Recharge your batteries
I’m taking this weekend off from blogging to help a friend with some moving. This is the same friend who’s helped me so much with my clutter lately. I’ll be heading up to New York with him tomorrow to help move some things from his storage unit and return the favor by helping him unload some of his clutter. I have really been focused on my writing and promoting the site, so I’ve felt a bit overwhelmed lately. This is my most serious and successful attempt at running a blog yet! Also, a promising employment opportunity that I thought may have slipped away appears to have shown its head again and I’m eager to see what good things may come of it.
This provides an excellent topic of discussion. When you are seriously getting into personal development or just working hard in general, sometimes it’s good to sit back and reflect upon what you have done, rest a bit and then get back at it. Of course, make sure you take breaks throughout the day (or night..I’ve been a shift-worker before!), take a ten-minute break and take a short walk or just stretch out a bit.
What I’m talking about is refreshing yourself a bit more often by getting away for more extended periods of time. Just forget about what you’ve been doing for a bit and reboot your mental computer. My personal preference (even though I don’t always get to stick to it myself) is to get away or go out for at least a day on my own each week. If all is well, in addition to that I try to take some kind of long weekend (or longer) getaway at least once every three months. This habit will really free you up and make you a more productive and efficient worker when you return.
The United States has a bad habit (some might even say tradition) of overworking. Japan is probably just as bad in some ways. I just read a Yahoo article the other day about a Toyota executive who literally worked himself to death. Many countries in Europe have a tradition of taking breaks often and it really aids in their production and efficiency.
Do you ever feel so overloaded with information at work that you just start to shut down? It is essentially like your brain really is a computer that has just overloaded its RAM and starts to run slower and slower. Multitasking can expedite this process. There have been studies that have shown that multitasking creates more ineffectiveness and lower cognitive efficiency than smoking pot does.
This brings me to an even more important case study. Men’s Health magazine did a study a few years back. One of their writers took an extended vacation of 30+ days. He came back feeling refreshed and said he gained major improvements in memory and energy because of the vacation. Taking time off can also help you get recharged and re-enthused to return to work and go at it harder than ever.
So go out and enjoy yourself at least one day this weekend. Take a road trip to some interesting place nearby that you’ve been meaning to see but just haven’t made the time. Get together with friends. Take your mind off of work for a bit and really enjoy yourself.
Also start thinking about the possibility of taking time off in the near future on a long weekend or even putting those vacation days to good use and taking a REAL vacation. Once you do this you’ll feel better in every facet of your life, and come back a new person with a renewed vigor and passion for whatever tasks await you.
Take a much-deserved break. You’ve earned it.
Clark
Take back your life by kicking clutter’s A$$
Okay, I had a few ideas swimming through my head for what to write about today. But I have been writing about some more serious topics for the last week or so and I wanted to have a little more fun. This is something that I’ve been doing lately as well, so it’s definitely on the brain as of late.
Clutter. We all have it at some point and just don’t think about it. My house has been very cluttered for the last year. My grandmother’s house is very SCARY. I love her to death, but her place has always been a bit cluttered. The last time I went there a few months ago, I could barely get around the house. This place is huge AND it has a large amount of clutter. I realized recently that my place was starting to fill up a bit with a bunch of junk that I just don’t need any more. Then I remembered how her place was and how I would like it NOT to get to that point.
I arrived back from my Iraq deployment over a year ago and left a lot of my gear down in the basement. A good friend has just recently acted out and helped me get motivated to undo this clutter in my house. He helped me clean up and organize my basement and I just notice how much better I feel. I seriously FEEL better PHYSICALLY just because one section of my house is organized, clean, and navigable.
So right in line with my small-chunk approach, I am now working on other areas of my house, a bit at a time. My friend helped me clear out a bunch of old crap, junk furniture, old broken electronics, and other garbage. We loaded it up in his truck, took it out to the dump and threw it into garbage heaven. A large mental weight was lifted at that point. We then came back and organized all my deployment gear and got the basement looking very neat and spiffy. I still have a lot of junk in my basement but now it is organized junk and I am going to be looking at getting rid of a lot of it in the near future via yard sales and eBay.
I also cleaned up and organized my upstairs bedrooms. I have a very workable guest room now that is still being used a little bit for storage, but at least I would have a place for a friend to crash if necessary. Next on the agenda is getting the rest of the house done, a room at a time.
The reason I am posting about this as it relates to personal development is exactly what I wrote earlier. I honestly FELT a hundred times better just after getting a few sections of my home cleaner and more organized. Just think how good I’ll feel when I have the whole place done and into a workable system where I can maintain it!
The point here is that I believe we all have a little clutter in our lives from time to time. Sometimes we notice it right away and clean up. Other times you tend to overlook it and that leaves the possibility of procrastinating, letting it grow, and then just blocking it altogether. I knew there was clutter but I honestly didn’t realize how bad it was affecting me until after we were finished. It’s a very refreshing and accomplished feeling to get your life in order. It motivates me to do more of the same to get more of that feeling as I walk through every part of my home.
Here are a few things you can do to win back your life from the clutches of clutter:
1. Clean and organize one room or area of your home per day. If you have a small house or apartment this won’t take long (lucky you!). If you have a larger home, it can be very overwhelming. The small-chunk approach will help you get past this. Just do one room every day as time permits. If you need help with some things, ask a good friend or family member. Within two weeks, you will have a very organized and workable living space.
2. Throw out, give away, or sell things you know you don’t need. Take all that old crap that has no use to the dump. Give away those clothes you never wear ever to charity (and get a tax deduction slip for it!). Sell those items that have value but that you don’t use by having a yard sale or by putting them up on eBay (and make some extra cash to take yourself out as a reward). Clear up space for yourself!
3. After you finish organizing your house, take a long hard look at it. Would you invite people over for a get-together or a party? If you wouldn’t, keep organizing until you see it as a place where you’d like to hang out. If your organization is good but your house is ugly or unfashionable, get a style-savvy friend’s opinion on where to make improvements. There are also plenty of articles and videos on the internet about home improvement and strengthening the appeal of your home. Making your home comfortable enough to have others over makes it feel twice as comfortable for you.
4. Keep a weekly routine of touching up and cleaning up around your house. Once it’s organized you want it to stay that way! There’s also plenty of ways to work smarter and not harder. Refurbished robotic vacuums are pretty reasonable online these days. A once-a-week cleaning binge will give you the peace of mind that comes with having an organized living space.
5. Start applying this organization mentality to other areas of your life that you KNOW are in need of it. If you need to clean up your office or cubicle, do so and then set up a maintainable, repeatable system to keep it that way.
6. Enjoy your organized and clutter-free life. Take yourself out or throw a party at your place with the money you made from selling your stuff.
Here’s to taking your time to get organized right now so that you can have more time to enjoy life later. Cheers.
Clark
