I love having a to-do list, a calendar, a daily planner. Most days this works really well for me to get lots done. But other days, I start with a BOOM.
Some days the BOOM hits me as I’m waking up. Sometimes it hits in the shower. Sometimes I’m halfway up the stairs on the way to my office when I get an idea to do something that is definitely not on my list for the day. I feel my energy lift, a smile spreads across my face, and I dive in. Continue reading
Getting through a holiday-laced December can be fun – and it can be exhausting. Having a plan in place will help you feel more in control and help tilt things more toward fun and less toward stress. Planning also helps you stick to your priorities rather than making last-minute decisions on the fly.
Good planning starts with a schedule. Take a look at December and block out time now for:
Special events and family events
When you have a million things to do, everything feels important, and whatever’s next on the list gets done. You may have an edgy feeling that you’re missing out, that there’s something you should be doing, but who has time to think about it, right? You’re getting stuff done, so go go go.
Then you wake up in the middle of the night. You glance at the clock. It’s 4:00 AM. It’s quiet and dark. You can’t go back to sleep and start to think about things that never intrude on your busy days.
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
In times of uncertainty and divisiveness, it helps to be mindful of the people around you and to recognize that we’re all in this together.
Patriot’s Day weekend, 2007, I was at an Omega Institute class in mid-town Manhattan with Zen teacher Sharon Salzberg. The topic was mindfulness. At the end of the class, Sharon asked us to look around the room and imagine that we were going to be stuck in a subway car with this specific group of people – for eternity.
“If you know you’ll be with this group for eternity, does that change how you feel about them? Does it make you more curious? Are you going to get to know them? Or are they going to continue to be strangers?” 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
Organizational Zen is about being organized in a way that brings you peace. It’s not about trying to nail down every aspect of your life, to be neat as a pin, or to always be perfect and in control. And it’s not about trying to organize others – you’re concentrating on your own good work.
Organizational Zen is about deciding how you want to spend your time, then prioritizing and focusing on what you’re doing.
Here’s an exercise I learned in Lissa Rankin’s book Mind Over Medicine that gives you a visual of the essential things you need in your life to feel balanced.
I did some thinking about what the rocks are in my cairn and came up with a long list. Continue reading
If your life was a play, is it something you’d go see?
If your life were a play, would you live it differently than you are now? Continue reading
If you’re working to achieve organizational Zen and not waste time, corporate meetings are a huge challenge! According to a survey of U.S. professionals by Salary.com, meetings ranked as the number one office productivity killer.
Here are 15 ideas to help you run more effective meetings. Continue reading
Organizational Habits 