You've had a pretty significant event or change in your life … or two or three in a row.
Empty Nest • Divorce • Widowed • Aging Parents
Parents/Kids/Grandchildren Moving In
Career Change • Self Employment
Downsizing • Death in your Family
AD/HD or other Significant Health Issues
Life’s big changes – We all get overwhelmed sometimes.
Moving onto a next chapter is about new perspectives: letting go, creating a new chapter, reorganizing our surroundings, and choosing new ways to spend time.
You're thinking differently about your “stuff,” your surroundings, and how you use your time.
You feel as if your home or home office-- well, they just don't reflect who you are anymore. Neither does how you spend your time. Too much, too little or not fulfilling.
You're ready to Organize for a Fresh Start and begin your next chapter.
In yesterday’s post, you saw my own life balance board (or as I’ve named it in my PC files, my “balance beam” board. Remember in gymnastics class, how hard it was to balance on the one or two inch wide balance beam?). Today, I’m sharing my terrifically creative sister-in-law’s board; she is a creative design professional. She’s the one who got me started, so here is her own version.
If you missed the post that explains all this, go here first.
As you move onto a new chapter – say your adult children are all off to college for example – you’ll need to spend time creating new interests or getting back to older passions.
I’ve discovered a new and more immediate use for a vision board. Creating time for fun and life balance.
I was visiting my terrifically creative sister-in-law, Joanne Hus, a creative design professional and as I walked into her oh so gorgeous home office, I noticed her life balance board right away.
After looking at hers, and hearing about her board, I realized that I was missing something.
Vision boards remind us of who we want to be. Or what we want more of in life. Boards have favorite sayings, pictures, values, and words of inspiration. They are inspiring, as is the process for deciding what goes on your vision board. My vision board is discussed here.
What was missing for me? Something more immediate that would help me with life balance. Although I love my “work,” what is it that makes my non-work hours so special, so interesting, so enervating? What do I do with my time off? What will refresh and rejuvenate my energy in between vacations, or as I work towards those loftier vision board ideals? Or how do I take smaller steps towards those vision board ideals? Enter Joanne.
This is a picture of my new life balance “board,” along with (upper right) my supplies: scissors and post-it note flags.
Not as filled up or beautiful as Joanne’s is YET, but it’s already working for me.
I adopted the idea from Joanne, who showed me her magnetic white board version when I stayed with her and my brother recently before an author’s talk I was invited to give in Connecticut.
I noticed she had some sense of a timeline on the board. The time seems to go from left to right, so the later events, where she had more time to get to are further to the right. See the post-it note flags on my board? That’s also adopted from Joanne as a way to highlight when the exhibit is over or when she wants to think about going.
A natural way to match how we read, left to right. And a nice mixture of left brain and right brain!
I’ve tried so many ideas over the years to remind myself of what I want to do.
You still have to make the connection between wanting to go somewhere and getting yourself there. What I love is that Joanne’s is right near her computer and so her calendar. As she walks into home office/studio, she walks right by this board, before she can sit at her desk. A visual reminder!
Mine will be hanging in my home office, since that’s also where I do my household management and scheduling for my personal life.
Stay tuned… but so far, it’s working!
Or are you thinking that this is a great use for Pinterest? This article (link here) is about vision boards, but think about this approach for life balance.
How do you refresh and rejuvenate? In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking the author points out that how we refresh and rejuvenate is linked to how much of an introvert or extrovert we are. Introverts will generally find their energy again by seeking out quiet time and space. Extroverts get back with people to build up their energy again. (This by the way is the true definition of these two terms, not “shy” versus “gregarious.”) And as with all labels, we are a mixture of both. (It’s interesting to me that when I read a book, I watch my world with a different lens or perspective for as long as I’m reading that book.)
From a favorite site, The Change Blog: 5 Items that should be on everyone’s bucket list
Vision boards on Pinterest – but consider using Pinterest for your life balance board instead.
Need ideas for hobbies? Discover Your Passions – a quick quiz might start you thinking.
This is simply a series of questions to ask yourself if you’re procrastinating. This is a mixture of my own thinking and experience, some new ideas prompted by listening to Sandy Wright, a presenter at the national organizers’ conference, and some recent reading of The Feeling Good handbook, recommended by a client.
What is perfect?
What would be progress be?
What is excellence? Perfection? Same, different?
What’s the self-talk going on?
What are the consequences of procrastinating?
The advantages and disadvantages? Write down more than one; go a little deeper.
What’s the smallest decision you need to make here?
What’s your attitude about doing this task? How could you get more out of it?
How could you dispute or argue with your beliefs about this?
What if you didn’t wait for motivation or inspiration and just got started in one small way? The smallest and easiest step would be… ?
What’s your energy around this? How could you shift it? Could someone else help you shift it? Who?
What are you most afraid of? Play out the whole scenario. Write it out. Sometimes writing it out will take the chill off. Or write it out and then argue with your procrastinator voice. Make up a new voice.
What’s tedious about this? How could you make it less tedious? Maybe not fun, but less tedious.
What does this project have in common with other times you’ve noticed you’ve procrastinated?
How big or small does the task feel? If small, how could you make it more important? If big, how could you diminish its size?
Who are you trying to please or get approval from and why someone other than just yourself?
What’s the one “big thing” you don’t know? What can you do about figuring that out, to some degree?
What would happen if you: gave it a shot, tried an experiment, drafted something in pencil, could take back everything you tried?
With thanks to Sandy for finding this, a new favorite quote:
Remember – “The best angle from which to approach any problem is the TRY-angle.”-anonymous
And this phrase, from Sandy: “Rethink What You Think.” As an answer to procrastination.
Need to rethink what you think? Move on from procrastination? Coaching with me may be just the thing.
Interesting how thoughts converge sometimes.
Just before my international professional organizers’ conference of 850 attendees, I was reading Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. It’s a fascinating, insightful, unexpected look at the introvert/extrovert facets and tendencies of our U.S. culture, the writing backed up by research, but quite readable. ‘
So here I was, reading about this topic, as I thought about conference:
And then a sentence popped out at me from my Nook book:
“One new honest-to-goodness relationship is worth ten fistfuls of business cards. ” (Quiet, page 263)
More and more, I’m realizing in our fast paced world, the context I hear or read information in is crucial to (a) absorbing the point and (b) using what I’ve just read/heard.
So what did this mean for conference?
Communities give context and strengthen relationships. My communities at conference and what they meant to me were:
So for you, when faced with a large group or wondering what value you’ll get: volunteer during the year or at conference to find your communities; take classes; get online if it makes sense for your business.
Make your world smaller but with stronger relationships. It’s far more fulfilling than those “fistfuls” of business cards.
