Finding a balance between push and release
Jennifer Hofmann, Inspired Home Office

In order to drive a nail into a board, there’s the obvious downswing that pushes in the nail. Equally important is the back swing in which you prepare for the next push.

If you’re driving a car, pressing the accelerator is only half of the “getting there” equation. You also have to decelerate at the appropriate time, or your car will be in a world of hurt.

To accomplish just about anything, what’s needed is a balance between push and release.

Like most of the creative people I know, I have a frustrating tendency to focus on the push. In fact, as I write this, I’m in the process of trying to convince myself that I don’t want release at all (even though I need it). Instead, I should actually be pushing harder. Frustrating.

Push is not a resting state

When you’re in a period of intense creating, you lose the ability to contrast it with your resting state. The creative state begins to feel like normal, the baseline, when it isn’t.

The trouble is, that pushing harder and forcing work out of ourselves turns off the creative flow. Inspiration goes from a gushing river to a trickle to a dry river bed.

Pausing is vital to the creative process. Taking a break, releasing the pressure, is what fills us back up again. Once we’re replenished, you can create again without struggle.

But it’s hard.

If you live in the States, you’re probably unaware of how much drive is a part of our culture. Productivity. Proving our worth. It’s a silent message, but ever-present and ingrained.

Because of this, slowing down to replenish is counter-culture. Pausing is like swimming against a powerful stream. I often find myself feeling guilty and apologizing for taking time to nourish my spirit. Sometimes I just ignore my need to stop because it’s so hard to claim it.

Lately, I’ve been on an earnest search to discover what replenishes me. Recently, I was surprised to find that I was trying to concoct an “inspiration pill” which would allow me to quickly find my center and begin working again.

It’s laughable, isn’t it? Hurry up and slow down! In truth, pausing takes as long as it needs to and, by nature, can’t be hurried.

What I do to find inspiration

Interestingly, the word “inspire” means to breathe in. So oxygen is a good start. I also like to breathe in quiet – whether that comes from actual silence or my noise-canceling headphones. Removing sound helps me hear the important messages that come from inside.

In my heart of hearts, the thing that nourishes me most is singing old hymns from my days as a music minister. It’s been years since I sang at Mass on Sundays, but I get out my guitar and a big binder of sheet music and play until my fingertips are throbbing.

Something about the lyrics reminds me that I’m just a tiny star in the human constellation… and this is a good thing. These hymns remind me that it’s God/Universe who’s making the stars turn, not me. That it’s safe to let go and trust. I don’t have to control everything (even though my ego wants to).

After a session like this, I have happy tears and a deep feeling of release. Suddenly there’s room in my life again for all the things I love. Things come back into balance again.

It took me a long time to figure out that this is what works for me. And it will probably take the rest of my life to find ways to not resist doing it. I’m okay with that. Like everything in life, it’s a process, not a destination.

What works for you? How do you pause and replenish?

4 comments

A story of overwhelm and redemption

Even before I got out of bed, I knew I’d waited too long to nourish my spirit. Last Monday, Day 3 of the long weekend, I woke up with an almost-desperate need to be in the woods, under the trees, breathing in the scent of earth and fir needles and mountain air.

My need to be free from my desk and work and conversation was so urgent and real, I felt like I could grab it with my hands. I had to get to the woods. Immediately.

Obstacles. The furry kind.

My first clue that things were not going well should have been the squirrel that ran away after I started our infrequently-used truck. But, as I already mentioned, I was a desperate woman on a mission.

Clue Number 2 should have been that when I started the truck, the engine seemed to run a bit raggedly. The closer I got to the gas station, the more roughly it ran. Then I started to notice a vaguely sweet, burning-paper smell.

By the time the truck was fueling up, I already knew I wasn’t going to make it to the woods. Not in this vehicle. And with mild curiosity, I opened the hood (knowing squat about engines) to see what the trouble might be.

Imagine my astonishment when Obstacle 3 presented itself. Technically, they were Obstacles Number 3, 4, and 5 – namely a grassy nest and two very pissed off, very frightened baby squirrels. Inside the engine compartment.

(Note: no animals were harmed in the making of this story.)

