Posts tagged Paraphrase
The Emotional Baggage Diet
Sep 20th
Emotional Baggage –
What is it? Where does it come from? How did it get there? How do you let go of it? Do you even want to let go of it?Have you ever wanted to do something, yet that small voice inside has managed to talk you out of it? Would you like to release the hold that parts of your past have on your life today?
If your answer is yes then please join me in this, the first part of a series of articles covering an exciting journey of Self Discovery and Empowerment – Time for ‘The Emotional Baggage Diet’.
Emotional Baggage is essentially anything that has ever happened to you in your life that has generated an action or reaction that in some way, shape or form, is now holding you back in areas of your life. It can be from something simple.
Maybe you fell over and hurt yourself when you were running as a child and someone laughed – Now you don’t like running or doing anything that you feel may leave you ‘looking’ foolish’.Maybe your parents used to argue and now you believe that all relationships are like that.Perhaps, like me someone told you that you can’t sing – so now you don’t. (I’m starting to now)Maybe you felt that someone let you down and now you struggle with trusting others.
There are so many examples that I could use, the list would and could go on and on – But it won’t:)
Everybody’s Emotional Baggage is personal, individual and just as valid as the next persons. No ones is any worse or better – It is unique.
I once listened to a story by the author Iylanza Vanzant (I am going to paraphrase now in the way that my mind remembers and stores this story).
Iylanza was talking about ‘Brillo Pads’ (Those scratchy metal cleaning pads that were filled with a pink soap and used for cleaning stubborn kitchen mess!). In the story she told how when she was growing up her mother used Brillo Pads and that was all she used. They were they greatest invention and the only thing to use to get the job done properly.
When Iylanza left home, guess what she used to clean her kitchen – Yes, you guessed it, she used Brillo Pads. Until one day when she went to the store and they did not have any. In that moment her thoughts told her to ‘panic’, she couldn’t use anything else, it didn’t feel right. The shop assistant told her the benefits of all of the other products, but still it did not feel right. In the end, knowing that she had to clean her kitchen she gave in and bought something different (hopefully it was a buy one get one free offer). Yet she felt guilty, her mother had always told her that Brillo Pads were what you should use.
Once she was home, she used the new cleaning pad. Soon her feelings of ‘panic and worry’, at not doing as her mother had done, changed. This product was easy to use, smelt fresh, and oh so much more……… She started to wonder why she had never tried anything different before and realised that she had just accepted that what her mother said was right and the only option.
Now Brillo pads have their place in our lives, but there may be times when something else may work better. Just like at the supermarket – there is always another option.
Sometimes we can have areas in our life where everything feels scratchy and uncomfortable, yet if we just change things round the surface can be clean and shiny.
Letting go of your Emotional Baggage can be as easy as ABC. But just like the alphabet it takes starting at the beginning – to get to the end. It takes each letter to make the whole. The Alphabet is still the Alphabet even if we put the letters in a different order.
What I am saying – is that sometimes if we just change our thoughts around, we can change our perspective and interpretation of anything. That may sound like a ‘sweeping’ statement, and one that is easier to write than to put into action. I promise you that change and transformation, growth and personal empowerment is possible by changing the thoughts we have about anything that is holding us back. I have lived it and now I would like to share it with you. It was not always easy – but it was definitely worth it:)
Albert Einstein is quoted as saying ~
‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again ~ and expecting different results’
The Simplicity of Tech: 12 Powerful Ways to Keep Your Online Life Simple and Peaceful
Jan 24th
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minimalist geek, it's possible |
I’m a little on the geeky side, I admit. Not a total nerd, but enough that I do alot on the computer and use technology to do everything from communicate to staying in touch to publishing to working to writing to networking to finances and more. And still, it’s very important to me that I keep things minimalist and peaceful. |
I believe that’s the trickiest part of technology: how to use it everyday and take advantage of it, without getting carried away. How to keep things simple but powerful. How to master technology without letting it become our master (to paraphrase Stephen Covey).
Alot of my friends ask me how I manage to do this, so I’d like to post a little bit about it today.
This is my setup
This won’t work for everyone, but it’s working for me and it’s at the very least a starting point and guideline for those that are interested.
First of all, almost everything I do is online. Now that I quit my day job (with the horror of its fax machine), I no longer keep paper files. I can access all of my information and documents online, so I can work from anywhere, from any computer. And there’s no longer any time spent on organizing, as I use Gmail’s philosophy of archiving instead of filing.
