Extra Organised

Consistency is the key to creativity

Being creative is not a gift that only some have been blessed with; it’s essential nourishment for all of us. Not only does it add richness to life, it’s one of the strongest sources of satisfaction and contribution—to ourselves and to others.

There are many things we can do to nurture and inspire our creative spark, but the most important of them all is consistency.

Recent research has shown how flexible and malleable our brains are. We educate our brains constantly by the way we live our lives and they adapt accordingly. If we expect irregular flashes of inspiration—to express our creativity only when we feel like it—then that’s what we’ll get. Likewise, if we desire to be creative every day, and if we work at it every day, then that’s also what we’ll get.

Think about how effective a pre-bed routine can be. By following a pattern—such as changing into pyjamas, brushing teeth, reading a chapter of a book, then breathing deeply—our body automatically winds down for sleep. We can apply the same approach to being creative.

Let’s take the example of writing.  By setting a regular time to write, then at that time opening our notebook or laptop, getting rid of distractions, and writing a page of text without editing, our brains will come up with content. Not every time (just like some nights we find it hard to fall asleep) but astonishingly often.

Carve out a regular niche for creativity, have a routine to lead into it, and be delighted as your ideas flourish.

Are you consistent with creativity?

What are your 3 things today?

If you want to feel really productive and satisfied by this evening, pick three things that are important to you at the moment and do them for fifteen minutes each today.

Your three things could be a relationship to nurture, a project to create, an interest to indulge, the exercise your body needs, a recipe you’ve been meaning to cook, an issue that’s bugging you, or a difficult phone call to make.

Impact is not related to time. You can knock over some things—such as that phone call—in five minutes, and feel just as productive and satisfied when you’re done as you can spending an hour at the gym.

So fifteen minutes is a guide. If you finish in five minutes, that’s great; if you keep going, that’s fine as well. Just make sure you touch on each one enough to make a dent in it and to earn that wonderful feeling.

Just think—you could have your three things done by morning tea! If you’re an early riser, you could knock them over by breakfast. Anything else you do today is a bonus.

What are your 3 things today?

Today's organising bliss: Displaying vintage treasures

I’m no interior decorator, nor do I have a distinct decorating style apart from putting what I like where I like it, but one technique I find appealing is displaying vintage pieces alongside modern ones. A quirky, kitschy, or dated item can look fabulous in a modern home when it’s carefully placed.

It’s an opportunity to display and enjoy family heirlooms and op shop finds, and give them a beautifully fresh look.

So before you declutter something from your home, look at it once more with a fresh perspective to see if you can style it in a different way.

Letting go with grace

It is a mellow day, very gentle. The ash has lost its leaves and when I went out to get the mail and stopped to look up at it, I rejoiced to think that soon everything here will be honed down to structure. It is all a rich farewell now to leaves, to colour. I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Nature is gloriously and abundantly beautiful. How amazing that it can release that abundance in order to recharge and rebuild. If only we could let go of things with complete trust that everything will turn out okay, with fresh vibrant experiences filling the space created.

In fact, for humans, it’s not easy to let go of either the good or the bad.

One would think we would gladly release our suffering, but it can be surprisingly difficult. As Eckhart Tolle explains, “The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.” In other words, some pain is necessary but we add to it with unconscious thinking and holding on. Still, loosening our grip is easier said than done.

And what about the good? Have you spent time with people you love and not wanted it to end? Enjoyed a fabulous holiday that you wanted to stay on forever? Been absorbed in a favourite activity that you didn’t want to stop?

Mindfulness teaches a healthy detachment that allows us to stand back and observe, a helpful precursor to being able to let go.

Imagining opening our hands, or actually doing so, while we picture what we’re holding onto floating away can also help.

Another approach is to challenge or dare ourselves to let go—then see what happens.

Practicing letting go without fear—of ideas, possessions, options, people—can be liberating. We learn that our experiences are complete as they are, even when they're messy. That relationships can be improved without digging in and complicating them.

As we get better at getting out of our own way, we can learn from nature by using the space to rest and nourish ourselves, confident that there are many more bountiful experiences coming our way. It is in the letting go that we make room for them.

May update: The 12 in 2 list

In January 2013, I wrote about 12 dreams I'd like to make happen over the next 2 years. I had a lot of fun preparing for my May update as I experienced one of the biggest dreams on my list so far.

Climb Mt Kosciuszko

To accomplish this one, I needed to organise a weekend in Thredbo for the whole family. I left it late in the season—verging on Winter—which meant snowfalls the day before we arrived.

I felt fear and anxiety in the lead-up as this experience meant a lot to me: I worried about booking non-refundable accommodation, one of us getting sick (there was some car-sickness on the way home), no clear weather to hike, and the distance (about 15 kilometres) the kids would need to walk.

I pushed through the fear by dividing the challenge into steps, then methodically tackling each one. I kept going until the holiday was booked, our bags were packed, and all of a sudden it was time to go.

I love mountains—they are majestic and a little menacing at the same time—and it’s a privilege to be able to explore them. There was cold and there was snow, but the weather cleared on one of the three days we were there and we were able to tackle the chairlift and the climb.

