Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about my plans for the coming year.

This is usually an easy, intuitive and enjoyable process for me. There’s nothing Planner Girl likes more than planning. And yet.

When I went to put those thoughts on paper, no matter how I rearranged my little sticky notes on my calendar, I still hated it. I could not form 2012 into a year I was looking forward to.

After an all-day marathon of planning, I gave up in disgust and frustration. Clearly I was making some false assumptions and other mistakes. And clearly I needed more than a snack break to see what they were.

After some venting, reflection and decent night’s sleep or two, I came back to the process refreshed and with a more open mind – and was immediately struck by several obvious errors.

One of which was the realization that all those little sticky notes wouldn’t arrange themselves into something pleasing because what I was trying to shoehorn into my calendar was last year’s dream for 2012, not this year’s vision.

And the telltale sign I was working with anachronistic aims and ideas that no longer held much appeal?

Very, very elaborate support systems.

Flow charts. Diagrams. Research into the MacGyvering of various online services. Drafts of long, confusing emails to my web ninja. Drafts of even longer and more convoluted “how this works” web pages.

Efficient? No. Effective? No. Streamlined? No.
Kind to anyone involved? No.

The polar opposite of keep things simple, sweetheart? Yes.

Here’s the thing, Lovelies:

That slide from simple and straightforward into something complicated and unwieldy is usually a sign that whatever the system is designed to support is something you don’t really want or need to continue or start in the first place. (Or at least a sign that you need to approach it from a completely different angle.)

Activities that are in alignment with our desires, skills, talents and capacity don’t need elaborate support systems. All that engineering and scaffolding is only necessary when you build someplace you shouldn’t – on the edge of a cliff, for instance.

Sometimes the best system is no system.

So I tossed more than half of my sticky notes.
And I’m feeling much better about 2012.

• • • • •

As you make your own plans for the coming year, where is complication showing up?

Consider whether that’s less a sign that you need better systems and more a sign that you need to drop something altogether.

• • • • •

An oldie, but a goodie from December 2009…

We are in the midst of the holiday season – and that can bring on a lot of overwhelm. Overwhelm of stuff, of tasks, of people, of food – of emotions.

This did not happen when I was a kid. The overwhelm of Christmas was a welcome thing. Bring it on! was what I would have said. It wasn’t so much the presents, but everything about it. All the traditions. The magic my mom and my aunt created every year.

I’ve always been grateful I wasn’t taught that Santa was “real” (not disputing the historic figure of St. Nicholas here, just the mainstream idea of Santa). I don’t think I would have bought it anyway. That guy? in the mall? dressed up in a costume? uh huh. yeah, right. Obviously not the real deal and there was no way I was sitting on his or any other stranger’s lap for a picture. (I remember being very stubborn on this point. I expect I was also quite smug about it.)

So I never experienced that sort of disillusionment with the holiday. But in recent years I have experienced other forms of disappointment, confusion, exhaustion, emptiness and resentment of the season. I wanted the magic back.

Here’s how I got it.

• • • • •

This is not mission control.

My goodness, the build-up to December 25 in this country! Advent calendars are used not for the purpose of spiritual preparation, but to assuage impatient children and grown-ups alike. And the countdown! Hurry! Just 27 shopping days ’til Christmas! (That’s an accurate number, by the way.) You’d think we were launching rockets or something. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1! And we have lift-off of spaceship BabyJesus!

No other holiday dominates popular culture during its season the way this one does. It even holds a special place in our economy. It’s crazy. And crazy-making.

Because there is no way there is enough time between now and then to create the kind of perfection that is advertised, to do all our culture demands we do to get ready for this one big day. Decorations. Food. Parties. Cards. Gifts. I can’t think of anything that compares to this weird combination of scarcity in the midst of total excess. Crazy. Making.

Magic-Restoration Step #1

Stop listening to the count-down. Which means tuning out the advertising. (Which means you’re also conveniently not getting the message that buying more will make your holiday more meaningful – more on that later.) Turn off the TV, stop the newspaper, put down the magazines. Have the groceries delivered so you don’t have to listen to awful awful carols while you shop if you need to.

Do whatever it takes to protect yourself from the message that there is so much you need to do and so little time in which to do it. Because neither is true.

• • • • •

It’s a season, not a day.

A few years back, the local paper printed a guide to winter holidays: Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanza and, of course, Christmas – except they made a distinction between secular Christmas and Christian Christmas. And there was just something so spot-on about the way it was written, about the accuracy of its humor (this wasn’t exactly a scholarly essay of comparative religion) that made me realize my celebration of Christmas was largely secular. That which I disdained in the popular culture’s celebration of the holiday was, for the most part, what I was doing too. No wonder it felt like something was off.