I use a Sony Vaio, because of it’s big screen and I’m a sony fan, it works well with my sony digital camera, which even for a minimalist I find it’s a necessity to save the memories. I have a regular pc on my desk at home and nothing else. No drawers for filing or papers. No fax machine, scanner, printer or anything.
Software I use include Gmail for email and IM, WordPress for blogging, Firefox for everything, Google Docs and Spreadsheets for all my document needs (although I do use OpenOffice as well), Google Reader for feeds (yes, I’m a Google fan, but only because their programs do what I want the best). I favor Open Source software if possible.
Now on to the tips.
- Focus on the essential. It’s important to take some time to think about what’s essential to your tech work (and play). What do you really need? What gives you the most benefit for your time? What’s not so essential? What takes up a lot of time without making much of an impact? What gives you the most enjoyment? If you can identify the activities, sites and software that is most essential to you, you can eliminate or at least reduce the non-essential. And from then on, focus almost exclusively on what’s essential. This applies to your work tasks as well – what tasks are extremely essential? Focus on doing those each day.
- Do one thing at a time. I know. This is super hard when it comes to tech. Browser’s on, a dozen tabs open at once, switching between reading and email and work and IM and Twitter … we live in a multitasking world. But it doesn’t have to be this way. While there’s nothing wrong with having multiple tabs open, it can be very helpful to focus on one task at a time. Have 10 tabs open, but do one tab until you’re done, then close it and move on to the next, and so on. If you’re going to do IM, just do IM. If you’re going to do email, just do email. Sure, you can do more than that at once, but it adds to the stress of your day and decreases your effectiveness because of all the switching. Practice doing one thing at a time and you’ll find your work to be much more peaceful.
- Have periods of disconnectedness. While I do most of my work online, I find it extremely useful (and calming) to close my browser and just work offline for awhile. This post, for example, is being written in a text program, and when I’m done writing I’ll go and post it in WordPress. This really allows you to get much more done, because there’s no temptation to go check something just for a sec.
- Don’t live in your inbox. I’ve done this, and if you do it you know who you are. Email is everything to many people. It’s communication, it’s a task list, it’s where you do your work, it’s your organization system. But if you work from your inbox, you are constantly being interrupted by new messages. Get your task list out of your inbox. Do email only at pre-appointed times. Do your work with your email closed.
- Schedule your IM time. Same thing applies to IM. I’m not a huge fan of IM, especially if you have your IM program open all the time. That’s because it encourages people to interrupt you whenever they want, instead of you valuing your time. If IM is important to your work, then schedule IM meetings, or have certain times of the day when you’re available for IM and tell your colleagues and friends about it. And have it for a limited amount of time and then end it.
- Turn off notifications. Again, email and IM and other notifications encourage interruptions and multitasking. Instead, turn everything off so that you check your email when you choose, not when others decide to send you something.
- Set limits on what you do. For example, check email just twice a day. Write emails of only 5 sentences or less. Only check Twitter once a day. Only respond to 4 messages on your favorite forum. Or whatever works for you. Limits force you to choose the essential, instead of trying to do everything.
- Create a morning routine. I’m a fan of morning routines in general, and the same concepts apply to tech. The Morning Coffee extension for Firefox is a great way to set up your routine with a single click. It opens all your essential sites in tabs, so that you can work through this routine one thing at a time and be sure that everything is finished.
- Create a weekly routine. With Morning Coffee, you can also set up routines for different days of the week. This allows you to check a certain site or inbox once a week, for example, instead of every single day.
- Clear out your inbox. Clearing out your inbox is a very calming thing. It also prevents the overwhelming feeling of having hundreds of emails in your inbox — some read and some not.
- Pare down your feeds. I used to have well over a hundred RSS feeds to read in a day. The need to go through them all, every day, was very stressful to me. So I eventually cut them down, one stage at a time, until I got down to 10 essential feeds. Now it takes just a few minutes each day to scan through my feeds, pick out a few articles I’d like to read, and mark the rest as read. Much simpler.
- Simplified filing. As I mentioned above, I use Gmail’s philosophy of archiving instead of filing. I used to be a compulsive filer, as I like things to be organized. I had folders and subfolders, and I’d spent a bit of time each day filing every single email. What an effort! Instead, I archive everything and just search for what I need (I don’t even use tags or labels anymore). It takes seconds to find something. Seriously, there has never been a time when I couldn’t find something through search. I do this not only with email but with all my documents (through Google Docs and Spreadsheets).