The signs and symptoms of overwhelm

As I mentioned, I was already emotionally stretched. I had been working 72 hour weeks, putting a lot of pressure on myself to produce, and was profoundly aware of a widening spiritual gap where my heart ought to be.

My first response? Hysterical laughter. Tears sprang to my eyes. I laughed so oddly, I think the fueling station guy was afraid. Incredulous, I called him over to look at the squirrels’ nest and he kept a safe distance. From me.

After I’d called Inspired Spouse for backup and two nature-loving friends for ideas, I sat in the cab of the truck at the gas station and burst into tears. Yup. While the poor squirrels cowered in the engine compartment, Inspired Spouse sat with me as I sobbed, “I just needed… a day… off.”

Folks, this is what we call overwhelm.

And you know it’s arrived when an event and the resulting response are significantly out of proportion. Shock and laughter, okay, that’s pretty normal. But sobbing about squirrels? Yeah. That’s overwhelm.

The rest of the story

While the following section has nothing to do with an inspired workspace, it would be unkind not to tell you how it all turned out.

After the crying, we attempted to make use of the enormous red ski gloves and cat carrier that Inspired Spouse had ingeniously brought. I will also confess my not-so-rational fear of wild animals. The 5-ounce baby squirrel proved no exception.

If you’ve never heard a baby squirrel scream and grunt and make as if it’s going to take your face off, let me tell you, it makes one’s blood run cold. At least it did mine. But Inspired Spouse, bless her, attempted the same maneuver and they skittered away among the hoses, out of reach.

Now out of options to rescue them, I decided to drive the 2 miles home. With the squirrels still under the hood. Shrieking with fear.

The lesson of the baby squirrels

We all arrived home safely and about an hour later, Mama Squirrel had relocated the nest (after telling us off). Whew.

Fortunately, I did get to the woods that day. It wasn’t the day I’d hoped for, but I ended up getting what I needed. No more sobbing for a while.

The lesson at the heart of drama is how important it is to pay attention to the subtle signs of overwhelm, before the big sobbing thing happens. In the weeks previous, I noticed but ignored, my short temper, the need for solitude, annoyance at loved ones, erratic driving, holding my breath, and eating weird food at weird hours.

I kept telling myself and others that I was “fine”, but the baby squirrels helped me see what was true. I needed a break. So do you.

Get out in the woods, your way

If you’re self-employed, or are caring for elderly relatives, or raising children, or managing an illness, or other things that consume physical and emotional energy, there’s an urge to keep pushing through. To deal.

However, refusing to take a break and get out in the proverbial woods leaves you empty and unable to respond when action is called for. It’s ironic that I needed my tank filled, just like the truck did. Except it’s so easy to forget.

So I invite you to inquire how close you are to overwhelm today… and notice if there’s something you need to stop for, so that you can fill up too. Before you get squirrely.

This post is one of a 4-part series on retreats. To read the rest, visit the links below:

Part 1: Laughs, Tears, and Rodents with Fancy Tails
Part 2: Get More Done by Not Doing Anything
Part 3: How the Retreat Really Went
Part 4: Is Your Spirit Tank on Empty? 10 steps to your retreat

Care to comment?

When you’re self-employed, the time clock doesn’t dictate when you punch out.

Ending the work day is something that many people struggle with. It’s a topic that came up last week at the Superlicious Diva Business Day, and I realized that it’s a big problem for me, too.

Here’s what I doing to stop working at the end of the day

What is currently working well for me:

Schedule something at the end of the day. At 6ish every evening, Inspired Spouse and I eat dinner together. It’s an agreement. Not only do we both enjoy it, when I know dinner’s waiting – or it’s my turn to make it – I just stop working. It’s more important to me to keep that commitment than it is to goof around on Facebook.

Find other things to do with myself in the evening and on weekends. Not too long ago, gave myself the evening off and I paced around anxiously trying to figure out what to *do* with myself. It’s laughable now, but I was seriously stressed at the time. What do I do if I’m not working?

My current strategy is having stuff to focus on besides work. I’ve got a big stack of books to veg out with in the evenings. And, on weekends, Inspired Spouse and I talk about and negotiate what chores we’ll do and what fun activities we’d like to partake in. Last weekend, for example, we went to the Aumsville Corn Festival (fantastic!) and saw the movie Julie & Julia (delightful!). A year ago, I was not doing this kind of fun stuff, so this is serious progress.