Now, I am not a church-going Christian (growing up in a house-church kind of spoiled me for that the way attending an alternative high school kind of spoiled me for mainstream educational institutions), but that particular belief system was the one I was raised with – and I’m loyal to it. But loyalty and familiarity with a faith are two different things…

In my moment of choosing to be in greater integrity with my heritage and beliefs, I realized I didn’t know very much about Christian Christmas. So I read up on it. (This being the internet age, it was not hard to do.) And the best thing I learned about Christmas was context. It is a holiday in a sequence of holidays (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany – some of you will recognize this as the liturgical calendar, but it was new to me).  The connections between them have as much importance and meaning as the holidays themselves.

Magic-Restoration Step #2

One of the best things I’ve done to regain a sense of purpose and meaning during the holidays has been to de-emphasize the day and honor the season – the whole season from Advent to Epiphany – instead of trying to smash everything into 24 hours. And then equally honor all the other seasons, all the other holidays in the liturgical calendar and other traditions that have meaning for me throughout the year. (Waverly Fitzgerald’s work has played a crucial role in helping me figure this out.)

Treating this one day as the main event is a sure path to disappointment. You know this if you’ve woken on the 26th feeling empty or relieved it’s all over. No one day can fulfill a year’s worth of meaning. It’s not a realistic thing to ask of yourself, your religion, your family and friends – or your bank account.

• • • • •

Know your symbols and traditions.

Somehow, deciding to celebrate a season of holidays allowed me to better pick and choose from all the symbols and traditions out there. By which I don’t mean I became a fundamentalist. In choosing a less secular celebration, I wasn’t inclined to give up decorating a Christmas tree because of its pagan origins, for example. It was just that in choosing what I wanted to honor, it was then much easier to select only those symbols and traditions that fit. More unexpectedly led to less.

In my research I discovered both a wider range of ways to mark the season than I was familiar with and background information that brought some of the magic back to traditions that had lost their meaning. (Again, hat-tip to Waverly.)

Magic-Restoration Step #3

Don’t just go through the motions. Educate yourself about the origins of the symbols and traditions you are using. Learn how other cultures celebrate this holiday. Get curious. Get anthropological. Decide which symbols and traditions have genuine meaning for you, which enhance your experience and which don’t. Then choose the best and leave the rest.

• • • • •

Just make stuff up.

One thing I’ve learned in recent years is it takes a surprisingly short period of time for something to become a “tradition.” Do it more than twice and you’ve got one. The time-worn traditions of my childhood? Not even as old as I am.

Much of the wonder and delight created by my mom and my aunt was stuff they just made up. And not for hifalutin religious reasons either. One of our most beloved and staying traditions is getting new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Which all began when we were toddlers so we’d look cute in the next morning’s pictures. No joke.

Magic-Restoration Step #4

If those two women can invent such magical traditions, so can you. As with Time and Systems and everything else, you are the only one who can best choose and create the circumstances that are right for you. You don’t have to follow anyone else’s script.

• • • • •

Let stuff go.

For me, the flip side of educating myself about symbols and realizing many so-called traditions are very young and not so profound is a greater willingness to let them go when they don’t fit.

Which sometimes means letting them go forever. But sometimes it just means not this year. For instance, I don’t always decorate. Some years I need the house to be a place where I can get away from it being unavoidably everywhere else.

The hardest time to let something go is when it involves letting a person go. Families change and grow, but they also shrink. Sometimes keeping a tradition can be a way to honor the past, but sometimes that’s all pain and no meaning. In that case, it can be better to let it go and introduce something new.

Magic-Restoration Step #5

Like building up to one day, hanging your happiness on certain things happening a precise way practically ensures disappointment. Not every year has to be the same, nor can it be. I find as long as a few key elements remain unchanged (stockings and a particular bread, for example), the rest can be flexible and reflect what I need and want right now – which usually leads to a more meaningful experience.

So, again, don’t just go through the motions. Be choosy. Try not doing those things that don’t excite you this year. See what happens. One thing’s for sure, the world will not stop turning if you skip a tradition or two. It may feel like a high-risk experiment, but it’s not really if you think about it. If you miss something, just bring it back next year.

• • • • •

Let stuff go.

This brings us back to Magic-Restoration Step #1. In deciding how I wanted to honor the holiday and the season, in choosing which symbols and traditions had most meaning for me, I realized even more than I had before how little the material elements of the holiday mattered to me. I like presents – giving and receiving them. I like feast days – good company and good food belong together. But it doesn’t take an endless amount of either to satisfy me. Enough is enough.

I’ve long been a fan of exchanging experiences rather than goods. It’s the thing I like most about the Advent Conspiracy, which emphasizes relational giving – then doing something generous with the money you would have spent on stuff.