Miss 10 and Master 8 walked ahead most of the way and took on the job of reading signs, so I didn’t need to worry about them coping with the scale of the walk, which was longer than anything they’d previously attempted. They really enjoyed the climb, though they declared they didn’t want to walk it again the next day Mum (they know me well)! Master 8 was still bouncing around Thredbo that evening (and scoping out the fantastic BMX track for next time) when the two of us walked in to get dinner—so it’s now official that he never runs out of energy.

I felt hugely satisfied at being on a mountain in a region that I love. It was our first visit to Thredbo, which was a captivating place. I’m not usually the holiday decision-maker or organiser in our family but it was empowering to realise I could do it—look out! I had the opportunity to chat with a helpful ranger about other longer walks I could try one day, such as the Main Range walk or Charlotte Pass to Mt Kosciuszko. And I haven't tried snow skiing yet, which is on my 12 in 2 list...

Photos (left to right): Leaving the cabin ready for the hike; at the top of the chairlift looking over the Thredbo valley; snow under the walkway; Lake Cootapatamba (Australia’s highest glacial tarn); at the summit; our cosy cabin at Riverside Cabins.

My continually evolving 12 in 2 list

Take yoga classes	DONE (from Mar-13)
Float down a river	DONE (Mar-13)
Climb Mt Kosciuszko	DONE (Apr-13)
Write on my laptop in a cafe with a hot chocolate	Winter 2013
Have a horse riding lesson	Winter 2013
Have a go at snow-skiing or snow-shoeing	Winter 2013 or 2014
Take my kids on a train trip	Spring 2013
Go on a weekend motorbike trip with all the gear on the bike	Spring 2013
Go on a multiday High Country horse riding trek	Spring 2014
Adventure with my sister (Main Range walk, Milford Track, Kangaroo Valley?)	Spring 2013 or 2014
Learn how to play and sing a song on guitar or piano
Go on a girls’ weekend away

Previous updates:
Original post: The 12 in 2 list
April update: The 12 in 2 list

How are your plans going?

How to build confidence

Any time we do something challenging we feel discomfort and perhaps mixed emotions like bittersweet or joyfear.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s something new or something we’ve done many times—if it stretches us we are often tempted to find ways of avoiding it. We’re not confident we can pull it off—again or for the first time.

Have you been writing blog posts for years but still fear sitting down to write the next one? Do you regularly receive compliments on your appearance but wonder whether you can put together a nice outfit tomorrow? Perhaps you crave a simpler lifestyle but feel overwhelmed at dealing with the volume of clutter in your home and on your calendar?

Even taking a small step toward what we want can be as satisfying (if not more so) than finishing the journey. What we desire reflects our values and whenever we engage in our values we feel better about ourselves—end goal accomplished or not.

You may not want to attempt a novel yet but you could put together a decent paragraph. Running a half-marathon may seem impossible but you could nail a lap around the block. Attending a party might feel daunting but you could say hello to the next person you come across.

Remove your expectation of a particular result, remove distractions, and take one step.

Taking one step—regardless of the outcome—will give you the confidence to take the next one.

One with life

We tend to picture life as a linear progression—from birth to death—with experiences occurring one after another along our personal timeline. There is a discrete past, present, and future.

Although we acknowledge intellectually that growth is not always constant, we can find it difficult emotionally to accept mistakes and setbacks, feeling like they push us back in our development to a place we should not be (I should be here by this stage of my life, not back there, I’ve already covered this ground!), or cause us to lag behind in a competitive
race against others.

But imagine if, instead of a linear path, we actually sit in the centre, with life surrounding us in every direction. Not the egocentric perspective that we are the centre of the universe, but in the sense that life emanates and radiates around us.

In this multidimensional view, we are embraced by life. Surrounding us are other people, all living things, experiences and events that have already happened and those that might yet happen.

How would this transform our thinking?

• Instead of success or failure, good or bad, we simply live experiences. We move from one to another, not forward or backward, just immersed in experience.
• Instead of fighting for finite resources, the whole world surrounds us. We have support and tools in every direction to pluck from—and give back to—an abundant exchange.
• There’s no rush because we have nowhere to be (and nowhere we should be) other than where we are right now.
• Instead of pining for or regretting the past, we see that the past is moments hovering around us. We can dip into them for memories or lessons, but they don’t bind us. Instead of craving the future, we see that it’s surrounding us and we create experiences from it—we can step in any direction and make a mosaic from any combination of things we find.
  

With this perspective, we are all connected by spirit, by soul, by the life force. We don’t begin and end relationships; they are eternal. Our connections are not only with the living, breathing people we interact with in our daily lives—they are also with people we’ve ‘lost’ (whether through a broken relationship or through death), and with people we’ve not yet met. Thus no one is ever truly lost or unconnected to us.

How would this transform our relationships?

• In this paradigm, everyone is equal and everyone is respected. Although we still live in a world with a man-made hierarchy, we realise it’s ephemeral. We are released from feeling better than or less than; and from treating others as better than or less than.
• We can loosen our psychological grip on others, especially on those we love. When we know we can never truly lose them—and that they are not ours but shared—we can appreciate them as they are rather than in terms of how they relate to us.
• We are not in competition but in complement with each other. As we create, we add to our shared treasure, and it is all of value.

