step 247 or bridge number 2 or the fourth squirrel. You just walk.

Organizing is like that too.

Organizing is just like a walk in the woods. You begin. You take a single step forward – and another – and another, pausing occasionally to take in the sights.

Except when it isn’t.

Unlike walking in the woods, people do get stressed about where to put things (step 247) or how to deal with email (bridge number 2) or dealing with time management (the fourth squirrel). When you worry about these things, it’s as though you’re standing stock still in the middle of the path with your eyes closed.

You can’t get there any faster by thinking so hard.

Just take a step.

Depending on the length of your legs, a single step happens in about a half-second. Is there something you can you do in your space today that would take a half-second?

The idea isn’t to get to the end of the trail in one fell swoop. Your legs aren’t that long – and neither is your attention span.

Maybe, just maybe, you’d be willing to take a “walk” through your workspace today, taking half-second actions to move what you can.

That fourth squirrel will appear when it’s supposed to and no amount of thinking will make it come faster.

Enjoy your walk.

A deer in the technology headlights

Over breakfast this morning, Inspired Spouse, who is a lover of all things technological, informed me that there is a new android from Google. (blank look)

At least that’s what I heard. Inspired Spouse informed me gleefully that it was a kind of phone. Which could possibly be synced with a computer and other digital devices so that you could access your information anywhere.

If this is going over your head, don’t feel badly. Although I appreciated the information and enthusiastic delivery, I wasn’t tracking the whole thing myself.

A dose of healthy skepticism

I confess. I tend to reserve my rejoicing regarding new products that organize. Whether it’s a phone or digital doodad or paper organizer or (insert retail item of choice), there is simply no better organizing tool than your own brain.

Unfortunately, unlike many gadgets, your brain comes with no user’s manual. This makes it easy to fall prey to the belief that your brain is broken. Disorganized. It’s easier still to succumb to clever advertising that convinces you that some doohicky will make you be organized and save your life.

Celebrating your brain

This is a topic we’re discussing in the Inspired Organizing program right now: the truth that your brain is organized. Really. Since the day you were born. In fact, as you went through childhood and got older, your brain became even more refined and orderly.

Like any tool, you just need to know how to use it. The two keys to utilizing this miraculous natural order inside your head are awareness and space.

Key 1: Awareness

Awareness is most effective when you concentrate on your strengths (for example: creativity, appreciation for color, skill with words, estimation of distance). Even though we all have weaknesses, they’re really, really hard to change. So, by focusing on what you naturally do well, you get lots of good-feeling material to work with in your organizing.

To create awareness, just jot down a list of things your brain is really good at. You may find you want to use some of these strengths in your organizing systems. You might even discover that you already do!

Key 2: Space

In my experience, the people who create the most satisfying, enduring organizing systems are the ones who allow their process to be spacious. In other words, they stop looking for a quick fix.

Stepping out of the quick-fix mode is challenging in a culture that values taking a pill to solve dis-ease and buying its way out of problems. Frankly, choosing to step out of that mentality is a decision I have to make again and again, not just once. But it’s worth it.

Organizing is a process that evolves over time – because you evolve over time. Thank heavens for that! I invite you to notice if you’re open to creating an attitude of space in your life – so there’s room for discovery.

Things to try

Become aware of what you’re good at: As suggested above, take a moment to write down all the things your brain is naturally good at. Add to this list over time. Then think about how your might use these strengths in your organizing.

Create space: While you’re writing, jot down your thoughts to these question: How open are you to letting go of the quick-fix mentality? What might need to shift in your life in order to accomplish this?

Remember when you were a kid, and “getting mail” was really exciting?

Maybe it was a card from your grandmother, a letter from a pen-pal, or even the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes envelope (am I the only one who used to play with the little magazine stamps as “stickers”?). Back in they day, getting mail was fun and kind of exciting. Of course, we got less of it, and we usually didn’t have to worry about things like “filing” or “paying” or “sorting.”

Nowadays, getting mail usually means bills (ugh), junk mail (double ugh), or magazines (fun, but potential clutter). While most of our everyday communication takes place on the phone or online, snail mail is still a presence in our lives… and on our countertops or desktops!

Here’s what I do for snail mail

What works well for me:

Most junk never crosses the threshold into my house. I keep my recycle bin near the door between my garage and house, the entrance I use when I’m coming in the house after retrieving my mail. Before I enter the house, I pause for a minute and pull out all of the flyers, pamphlets and junk mail envelopes that don’t contain private information, and I dump them directly into the recycle bin. They never come in the house.

The shreddable items (credit card offers, for example) come in the house, but go directly into the shredder. If I set them on my desk or counter (ostensibly to “shred later”) they sit there for weeks. Directly to the shredder they go!

The magazines go onto a small end table that sits near my loveseat. Once the shelf on that end table is full, I have to either recycle magazines currently on the shelf, or (if everything on the shelf is Need To Read material) the new magazines get tossed into the recycle bin with the junk mail before ever coming in the house–until some room is made on the end table shelf for new ones!

What I’m working on:

The “needs some attention” stuff is tough. The flyer for a conference I want to attend and need to register for. The bill I need write a check for and pay. The invitation I need to RSVP for (after checking my calendar and figuring out travel details).

The items that require some interim step between receiving it in the mail and disposing of it are the ones that befuddle me, and often end up being tossed in a pile on my desk where they promptly… sit. (Well, they sit *and* act as the foundation layer for additional pieces of “needs further action” snail mail that come later… so let’s not pretend that they’re completely useless.)