Magic-Restoration Step #6

In recent years, our Day has gotten smaller and smaller. Less travel. Fewer people. Fewer gifts. Less food. More quiet. Almost as though we’re distilling it down to its essence, its essentials. So, we don’t do and have much, but it is strong and saturated and therefore satisfying in its simplicity.

And because we haven’t crammed the season full of stuff and stuff, there is a spaciousness to the holiday,  there are openings for meaning and magic to enter.

I don’t really miss anything I’ve let go of. Which doesn’t mean I don’t have nostalgic memories of the days of more, the happy overwhelm of my childhood. But more stuff isn’t going to bring the magic of those days back.

I have to keep inventing and seeking and opening to new magic. And so do you.

In summary (the Twitter version):
There’s no rush. You’ve got a whole season. There are lots of ways to do this. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Enough is enough.

• • • • •

How To Get Out of the Quicksand of Overwhelm now includes a bonus guide: Finding Your Holiday Quicksand Way-Around. If you’ve got that sinking feeling about the season or your to-do list in general, this handbook is for you.

The bonus holiday guide is included in your purchase of the Handbook – and available through December 15. [ learn more ]

• • • • •

There is a tree in our neighborhood that always is the first to change its leaves in fall. And it doesn’t just go out first, it goes out in a blaze of red-orange glory. It’s stunning. Every year.

I want to be like that tree.

I want to let go of what needs to be released when it needs to be released.

No clinging.
No dilly-dallying.
No second-guessing.
No maybe-I-will-need-it-later.
No maybe-if-I-just-change-this-one-thing.
No maybe-if-I-just-try-a-little-harder.
No one-more-thing-first.
No this-can’t-be-happening (why?!).

No pretending temperatures aren’t cooler.
No denying the days are shorter.

When autumn shows up in an area of my life, I want to be willing and able to embrace the season without hesitation.

Even when it comes with loss and pain.
Knowing that I have winter to heal and rest.
Trusting that spring will come around again as it always does.

And I want my letting go to be as beautiful as that glorious, stunning tree.

• • • • •

So much of getting and staying out of overwhelm is about making peace with loss.

In order to say yes to what matters most, we have to say no to other things.

Sometimes that loss ends up being a huge relief.
Sometimes it represents a scary-yet-exciting transition.
Sometimes it comes with grief.
Sometimes loss includes all of the above.

Sometimes we are free to choose what to embrace and what to reject.

Sometimes life presents us with priorities we would not have chosen for ourselves. Yet we still must say yes to those realities in some way and no to other things in order to function within our capacity, to remain at least moderately balanced and whole.

Unfortunately, this letting go – this acceptance of autumn when it arrives – doesn’t come to us as easily as it does to that tree. Yet we can be inspired and learn from its example.

With practice, I like to think the release that is an unavoidable part of the cycle of life can become as natural for us as it is for that tree.

And though I’ve caught only glimpses of what it looks like for humans, those experiences have shown me that release can be just as beautiful as well.

I’m wondering if finding the beauty in loss – making it as glorious as we know how – is what makes it easier to let go…

• • • • •

After adjusting to the change in Daylight Saving Time this past week, I was reminded of the many ways there are to move through the season of less daylight with more ease. This is an article I wrote around this time last year – you might find some of these suggestions to be more effective than turning back your clocks an hour…

For me, with middle-age has come a greater sensitivity to less daylight in winter. I just don’t have the same quantity or quality of energy – physical, mental or emotional – that I have the rest of the year.

When I first noticed this, I didn’t know what to do about it. After all, I grew up in Alaska. Huge portions of my childhood were successfully lived in the dark. As aware as I was of how the extra light affected me in summer (one needs a surprisingly small amount of sleep), it never occurred to me that the opposite might be true of winter. Any lack of oomph I felt was easily blamed on school or the cold.

That said though, I did get why some animals hibernate in the winter. That whole eat-a-season’s-worth-of-calories-then-take-a-long-nap thing made perfect sense given the conditions.

And that’s where I start with coping with the affects of less daylight: acceptance. I mean, it’s you against the rotation and orbit of the planet. There’s only so much you can do.

roll with it

For starters, less energy means less capacity. So it makes sense to simply commit to fewer activities during the winter months.

In addition to a lowered quantity of energy, there is also a shift in the quality of the energy that remains. While I have less physical, mental and emotional energy, I seem to have more spiritual energy. There’s something about hibernation that is conducive to introspection.