What I’m currently working on

I’m working very long hours. That’s just the fact. I’m not even working on it yet. All I’m doing at this point is noticing (which is, in itself, powerful).

What I notice is that most days I’m at my desk by 7am and I usually work until about 6pm, 3 days a week. Every night, I usually end up back in my office after dinner to answer email, do twitter and Facebook stuff, and answer blog posts. I like doing this – but some days I feel exhausted.

In total, including my part-time job, (grabs calculator) I’m working about 72 hours a week. Whew! No wonder!

Creating boundaries around my work time. This is the thing I’d like to work on most. I’m not exactly sure what my needs are yet since I’m still in the Noticing Phase. But I know that if I stay open and curious, I’ll get clarity about what to do next.

I’ll keep you posted.

What do YOU do to stop working at the end of the day?

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

Share your insights and ideas! Your comments on your own process are welcome. I also request kindly, firmly, that you not give advice to me or others unless it’s specifically requested. This makes exploring safe and learning possible for every reader.

7 comments

Have you ever had “one of those days?” Or a whole week of them?

“How are you, today?”
“Oh, fine.”

Even though you don’t feel fine.

It takes a lot of energy to put on a plastic smile. I mean a lot. In fact, forcing emotions can make you feel drained of energy in the long run.

What’s really happening?

For any variety of interesting reasons, we deem true emotions unfit for public consumption. Somehow we adopted the belief that it’s not okay to be crabby. Or to feel off-balance. Or let it show.

If you keep your feelings isolated inside, you can feel very isolated.

(Bear with me and we’ll tie this into office organization in a minute. Honest.)

“Problem Identification”

In my opinion, “venting” gets a bad rap. Venting – as in: getting stuff of your chest. So instead, I started calling it “Problem Identification”. Makes it sound fancy and productive, doesn’t it?

Actually, it is productive.

If you give yourself permission to share what’s happening inside you, amazing things can happen. Just yesterday, I “Identified a Problem” that has been a source of frustration for weeks.

Okay. It was more than a “source of frustration.” I was a ball of nerves. I felt stressed, anxious, confused, ticked off, and I was taking everything (even unrelated things) 100% personally. You ever have one of those days? It sucks.

The productive part

Well. Yesterday, I got tired of stewing. I wrote a Problem Identification email to my two mastermind buddies and just let ‘er rip. What I was confused about. What I was angry about. What was frustrating me. (It’s not you, honest.)

By the time I wrote this bullet-pointed missive, I was already feeling better. I got it all off my chest. And their empathic replies started me grinning.

Lisa’s email said:

…sometimes it’s just fine to just be a big, angry, stompy-booted, annoyed person about it.

Isn’t she awesome? Then she said,

Letting yourself have that is self-care too.

Suddenly the mountain was a rightful molehill again.

How Problem Identification works

Want to get stompy-booted and unstuck, too?

1. Acknowledge that all is not right.
2. Ask someone you trust if they’re willing to listen without trying to “fix” you (important!).
3. Share the whole ugly mess of thoughts and feelings.

Problem Identification is only half the solution.

You’ve probably met people who only focus on the Identification part. They wear you down, don’t they? If you stop at Problem Identification, you just keep stewing in your own juices.

What’s needed next are Solutions.

In science, a “solution” involves mixing dense matter into less dense matter which dilutes its potency. A nerdy analogy, yes, but Problem Identification is a dense thing that you can mix into your spacious, not-dense curiosity. And the problem dissolves.

For example, once you’ve had a good vent, you can explore:

What is one small baby step I can take to move this forward?

What is one small shift that will move me from “stuck and irritated” into “clear and empowered?”

But only after you’ve had The Vent.

What the heck does this have to do with organizing?

I love it when you ask that.

Have you ever noticed that you get irritated and frustrated by your work space from time to time (or all the time?).

If you share this frustration with someone, it helps you move out of the mental snarl of negative self-talk. It helps you get clear about Exactly What Isn’t Working and how gol-blasted irritating it is.

Suddenly, there’s space in you to be curious about Solutions.  And you can move forward.

How cool is that?

You’re your own organizing expert

No one knows what you need better than you do (not even me!).

