It’s been almost a year since Covid bounced me off my writing path and I ended up back in Portland, Maine. It’s been an insightful year despite the restrictions of a pandemic. Before I left to travel and write, I got divorced, sold my house, and quit my job. So when I came back to Maine, I had no responsibilities and no agenda. What’s an organizer to do with no agenda?

I wrote – not the book I intended to write based on history and travel – but a book called Organizational Zen (which has the fun nickname of OZ!). OZ captures the essence of what I write about in this blog. How do you get to your best work? How do you stay calm amidst chaos? How do you remain joyful in the face of life’s many challenges and uncertainties?

This pandemic year has pushed many of us to question the priorities in our lives. What matters most to us? How is our time best spent? And hasn’t it made us deeply appreciative of our friends and family whom we haven’t been able to see and hug? Zoom has been a miraculous way to connect, but screen time is nothing like time in person. Humans are tribal. We thrive on community even if we’re the quiet one on the edge of a crowd.

Writing Organizational Zen reminded me of that, plus how cool a place the earth is to visit. My hope is that OZ helps other people find that insight and joy as well. The book has a loose format filled with thoughts, ideas, and questions followed by a series of exercises at the end of each chapter. In my writing, I tried to balance practical thinking – like decluttering, setting your intent, and getting to work, with chapters on joy, energy, community, and magic. An unexpected bonus to writing the book has been working with a terrific illustrator who has come up with inspired sketches to open each chapter. Collaborating on creative projects is da bomb!

My next step with OZ is to hold a series of online and maybe some in-person discussion groups to make sure the content and questions resonate. I’m going to set up the groups based on availabilities and interests.

Please drop me a line if you’d like to be part of a group.

There’s no fee to join. These groups will be super helpful to me, and I know we’re going to have some great, bonding discussions. These will start up in April.

Bottom line? We never know what’s coming next. We plan. We organize. And then we create within the spaces we’re given. It’s all learning. And it’s all good.

I’ll leave you today with the photo of a prism on my shower curtain. I make crystal light catchers to hang in my windows. The rainbows they bring in remind that beauty is everywhere – even in the air we breathe!

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