Knowing that, I’m also getting better at making sure that what I do commit to is well-suited to that energy. For instance, I’ve learned that hard way that preparing a new website for launch in January is not a good match. Nor is a holiday season with too much shopping, traveling and whatnot. Research is good. Review can also be okay, so long as it doesn’t turn into top ten lists for the year past. Some kinds of big picture planning can also be effective this time of year. But stepping away from my business entirely would be the ideal thing – because all I really want from December is some crafting and baking, a stack of mystery novels and bunch of naps.

what you can do

Committing to less and choosing activities that match your current energy only meet the situation half way. The other half of passing through the dark of winter is to make the most of what light you do have and bring other sources of warmth into your life for the season. Otherwise, what is a natural inclination to ease up can slip into a more dangerous and unpleasant form of malaise.

Some suggestions…

wake with a sunrise alarm clock
It’s well worth the investment. I can’t rave enough about mine (even my skeptical spouse has become a fan). Even if you are allowing yourself more sleep (and I hope you are), this will only make it more refreshing and easier to wake from. I promise, your circadian rhythms with thank you.

light a fire
Make regular use of your fireplace if you have one. And/or put out a bunch of candles and light them in the evenings. Engage in seasonal rituals that use light and fire.

clean your windows
It’s probably too chilly to tackle the exterior side, but you can at least wipe away the grime that has accumulated on the inside to let more light in.

Also, open those curtains and blinds during the day. There is one set of windows that we keep shaded in summer because it’s so blazing hot on that side of the house. Come winter, I have to make a point of remembering to do the opposite and let the light in instead of keeping it out.

get reflective
I don’t mean introspective. I’m talking about mirrors. Hang them opposite your now-clean windows to reflect more light throughout your home.

avoid cabin fever
In summer you might choose to get out in the morning when it’s still cool. But now you might want to switch that up and get out in the middle of the day when it’s lightest. Take advantage of sunny days to process some vitamin D the natural way.

If you live where there is snow, you have the benefit of all that white and the reflective qualities of those little ice crystals. But if you’re like me and live someplace where winter is grey, get yourself to some snow. There’s nothing like being in a snow-covered landscape on a crisp, clear, sky-blue-sky day to remind you that winter can be awesome after all.

Also, take advantage of all this dark to get a better view of the moon and stars (maybe even the aurora borealis if you’re lucky). Though less of it is reaching us from the sun, there is still beautiful light in the skies.

And when you can’t get outdoors, bring nature indoors. There’s a reason there is a tradition of forcing amaryllis and paper whites this time of year.

Lastly, if you have the resources, travel to a southern location. A few days on a beach or in the desert can do wonders to tide you over until spring.

move
Even if you can’t do it outdoors, move your body. Keep your sap flowing.

eat well
This is not just about eating nutritiously. That animal part of you that wants to hibernate and is craving comfort foods? Feed it. ‘Tis the season of macaroni & cheese, mashed potatoes and hot chocolate, not salad.

(This is also the time of year I tend to fall off the decaf wagon, and though it helps, I’m not really comfortable advocating the use of stimulants. Just know that if you find yourself drinking more coffee too, you’re not alone.)

stay warm
Hot food and drink is part of this. (Warm your plates and cups before serving food in them – it really makes a difference.) Spicy foods help too. As do fires and exercise. And cozy bedding. Fuzzy slippers. Fingerless gloves. Hot showers and aromatic toiletries that stimulate the senses. The dark is a lot more bearable when you’re not cold even when you’re indoors.

celebrate that this is temporary
Attend a solstice service or otherwise celebrate the return of longer days and shorter nights. Fully embrace the season for what it helps us to notice and remember.

your turn

How does your energy – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – change with the season?
How does the balance shift between different forms of energy?
Which do you have more or less of?
What activities are best suited to your energy this time of year?
What are your favorite ways of coping with the effects of less light?

• • • • •

Just because tasks are happening in the same place doesn’t mean they’re best done at the same time in the same way.

Email is a prime example.

All sorts of stuff ends up in our inboxes. Communications with customers, clients and colleagues Financial information. Newsletters subscriptions and announcements from service providers. Forum and blog comment notifications. Learning opportunities. Personal messages.

But what ends up on our to-do lists is usually a task vaguely labeled “email.” Maybe we get more specific and move beyond reminding ourselves not just to check it, but schedule time to actually process it. Maybe we label the task “inbox zero” with the idea of processing all of it.

But that’s still not specific enough. There’s just too much variety under the umbrella of “email.” Each kind of message needs its own approach.

They may share a location – your inbox – but they share little else.

The time of day, your environment, your mindset – how you go about processing a group of messages – will be different for different categories. Answering client questions is very different from bookkeeping or reviewing newsletters or replying to that note from your mom. They each require their own specific energy and approach.

What shows up on my to-do list or schedule is not “process email, ” but “bookkeeping” and bookkeeping includes the step of checking for and processing any financial information that’s in my inbox. Or another example – “answer client questions” – which includes the step of checking for and processing any related messages or notices I’ve received via email. See the difference?