And then there’s the outgoing mail that I need to generate: birthday cards, thank you notes, the stuff that I want to send the “old fashioned” way rather than by email. I have the card, I have the stationery, I have the stamps… but all those separate pieces usually wind up sitting on my desk (near that nefarious pile of “needs further action” mail) rather than getting assembled and mailed.

What do YOU do with your snail mail?

What works really well for you? What are you working on?

So first of all, let me ‘fess up that today’s topic is as much catharsis for me as it might be for you.

Confession: I subscribe to stuff I never intent to read.

I mean, I want to read about my friends’ businesses, and my airline’s latest deals, and that cool networking organization in town. But when push comes to shove, I don’t. It just clutters up my inbox enough that I sometimes miss the important stuff.

What that means to have inbox clutter

Every email you receive requires you to make decisions.

“Do I think I’ll need this?”
“Do I have time to read this right now?”
“Do I have time to respond?”
“Should I keep this?”
“Arrgh! What was I doing?”

Whether your inbox has 40 or 1400 unread messages, it’s no wonder you feel ill thinking about it. There’s a lot of work.

That’s the other thing about inbox clutter – overwhelm. If you’re like most people, you have a belief that you “should” make a choice about each email. You “should” read each on thoroughly. Respond to each thoughtfully. And believing all these things makes a body overwhelmed.

Dood. You do not have to deal with each and every email in your inbox.

Honest.

However, you might want to deal with some of them. I mean, there’s some good stuff in there, too. Right?

Virtual Spring Cleaning

If this topic is striking a nerve for you, consider one of two suggestions to virtually spring clean your inbox.

The short-term approach:

Start deleting stuff you don’t want when it arrives. Even if you think you “should” read it. There’s a handy little “delete” button on most email programs for that very purpose.

Warning: it might feel odd.

Doing this reminds me of those gorgeous, colorful mandalas that Buddhist monks create. They spend hours, days creating intricate patterns with individual grains of sand. When it’s all complete, they sweep it all up.

Gone. No attachment. It might take some practice to not be attached, but it’s a lofty intention. It’s also a powerful way to care for yourself.

The long term approach:

If you google “email clutter” you will find a million good ideas on how to make progress in this area.

Here’s what I suggest: start noticing and being curious about ways to prevent email. It’s that old adage about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure.

Unsubscribe.

Do you subscribe to newsletters you never read? At the bottom of each of them is a link you can click that will stop you from receiving them forever. If you get 4 per month, that prevents almost 50 emails.

Every now and then, Inspired Home Office gets a smattering of “unsubscribes” from the newsletter. I confess, it used to hurt my feelings… but one day I realized. Hey! You’re decluttering! How cool is that?! Now I celebrate them. (Call me crazy, but I call it progress.)

Stop subscribing.

Do you sign up for every cool person’s RSS feed? Do you give your email away to any company that asks? Start noticing if you’d like to be more discriminate before the emails start pouring in.

I do this a lot with mail-order companies. If you purchase one thing, they often start sending you promotions right away. If they have a click box during the payment process, I “opt out” then so I never have to decide again.

Try filters, rules, and secondary folders

If you want to, you can use your email program to do the heavy lifting for you.

Most of us understand how spam filters work. You can use this same concept to automatically filter out messages from people or companies you want to hear from, just not right now.

Though every email program is different, most allow you to filter messages to bypass the inbox and stick them into a secondary folder you can read at your pleasure. I do this and it’s WAY less distracting to check my email – and way less overwhelming. I dare say it’s even fun.

The goal is to decide once – and free up your precious time and energy.

It takes time, but you’re worth it.

How’s your holiday wish list coming along? Maybe you’re pining for a new digital camera or a cozy cashmere sweater… Or something practical like a vacuum cleaner that actually works.

Whatever it is you’ve been dreaming of, you may find yourself thinking about how much it would add to your life and how much you’d enjoy possessing and using it.

Yet, unlike items on this wish list, many things come into your home and your office that arrive with less intention or forethought.

Things that own you

Prime culprits fall into these categories:

• That which is sent to you by others: mail, catalogues, opportunities
• Things that other householders bring in: miscellaneous items, laundry, the pet’s toy
• Things you thought you might need someday: an odd business card, a brochure for a class, a CD you never listened to
• Unwanted bits that arrived with things you do/did want: packaging, storage cases, twist ties
• Broken stuff: Empty printer ink cartridges, outdated equipment, batteries you’re not sure have totally expired
• Invisible stuff: Things that used to support your and your business but no longer do

Technically these items belong to you, you probably don’t consider them your possessions.

A definition of irony

The Oxford Dictionary of English states that the root of the word possession is “able” and “to sit”.

That’s right. Unwanted possessions are able to sit – and sometimes quite persistently.

Surrounding yourself with possessions you’ve chosen

One of the biggest blocks I see with home-based businesses are quantities of things from the categories above – that have accumulated over time. When I ask, my clients tell me that they feel dead walking into their office. Repelled. Dread. Exhausted. Unmotivated.

That’s because they’ve accidentally surrounded themselves with belongings they’ve not chosen consciously.

Things to try

If you accumulate possessions unconsciously, there is a remedy.

1. Begin simply by picking something up and asking a simple question: “Does this support my business?”

2. If it doesn’t support your business, it doesn’t belong in your office. Chances are good that someone else can benefit from its use – whether directly or through recycling. Moving it along frees up space and energy.

3. If the item does support your business, the next step is to give it a home where you’ll remember to access it… if it doesn’t have one already.

Invite in what you want – on purpose

Give yourself permission to invite in your office only what will support your work, effectiveness, and joy. Doing this will give you more energy and momentum to do the work you love.