With this perspective, the whole world hovers around this moment in time. It becomes easier to live in the moment we are in.

Have you had a shift in perspective that has helped you see life in a more helpful way?

How many clothes do you have?

Do you know exactly how many items of clothing you own? If you looked through your wardrobe, drawers, washing baskets, mending pile, and storage areas (don't forget what you're wearing now)—how many pieces would there be?

It’s an interesting challenge to count every last piece; you might be surprised by the result. A realistic picture of exactly what you own is a good starting point for making decisions, or simply appreciating what you have.

Here are a few numbers I've found in my research. Keep in mind people are not all counting in exactly the same way. Inventorying a wardrobe seems to either include everything (such as clothes, shoes, and accessories) or clothing-only pieces.

• An American woman adds an average of 64 pieces of new clothing to her wardrobe each year, although back in 1930 she only had 9 outfits altogether (Elizabeth L. Cline, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, 2012). When Elizabeth counted her own wardrobe, she found 354 pieces, of which she regularly wears “about ten to fifteen garments…less than 4 percent of [her] wardrobe”.
• An Exacting Life's year-long wardrobe project saw her reduce her 'substantial' items of clothing from 264 down to 170, while her ‘total total’ went from 480 to 353.
• Sarah of livetolist counted 343 items, down to every last piece—her post includes wonderful detail about her categories.
• Debbie Roes of Recovering Shopaholic began 2013 with 272 clothing-only pieces which she had reduced to 217 by April, with plans to cull further.

As I counted my own clothes, I thought about the 100 Thing Challenge. I knew my clothes alone would surpass this number, and sure enough I hit 100, then kept counting and counting! It was humbling and made me realise how much abundance I enjoyed.

My total for substantial clothing pieces was 190.

I went on to count the rest, down to workboots, slippers, and every last sock and scarf.

Shoes: 22

Accessories: 45

Sleepwear: 9

Swimwear: 3

Underwear: 62

Giving me a 'total total' of 331.

After inventorying my wardrobe, I realised I don't need to buy any more clothes for the rest of the year.

Once you’ve counted, you might want to continue the analysis by asking more questions. Am I comfortable with the number: does it feel like too much or not enough? Do I have too many of some things and not enough of others (if you’re unsure, count categories, such as tops, trousers, dresses)? What do I need to do to bring my clothing collection into balance?

Have a go at the clothing count, and if you are comfortable, please share your numbers in the comments below.

Short-term lists

It’s good to have a master list, kept in one place, of all the things we can choose to work on. But sometimes a shorter-term list can come in handy too.

I like to play around with lists for specific purposes which are usually completed soon after and then tossed. These can include:

• A plan for how to handle a particularly busy day.
• A list of quick tasks I want to do at a specific time (such as when I get home from work: get book for friend, phone Mum, put new lip balm in bag).
• Things to take with me to an appointment or on a short trip.
• A list of things circulating in my mind that I want to think more about or work on in the next day or so (help my daughter with her recorder practice, count number of clothes in wardrobe, look up dessert recipe).

When I wrote about the value of an evening list in designing evenings we enjoy, Jane T commented on her fabulous variation of this idea—thanks Jane!

Well, I've expanded this concept to include an Afternoon List. Once the children come home from school, I'm busy with them, dinner, helping with homework, folding washing and the like. I'm also vaguely aware that I have other things to do, but I often can't think of what those things are at the time. It's not until bed time that I remember. So I've begun to write a list in the hour before I collect the children from school. The list consists of 2-6 chores that I can squeeze in between my main responsibilities. I don't necessarily accomplish everything on the list, but this has really helped me to be more productive.

What short-term lists make your life easier?

Caring for possessions

One of the benefits of owning less is that there is more time to care for it.

I don’t particularly like washing filters, dusting and polishing furniture, scrubbing oven trays, or mowing large tracts of lawn (who am I kidding, I delegate all mowing anyway!)–so I try to minimise what I own and choose good quality and design to make less work for myself.

But if I own it, I need to care for it. My annual household routine includes a deep clean in every room about once a year. I don’t always get to it when I should, but I try to get to it eventually.

Over the years, I’ve managed to drop some maintenance tasks from the list altogether, such as changing over, washing, and ironing seasonal clothing (I keep it all in my current wardrobe).

I also like the idea of randomly giving something in my home a mini-makeover or extra attention with the satisfying feeling that I am extending its life or avoiding unexpected problems and repairs.

In this spirit, I recently gave all the drains in the house a good clean, following the advice of Shannon Lush. This should delay or prevent any plumbing problems or odours.

Step 1: Sprinkle half a cup of bicarb soda on top of each drain.

Step 2: About 20 minutes later, pour half a cup of white vinegar over the bicarb. The fizz is the chemical reaction that will scour and clean the drain and pipes.

Step 3: After another 20 minutes, pour boiling water over the drain to wash it all away.

How much fun was that! The interesting chemical reaction also makes this a good project for the kids to do.

How do you approach household maintenance?