• • • • •

Other examples of  same location/different approach that have come up recently in conversations with clients are…

Social media. You might be using Facebook to connect with friends and family, and promote your business, and have private conversations with clients. While it seem more efficient at first glance to do all those things at once – since you’re already there – again, these things are best handled in different ways.

Some areas are higher priority than others and each needs a different preparation and mindset. Chances are, your teaching, marketing and socializing modes aren’t the same – and you may not be able to shift quickly and smoothly between them. (If you’ve crashed and burned trying to do everything that happens to be in one place at the same time, this is why.)

Again, what ends up on your to-do list shouldn’t be “Facebook,”, but something more specific related to the type of work you need to do there. To continue with our previous example, a task like “answer client questions” would not only include the step of checking for and processing any related messages or notices, but also the step of hopping onto the appropriate area of Facebook to do the same.

What unifies a group of tasks is not where they are, but what they require you to do.

Projects. This same location/different approach problem doesn’t usually get us in trouble during large projects. In those instances, the different phases of the thing are more obvious. It’s the small projects where we tend to forget about it.

Preparing this newsletter is a good example of that. To note it on my calendar as “write and send newsletter” overlooks all the different elements of this small project, and that each of those elements require me to bring different skills and thinking to the forefront.

Writing this article is different from updating sales pages – and both of those things are very different from back-end tasks like updating my shopping cart or formatting the newsletter and uploading it to be mailed. Moving between more creative and technical/linear tasks requires conscious transitions [http://thirdhandworks.com/2010/01/transitions/] in order for this newsletter to come together in an efficient and effective way.

It’s not just a matter of grouping like tasks together, it’s giving yourself spaces between them to shift gears.

• • • • •

The next time you feel yourself losing momentum within a project or feeling overwhelmed by a task – ask yourself if you are getting bogged down by trying to do everything that happens to be in one location at the same time and in the same way.

How might grouping them differently, and giving yourself space for transitions, allow you to complete your work with greater ease?

• • • • •

Lately, I’ve been reminded of some fundamental truths about systems: the real pain they prevent and why we forget to use them anyway. I have some thoughts on that, along with some ideas about how to remember to use our tools despite ourselves, that I’d like to share.

the pain of disorganization

First, a basic lesson in the origin of systems.

We create systems to ensure that what is important to our businesses and lives is present or happens in a consistent way.

In other words, our systems support and are derived from our values.

Our values determine our standards and boundaries.
Our standards and boundaries determine our policies.
Our policies determine our procedures, how we do things, our systems.

So when we abandon our systems, we abandon our values.

This is why disorganization can feel so painful.

Yes, a lack of systems creates a lot of confusion and overwhelm that makes doing one’s job much more difficult than it needs to be. That’s painful enough.

But a lack of systems also makes it difficult to move through our days without embarrassment or apology; to keep our word; to be who we say we are; to be our best, most authentic selves. To be out of integrity is really painful.

so why do we do it?

Given the pain it causes, why would any of us abandon our systems?

I figure there are three main reasons we stop using a favorite organizational tool…

It gets squeezed out.
When we take on more than we have the capacity to do and push comes to shove, what we so often mistakenly pare from our schedules and to-do lists are the very structures that make it possible to be productive.

It has stopped working.
When a system is no longer creating the kind of results we want, it’s all too easy to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water – but chances are there were just elements of that system that needed a bit of tweaking.

We don’t think we need it anymore.
The only danger in getting our systems to the place where they are functioning smoothly in the background is how easy it is to forget just how much they are doing for us – until we stop using them.

Sometimes these dynamics work independently, sometimes in concert. For instance, we’re much more likely to drop a system from our to-do list if we don’t think we need it. Or if we’re pressed for time, we’re less likely to give attention to repairing a broken system.

we don’t it on purpose

It’s not like we wake up one day and say, “Today I’m going to abandon my systems!”

Something happens to interrupt our usual routine.
We skip an essential ritual once or twice.
We start trusting a little too much to memory.

We let one thing slip here and another slide there and before we know it, what was smooth and in the background is now bumpy and very much in the foreground. Ouch.

When we find ourselves in that place, it’s always tempting to beat ourselves up for being so foolish as to abandon our systems. After all, they were crafted to prevent this sort of chaos – and yet here we are (again).

One thing I know for sure: the slipping and sliding are inevitable – and an essential part of the process. The oscillation between too much and too little structure is the only way to keep finding those sweet spots that are just right. Systems are a Goldilocks thing.

The only question is this: how bumpy do things have to get before we notice we’ve swung too far into too little and do something to bring ourselves back to center?

early warning signs

Considering what’s at stake – upholding what is most important to us – it’s imperative that we have some way of becoming aware of the slipping and sliding before it becomes a problem.