So inquire:

What’s bugging you about your office lately? Let it all out to someone you trust. Then cultivate curiosity about what you need and how you want to move forward.

Oh – and let me know how it goes!

Care to comment?

How non-judgment can heal the chaos

If you look around you in overwhelm at the stuff that’s still on your desk from who-knows-when, take solace.

Sometimes that stuff is there because it’s comforting. It might even help you feel like you have a handle on things better than if it were all tucked invisibly away. This physical stuff can help you feel grounded – even if it’s more than you really want around you all the time.

There’s a beautiful thing at work when you keep clutter around you this way.

Stuff – it’s self-care. It’s compassion.

In a world that can sometimes seem hostile and overwhelming, it can be comforting to return to the familiar of your stuff. You can see it. It’s real. And it’s yours.

You’re waiting for the “but,” right?

Don’t be surprised that there isn’t a “but.”

If having your stuff around you makes you feel safer, I applaud you for finding a little peace in this life. A lot of people don’t.

If you make neat little piles of things because you need to feel some kind of control in life, good for you. This is beautiful. It’s self-care.

If you print things very sparingly, using the both sides of all your papers, aware of the environmental impact of using tree-based products. This helps you feel like you’re making a difference. Brava to you.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this.

Even if you’re embarrassed about how your office looks or the way you do things, I want to tell you now: they’re perfect. You’re perfect – because you’re doing your best to care for yourself.

Compassion. Acceptance. We all need it.

The trouble starts when you judge your behaviors with a mean and critical eye.

You look at the stuff around you and The Committee chimes in with their interpretation of your shortcomings, foibles, and failures. “You should be this,” and “You should do that.” They’re a bossy bunch, aren’t they?

What gives?

Let me tell you: There isn’t a single “should” in organizing. You don’t have to use those ugly manila folders. You don’t have to get rid of that pile (or roomful) of receipts. You don’t have to sit in an uncomfortable chair all day.

The Committee might want you to heed their cautions, but the truth is: you’re the boss of your land. You’re the CEO. You get to decide what feels good and right to you, no matter how raucous The Committee is.

What to do with The Committee

Believe it or not, The Committee of opinionated folk has a job to do: protect you. They want to make sure you’re safe.

Sometimes, the information they give you is out of date. Often, it was relevant to you when you were younger, but now you’re a big ol’ grownup with a business and a passion.

Things to try:

Here are some great ways to honor the message, without letting it destroy you.

1. Notice self-judgment

There’s no need to stuff it down. Instead of taking it on and self-loathing too, practice neutrally observing those messages.

2. Express gratitude

These voices have something important to share, so acknowledge the message and its intention. Thank this part of you for speaking up and let it know you’ll take it under advisement.

3. Do what feels right to you

There’s no reason to be a captive to your self-judgments. Be your own CEO. Ask yourself, “What would bring me more peace?” and “What would the most loving thing?” Trust what comes up and then do that thing. Even if it means changing nothing.

Care to comment?

Feeling spacey? Get some space.

Perhaps it’s just one of those messages from the Universe, but I have had almost the same exact conversation with three clients in the last week.

That usually means one of two things: 1. there’s a lesson I need to learn myself or 2. it means it’s time to write a newsletter about it. It’s ususally both.

So here’s the scenario:

You’ve got something you’re working on. The deadline isn’t tomorrow, but it’s coming up. You’ve been procrastinating doing it for a while and you know it’s time to crack down and get it done.

So you sit down at your computer to get it done, but first you check your email. Then you check the weather. Then you check email again. You know where I’m going with this, right? The Thing doesn’t never get done. (Yes, you heard me right with my double negative.)

The creative process can’t be forced.

Have you ever asked someone who speaks a foreign language to “say something” in that language? You know what happens: they blank. They look around in the sky for inspiration to strike, but they’re on the spot and nothing comes out.

The same thing happens when you’re trying to create by force.

Most people hold the mistaken belief that creativity means producing something. They look at a piece of artwork or hear a song and think: “they’re so creative.”

Creativity actually comes before production.

I know this is abstract, but hang in there with me.

Have you ever been struck by an idea so brilliant and so exciting, you can’t wait to create it? What were you doing when it occurred? A lot of the time, these flashes of inspiration come while you’re in lah-lah land, zoning out, doing mundane stuff.

