Thanksgiving is a great time to focus on what you feel grateful for.
If you aren’t feeling grateful this week, try brainstorming a list, or make a cool graphic like the one to the left, of everything in your life that brings you joy. Push yourself to make the list as long as possible so you remember to include the goofy things and the cool things – like chocolate. Or playing with your dog. Or sunrises.
How do you spend your time? Do you choose with focus and intent? Or are your days more random?
When you’re surfing the net or watching TV, is your energy up, or down? When you stop, do you feel lighter or heavier? Are you learning something? Sharing something?
Do your activities make a difference in your life or in the lives of others? Are you using your time well? Does what you’re doing affect you at a soul level? Continue reading
Have you ever noticed when you’re doing something out of habit, like taking a shower or driving to work, that you think of all sorts of things that have nothing to do with taking a shower or driving to work? That’s your brain on autopilot. You are in a habit loop.
Think about the last time you learned something new, drove a new route, or started a new job. When something’s new, your brain slows down to make a myriad of decisions. Once you’ve done something for a while, your brain shifts to autopilot.
Because your brain saves energy being on autopilot, old habits can be hard to break. And new habits can be slow to form because new habits take full brain power.
So how does a habit loop work? Continue reading
When I give talks on Organizational Zen, I always end with a slide that says, “Take Care of Yourself”. It occurred to me recently to move this slide to the front of the pack because if you aren’t healthy, getting organized is the last thing you want to tackle.
“Take Care of Yourself” sounds simple, but we know it’s not. Are you careful about what you expose your body to? Are you getting enough sleep? How are you doing for exercise? Do you have quiet time each day to help manage stress?
How could I give this only one slide? 🙂
In this post, I’ll tackle my favorite part of self-care: Things you expose your body to.
Food
I’ll admit it: I’m a foodie. I read every ingredient label and agonize over the food I eat. Where was it grown? Does it include additives? Did anyone suffer from the collecting of this food?
Bottom line: Is it healthy for the planet, and for me to eat this? Continue reading
I’m a big fan of decluttering – your workspace, your closets, and your mind! But when someone recommended Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up I hesitated to read it. My house and life are pretty much decluttered. Was reading this book a good use of my time?
It was, and here’s why: Vertical Storage.
Marie Kondo is adamant that after you pile up similar items, sort them to get rid of most of the pile, and are ready to put the few remaining items away in their own unique spot, that you fold or stack items vertically. I scoffed. My socks like being balled like potatoes. And my t-shirts could never possibly fold to sit vertically. And yet, I’m a geek for organizational ideas so I had to try it.
Here’s what vertical storage looks like in a sock drawer. Continue reading
Does slouching contribute to procrastination?
According to a study highlighted this week in FastCompany, Erik Peper, PhD, says that when you stand tall, chin up, shoulders wide, your body relaxes into a safe and confident state. He says that when your body is erect, whether sitting, standing, or walking, you have more energy and more positive thoughts.
Conversely, when you’re hunched over, you don’t breathe as well, put pressure on your stomach, and don’t think as clearly.
“When you collapse, you signal to the body that you are in a defense reaction. Your cortisol goes up and testosterone goes down,” says Peper. “In our research, we have demonstrated that in the collapsed position, you have easier access to hopeless, helpless, powerless, defeated thoughts and memories, and it takes more brain activation to think of positive empowering thoughts than it does in the erect position.”
Peper calls depression a “sitting disease” and attributes it to too much time spent at a desk, on a couch in front of a TV, or hunched over a screen.
Let’s test out this theory. Continue reading
I just finished listening to Eckhardt Tolle’s audio book A New Earth. I love audio books and listen to them regularly when I drive. This started as a habit when I was driving long distances, but has evolved into an everyday habit. It’s weird to look forward to running errands or heading to the grocery story because you get to learn something new – but it’s a great use of time when you are in the car.
So back to A New Earth – there was so much to take in. Here are three big take-aways that relate to getting organized and finding the peace within that.
Roll the dice. Draw a card. Move a colored peg around the board.
Life is a game with an unpredictable outcome, and the fun is in the playing. When you wake up in the morning, are you grateful to be alive? Do you feel energy in your gut anticipating the day?
What will you learn today? Who will you meet? What conversations will you have?
Back to the game. Draw a “Habit” card and see where it takes you…
Having a passion in life helps you resist the urge to waste time. Writing is my passion but it took me years to develop it into a habit.
What I learned along the way was that for me to write a novel, I had to treat writing like it was a job. It took time, intent, commitment, focus, and prioritization to turn an idea for a historic story into a book.
Here are my big take-aways that can be applied to any new habit.
Organizational Habits 