Just as we use smoke detectors to protect our homes from fire, we need a way of alerting ourselves to the fact that something somewhere is not as it should be and needs our attention before it becomes dangerous.

The next time you’re in one of those bumpy spaces (maybe that’s right now), use the clarity of hindsight to look back and determine when the slipping and sliding first started. What were the small signs (small enough to ignore) at the very beginning that things were a bit off?

For instance, one of my early warning signs is ongoing confusion about the date or day of the week (or even month). Bad sign.

Another is making snarky, sarcastic notes in the margins of my to-do lists. Maniacal laughter – e.g., empty inbox (hahahahaha) – is definitely bad sign.

Another is giving in to telling little white lies, communicating with small exaggerations here and there, just to save face. A very worrisome sign.

These early warning signs might point to different problems on different occasions. Just as a smoke detector doesn’t tell you where the fire is or how to put it out, it’s not the job of my early warning system to identify and solve those problems. It’s just there to get my attention.

making it foolproof

Up to now, I’ve been scanning for my early warning signs during my Friday morning reviews. In addition to asking myself my usual series of questions about the past and coming weeks, I’ve added a checklist of early warning signs. If any are true, I take the time necessary to figure out what needs to be adjusted or brought back into balance.

But that hinges on me doing a Friday morning review. If I’m in that slippery place where I’m abandoning my systems, this weekly ritual could easily be one of the ones tossed aside.

I need something more foolproof. I don’t know if that’s as simple pinning a note to my bulletin board listing the Top Ten Signs Things Are About To Go To Hell so I can see it all the time (except it would need a less depressing title). Or maybe I use my calendar software to periodically remind me to take a pop quiz. Or maybe I just do more to make my weekly review an automatic, guaranteed thing. I don’t know.

What I do know is it’s worth experimenting with until I get it right. I need a solid, reliable system that keeps me from abandoning my systems – and so do you. It’s the most important system to have – because, again, there’s a lot at stake here.

When things start to slip and slide, sooner or later what slips away is our integrity. And that’s a pain none of us needs to bear.

• • • • •

In recent years, when I’ve come up against resistance to doing something, I’ve typically seen it as a sign that learning or growth is required of me in some way.

I’ve assumed that regaining flow and ease requires me to identify and dissolve a limiting belief. Or examine and move through my fears of doing something new. Or stretch myself in some way.

Everything is a potential lesson, right?

Except these days I just don’t have the patience for it.

Lately, I’ve been responding differently to moments of resistance.

I’ve set aside all the self-improvement and chosen instead to see resistance as a sign that I’ve merely made things much much too complicated.

Considering my firm belief in keeping things simple, you’d think I would have noticed this before.

Planning being one of my superpowers, I can come up with an overcomplicated strategy blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back.

It’s so easy I don’t notice how needlessly convoluted I’ve made things for myself until I feel totally repulsed and overwhelmed by the work of actually carrying out my plan.

it’s a sign of distortion

This month in the Maintenance Department we’re talking about working with rather than against our hardwiring – our innate preferences and tendencies.

I’m an advocate for radical self-acceptance of our hardwiring. I think all those innate traits can be powerful – even serve as our superpowers.

But every talent can be taken a little too far.

Maybe it’s true that we have genuine weaknesses. But what if our weaknesses are merely distortions of our strengths?

• It’s not that I have a weakness for making things complicated, it’s that I sometimes let my planning superpowers run amok.

• It’s not that I have a weakness for perfectionism, it’s that I occasionally let my talent for refinement get completely out of hand.

• It’s not that I have a weakness for isolation, it’s that now and then I let my preference for recharging from within go on too long.

• It’s not that I have a weakness for being a couch-potato, it’s that I often let my tendency to live in my head become too dominant.

There’s tremendous usefulness in being able to create a strategy, give attention to detail, draw upon your own resources, or engage your intellect – until there isn’t.

When our strengths stop serving us as they should, it’s time to pull back.

less is more

It’s easy to assume we are lacking – that something needs to be gained rather than taken away for us to be Strong. Good. Whole. Okay.

But what if we are already enough?

What if we already have all the talents we need for success and the only thing we are lacking is a better understanding of how best to use them?

What if by simply noticing when we’ve crossed into distortion – and bringing ourselves back into right-relationship with our powers – the weaknesses resolve themselves?

What if by pulling back a bit, balance is restored and what we need naturally fills the space we’ve opened by doing so?

Without all the self-improvement.

what this has to do with productivity

Responding to resistance with simplification has proven to be a very efficient and effective use of my time and energy.