Have you ever noticed that they don’t come when you’re under the gun, straining, slumped over the computer like Quasimodo? Nothing happens then, does it. There’s a reason for this: creativity needs space.

But we don’t give it space. We try to force it. We push, thinking: “I’ve GOT to get this done.”  All that email and weather-checking is an attempt to buy you time. Your brain has other ideas.

The positive side of procrastination

Procrastination has a positive intention: to give your brain the space it needs to rest, regroup, and pop out another brilliant, twinkly idea.

When you force productivity, it backfires. Things that “should” be simple, take forever. Talk about frustrating.

How to get space to work for you

I was talking to a client recently who cracked her own code. She noticed that every time she was pushing herself, her body was in a certain posture and she felt a specific emotion.

One day, she decided to do something about it (I’m so proud): she took a break.

She discovered that taking a break, walking away, wiping down counters in the kitchen, somehow that was enough. When she went back to work, The Thing was easy.

What are you forcing?

Me? Well, I have an incredible, exciting program I’ll be sharing with you… Sometime soon. But I’m sitting on my hands right now. I realized this week that it needs to percolate longer because trying to force it out by September 1st wasn’t working.

If you’ve been putting off a project or trying to get something accomplished, you hereby have my permission to stop. Better yet, give yourself permission.

Things to try

1. Ask yourself what you’re needing. What do you really need? Is it a glass of water? A stroll by a river? To drive 75 mph blaring old Bruce Springsteen tunes? Whatever it is…

2. Do it. You’ll be glad you did.

3. Come back to the project later. When you come back, you’ll be nourished by the space and have renewed energy. Give it a whirl and let me know how it goes (I’ll keep you posted on my project, too).

Care to comment?

Even when it’s change you want!

Have you ever made a significant change in your workspace? Are you thinking about one?

Whether you’re dreaming about getting a new computer, setting up a website, or rearranging the location of your desk – there is change on your horizon.

Change is good – it means you’re learning and growing your business.

A little nerdy factoid for you: the Latin root of the word “change” is “to barter.” In other words, when you make a change in your workspace, there’s bound to be some negotiating – and it’s mostly an “inside job.”

Who’s bartering for your attention?

When you begin an effort to change something, there is a side of you that liked the old, familiar way of doing things. It has needs that, if addressed, will make the transition easier. And the side of you that’s excited about the future possibilities will also have needs. That’s just how it goes.

If you were to tell one of those two sides “suck it up” – it can make adjusting to the change a lot harder. Imagine how a conversation like that might go with a loved one (I’m guessing not very well). So, be gentle with yourself and your needs when you’re going through a change.

You might have noticed that once you decide to make a change in your workspace that there’s a feeling of momentum and energy behind it. You might feel excited and want to stop everything and set it up as soon as you think of it.

The trick is to use this momentum to your advantage.

Feeling stuck instead of psyched?

If you want to change something about your office or business processes – and you don’t feel momentum, make a mental note of this. If you feel draggy or apathetic, that’s really okay. It’s even normal. The steps below will help you discover what’s missing and the apathy will dissolve.

3 steps that disarm resistance

1. Think about where you want to end up.

Think about a change you want to make in your workspace that will have a positive impact on your business and how you feel in your workspace.

Write or think about what impact the change will have on your work experience. How will you benefit from making it? How will your office feel once you do? How will you feel?

2. What are the challenges you face when it comes to making this change?

You might have time constraints or financial ones. You might be resistant to learning something new. You may feel like you don’t have enough information or support to take the next step.

3. Decide what your next step will be.

Remember those needs I mentioned? Now’s a great time to give them some thought. To make the transition smoother for you, what do you need? Once you know this, you can create a plan.

If you’re the kind of person that likes to write out all the steps, go for it. But if you can’t see very far ahead, that’s okay too. Figure out what your very next step will be, and take it.

Care to comment?

Your best buddy has a perfect office, neat as a pin.

You notice the display at Office Big Box has furniture that look so organized and tidy.

You drool over the latest office feature in Martha’s magazine that looks so adorably perky.

The green-eyed monster has moved into your office and has taken over whatever semblance of  confidence you may have had.

How’d that happen?