Partly because that’s the nature of simplification, but also because I am strengthening a strength, rather than beating myself up about exploring solutions to a perceived weakness.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, it is our strengths – not something we are lacking – that help us to understand how we are overusing them and what to do about it.

• It’s my planning superpowers that allow me to pare down an overcomplicated strategy (and learn how to make them simpler in future).

• It’s my talent for refinement that allows me to see how I am ruining something by trying to perfect it (and learn how to avoid repeating the same mistakes).

• It’s my understanding of my inner world that allows me to become aware of when I need to get out of my head and into my body or connect with others (and learn how act on that feedback before I get achy or crazy).

Developing trust and confidence in our strengths – knowing how to skillfully wield them, understanding what they can and cannot do for us – is the shortcut.

It takes a huge amount of energy to try change who we are, to attempt to trade one set of strengths for another – to always be fixing things.

Just the mindset of brokenness is draining.

When we put the bulk of our time and effort into self-improvement, that doesn’t leave much left for getting things done – whether that’s achieving ambitious goals or just moving through the ordinary tasks of an ordinary day.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by all you have to do, consider dropping personal repair from your schedule for awhile.

When things feel “off” in your work or life in some way, consider the possibility that you’re simply overusing one of your strengths.

Rather than assuming the undesirable situation in which you find yourself is the result of some shortcoming that needs a complete overhaul, just try pulling back a bit until things start to feel right, balanced or exciting again.

Then pay attention to the effect that has on your to-do list.

• • • • •

Last week I returned home from a two-week vacation and one of the inevitable chores of that first week back was sorting through a more-than-usually full inbox.

I had traveled with a laptop so I could respond to any genuinely time-sensitive messages – and deleted any junk that showed up when I did check my mail. So what needed sorting and follow-up when I resumed work last week was the legitimate but non-urgent stuff.

But before bringing myself back to Inbox Zero, I took advantage of the chance to see patterns that are more obvious when looking at two week’s worth of messages than when processing email on a daily basis. Such moments are a great opportunity to reevaluate what ends up in my inbox in the first place – making that daily processing (and the return from my next vacation) that much easier.

Here’s roughly what made up my more-than-usually full inbox:

• 30% newsletter subscriptions and announcements from service providers
• 25% messages from clients and colleagues
• 14% communications regarding a specific project
• 14% forum and blog comment notifications
• 12% notices of payments made and received
• 4% learning materials to download and/or file
• 1% messages from family/friends

All of it needed action of some kind, but less than 10% of what was in my inbox actually needed a reply – and not very elaborate responses at that; mostly simple answers to straightforward questions and little bits of coordination.

[ Note to Worried-Hurried Mind Hamster who thinks unplugged vacations are impossible: This is proof we aren't as much in demand as you think we are. ]

The reason I tallied up messages by percentages is because I was curious if the Pareto Principle was at work here.

The Pareto Principle – or the 80/20 Rule – can be expressed a number of ways:

• 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs
• 80% of the consequences result from 20% of the effort and time
• 80% of profits come from 20% of the products or customers
• and so on…

The 80/20 Rule is useful because it helps you see where your actions are paying off and where you aren’t getting a return on your investment of time and energy. With that information, you can refocus your actions to be more effective.

With the 80/20 Rule in mind as I reviewed the contents of my inbox, I asked myself two questions:

• Which 20% of communications is the greatest drain on my work? Or: which 20% is causing 80% of my problems?

• Which 20% of communications directly contribute the most to the growth and profitability of my business? Or: which 80% isn’t doing anything for me but crowding my inbox?

Basically, I was looking to reduce or eliminate both the most superfluous and the most distracting stuff, leaving only the useful and energizing behind. Not only does this prevent inbox overwhelm, it allows me to focus my time and energy where it’s genuinely needed in my business.

When I stepped back and took an honest look, the greatest drain turned out to be the project specific communications. It’s a promising endeavor, so that surprised me. I’m not yet sure what needs to change, but I owe it to my business to resolve rather than ignore something that is proving to be a significant distraction from the development of more direct sources of income.

As for the rest – the non-essentials that are just crowding my inbox and creating busywork – I see opportunities to refine my systems.

• better clarification of how things work, so clients don’t have to ask certain questions in the first place
• better bookkeeping that automates what I don’t need to be doing manually
• better filtering of newsletters and announcements (with a reminder to Self to unsubscribe rather than delete what I don’t want to receive)
• better blocks against spam (most easily achieved by deleting a couple old email addresses that I never use to send anything).

None of these refinements are difficult. Most are the work of a few moments. The key is to follow through on making them. Though they aren’t high priority, they interfere with what is – and that should place them near the top of my to-do list.