It’s natural to look around you for solutions – especially if you’re stuck or dissatisfied with something in your life. And while searching for ideas and inspiration is great, it’s downright depressing to look at how others do it and compare theirs to yours.

“That’s so expensive, I don’t have that kind of money to spend.”
“That looks impossibly neat, I could never keep my office as clean as she does.”
“My office isn’t that big, I don’t have anywhere to put anything!”
“I’ve got so much paper and stuff, I could never get my office to look like that.”

Do these comments sound depressingly familiar?

Or, worst of all, there’s:

Thank God no one sees my office.

Comparison, unveiled.

When you compare, you see differences. And they keep you stuck. Comparison can make you feel badly about how your office looks, your self worth, and even doubt whether you’re an effective business owner. Comparison can become a downward spiral of self-doubt and self-loathing.

If you feel some of those terrible feelings about yourself or your office, you’re not alone.

The answers aren’t out there. They’re in here.

If you’re struggling to put order and beauty in your workspace, I want to let you in on a secret: the key is inside you.

You can look at a million websites for ideas and read dozens of books about organizing, but all that information will not change how your office looks or feels. I’ll bet you already know that.

If you’re looking outside of yourself for answers, you’re missing out on a valuable resource: your own wisdom.

Self-defining vs. comparison

All those people you were comparing yourself to? They all had something in common:

• Your best buddy knew what she wanted.
• The Office Big Box furniture designers knew what they wanted.
• That Martha Stewart – she knew what she wanted (doesn’t she always?).

It’s not like they all had some magic formula that you can’t access. Each of them had a vision – and then they created it in real life.

Find your vision

To banish the green-eyed monster and gain back your workspace mojo, here are 3 practical steps to take:

1. Ask yourself what you want.

What is it you need to work peacefully in your office? No matter how far from it you may feel, write it down or draw a picture of it – and describe it in as much detail as possible.

The purpose of doing this is to forge a clear idea of what your perfect office is like. When you see ideas in magazines, they become tools rather than deterrents to your progress.

2. Figure out what your parameters are.

What’s your budget, space needs, storage needs, etc. This puts your vision into real-life perspective.

3. Start taking small steps toward your vision.

Once you’re clear, the best thing to do is take action. Sitting on your hands will just make you frustrated. What’s one small thing you can accomplish toward your vision? What’s a tiny thing you can do today?

The important thing is to focus on small steps, because they add up. And they’re so much more compassionate.

Care to comment?

Have you ever had to dig to find an important piece of paper? Okay, who hasn’t?

Generally speaking, the stuff on your desk is made up of three things:

• projects in progress
• things “to do” that aren’t urgent
• miscellaneous stuff you don’t have a home for

Beyond that, there are also file cabinets and bookshelves and closets that contain storage. There’s a lot of stuff around!

One day it dawned on me that all of this paper – every last piece of it – was eventually going to end up in the trash can.

It could be tomorrow or it could be after your death, but all the stuff you’ve got is temporary.

When do you want to deal with it?

In my Inspired Organizing class, we’ve been talking about the concept of office maintenance. The root of this word means “to hold in your hand” – to physically pick the thing up and do something with it. Maintaining your accumulated papers is an important key to having a resilient business and organized office.

Sounds bone dry, doesn’t it? Keep reading, though, there’s more to it.

Space care is self-care

See, creating a habit of picking up things in your workspace and deciding what to do with them can be a really profound way to care for yourself and your business.

Maintaining your space provides an opportunity to make decisions about things you’ve been considering. It diminishes visual distraction. Most of all, this maintenance helps your business and your brain stay in a state of flow, rather than stagnancy.

How do you like to maintain?

When it comes to maintaining one’s office, there three kinds of people: Schedulers, Tenders, and Buddy-uppers.

• Schedulers like to treat their office as if it were a real client. You like to make appointments in your calendar that set aside time to work on maintaining your office. This system works as a reminder and it helps you prevent procrastination.

• Tenders treat their office like a houseplant. When the office starts wilting or gets chaotic, Tenders people will take time out and deal with the clutter. You’re not crazy about being pinned down to a specific schedule, but when things get out of control, you go into a flurry of activity to get it back again.

• Buddy-uppers like to have real live humans involved in the maintenance of their office. Having someone’s support that you’re accountable to is key. Having a sounding board is extremely helpful because the companionship is reassuring and it helps you stay focused.

The love behind the maintaining

It’s important to know that no maintenance style is superior, just unique to you. If you haven’t done maintenance in your office for a while, give some thought to what approach might be most helpful for you. And take the next step.

The end goal of maintenance is to help bring each paper, each item, to the next place it needs to go – when the time is right for you. Sometimes it’s to a file or back into the mail, sometimes it’s the trash can or the recycle bin.

If you take one item at a time and choose its next destination before moving on to the next, it can be a few short minutes before your office is a spacious, invigorating place to work.

Care to comment?

An inspired look at reducing your paper-induced stress

Since the ancient Egyptians began writing on papyrus 5000 years ago, humans have been making decisions about where to store these flimsy pieces of plant pulp.

Fortunately for us in the modern era, paper isn’t as fragile, expensive, or prone to rot as those hammered fronds. But it does mean that we can acquire a lot more of it than the ancients ever did. A ton. Even in our technology-rich world, people still rely heavily on print and paper.

Look on your desk right now and you might find things like mail, bank statements, records, books, checks, correspondence, receipts, printed emails, files, and more. All of it paper. Ra help us!

Paper’s like water

The interesting thing about paper is that it’s a lot like water. If there’s a clear direction, it will end up where it needs to go with a minimum of fuss. It will “go with the flow.”

When the direction of the flow of paper isn’t defined, it will pool up in unexpected places and in undesirable volumes. When life gets crazy and when you put off handling mail for a while, it can become a tsunami-like wall of paper.

Today, we’ll hone in on the kind of paper that comes to you unbidden: mail.

What’s in your mail?

Simply put, mail is made up of containers (envelopes, boxes) and contents (everything inside them). But it’s not that simple. It can include postcards, newsletters, coupons, fliers, catalogs, and more. It gets sent to you equally by people you want to hear from and people you don’t.

Some mail requires action: urgent, moderately urgent, not urgent at all. Mail comes from someone who wants you to respond in some way. As if you don’t have enough to do.

This may be obvious, but because there are so many choices to make about all this mail it’s often easier to deposit it in one location and close the door.

Where does it come from?

Come rain or snow or storm of night, the stuff I get in my mailbox arrives every day at about 10am. When we first moved into our house a year ago, we had no system. So the mail piled up. Our personal mail, business mail, stuff for the previous tenants. Everything. It was a mess.

At a spot in the kitchen where everything was landing already anyway, I set up a mini-mailbox. There, we divided the mail by who it was addressed to.

Now, it’s my daily routine to pick up my mail and sort it at the mini-box. I open everything immediately and discard of all the things I don’t want: envelopes, inserts, credit card offers, etc. I have plans to put a recycle bin and a shredder nearby, so all that’s left over will be the items that need action.

Where does it go?

Deciding where to put things once they come into your life is a personal decision that is unique to you.

To discover what works best for you, watch how you obtain your mail and observe the path it travels from the mailbox to your desk. Over time, you will begin to notice where it pools up and stagnates.

Where do you put it?

Where things accumulate, you need a way to remind yourself to take the next action step.

If, for example, that piece of mail is a bill, where would you like to put it so that you remember to pay it? If it’s a conference registration form, where will it live so you remember to take the next step (like filling it out or checking your budget)?

Everyone does it differently according to their own preferences. I have one client who uses a vertical file folder system with a file for bills and a file for receipts to enter into her bookkeeping software. I like to file it out of sight after putting a task in my organizing software.

What would work for you? Follow these steps to find out.

Things to try

1. Notice where your paper comes from

For a few days, bring a heightened awareness to the myriad sources of mail and paper in your workspace. You don’t need to fix or change anything, just notice with curiosity the places it all comes from.

2. Stem the tide

You may see after a few days that there are ways to reduce the volume of mail and paper.

When I noticed the number of catalogs we were getting, I called each business and requested to be removed from their mailing list. This may sound tedious, but the volume of mail decreased dramatically within a month – so there was less to sort.

When you start reducing the volume you have to deal with, it’s a profound way to care for yourself and nurture your business.

3. Think about where you want the things you need.

Look carefully at what kinds of things accumulate and notice what you need and trust the answers that come up for you. Often simple solutions are the most effective.

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