Now that I think about it, it’s the perfect work for a Bite the Candy session…

• • • • •

Take a look at your inbox right now:

Which 20% of the messages you find there is causing 80% of your problems?

Which 20% of communications directly contribute the most to the growth and profitability of your business? Which 80% isn’t doing anything but overwhelming you?

What would happen in your business if you eliminated the sources of the most problematic 20%?

How would your relationship with your inbox change if you reduced that superfluous 80%?

How would you feel about what you were left with?

• • • • •

The first month of the year turns out to be a great time to do spring cleaning.

Unlike December when you just want to hibernate (and besides it doesn’t make sense to clean up a year while you’re still in it).

And unlike actual spring when you’re finally feeling the energy to be doing and growing things along with the natural world around you, and are no longer in the mood for tidying up.

Yep, January is the perfect time for some decluttering.

I started with the kitchen. And learned two things.

lesson one: stick to the easy decisions and skip the rest

I went through every cupboard, every drawer and every shelf – and got rid of the obvious trash.

Expired food.
Expired vitamins.
Fortune cookies leftover from take-out dinners we ate years ago.
The broken blender.
The knife with the broken point.
The dangerously chipped baking dish.
Clippings of recipes that I’ll never prepare (again).
A bag for a vacuum we don’t even own.
Dead batteries.

Ingredients laying about in store packaging were transferred to their designated tins and jars.

The bread-maker that’s no fun now that I can’t eat yeast was sold on Craigslist.

A few lost treasures were found.
Much space was made.

It took the better part of a Saturday. And I would probably still be at it except for one thing: I stuck to the obvious.

Any time I came up against something I was ambivalent about releasing, I skipped it.

“Do I really need a mini-chopper and a food processor? Hmmm.”
“I never use that _____, but it was a gift. Oh, I don’t know…”

If a decision wasn’t super-duper easy, I moved on. Quickly.

Giving myself permission to do so kept a big job from becoming overwhelming – and kept me focused on removing the stuff that bothered me most.

It was remarkable what a difference just getting rid of the obvious trash made. The energy of that space was hugely improved without having to work through anything I was uncertain about purging.

So, Lesson 1: The next time you are decluttering, stick to the easy decisions and skip the rest. You’ll still end up with results that make a big difference.

lesson 2: how we do one thing is how we do everything

Most of what I got rid of were containers waiting to be reused before they were recycled. I nearly filled one of those rolling curbside bins.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it meant for me – someone fascinated by containers both physical and metaphorical – to have saved so very many tubs, trays, jars and bottles.

• Was I trying to ensure I would have what I might need in future?
• Was it the appeal of contents that might one day refill them?
• Was I just trying to be a good steward of the earth’s resources?

Given that how we do one thing is how we do everything – was there a pattern here?

How many activities, projects and relationships – their original purpose long since fulfilled – am I keeping about because…

• I might need them again one day?
• I could repurpose or renew them in some way?
• Keeping them makes me feel like a good person?

Are those activities, projects and relationships crowding my time and sapping my energy the way those physical tubs, trays, jars and bottles were cluttering my kitchen, making doing what I love – whether that’s cooking or anything else – more unpleasant and difficult than it needs to be?

And considering how great it felt to let go of all those tubs, trays, jars and bottles – how awesome would it feel to release those now-empty activities, projects and relationships?

Though I’m still cringing a bit from how much ended up in the trash instead of the recycling bin (gotta remember it’s four Rs: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle), I don’t feel any less prepared now than before. In fact, the extra space gives me a much greater sense of readiness. My kitchen is a far better container without all those smaller containers within it.

And I feel liberated from the pressure of finding some way to make good use of all those jars and bottles. If any of those pickles or vinegars had a place in my life, they would already have been made. Those tasks may have been waaay at the bottom of my to-do list, but it’s still a relief to cross them off.

Couldn’t the same just as easily be said for other forms of decluttering?

After the initial twinge of letting go of certain activities, projects and relationships, wouldn’t I feel the same sense of improved readiness and freedom?

Why, yes, I think I would.

(Wait, I know it would. Because, now that I think about it, I was already engaged in this process before I cleaned the kitchen, it just took all those jars to bring it to my conscious awareness. And the initial results have been good. Really good.)

So, returning to Lesson One, the only question that remains is: What’s the obvious stuff to be tossed?

I’m asking that question one symbolic cupboard, drawer and shelf at a time – because there’s no need to toss everything at once and everything is an experiment. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

• • • • •

Take a look at your surroundings.

What has accumulated around you that you aren’t using anymore?
Why do you think you’ve saved it?

Is that part of a larger pattern?

What could purging the obvious trash from your physical surroundings teach you about releasing the activities, projects and relationships that no longer need space in your life?

How good would it feel to let them go?

• • • • •

A couple weeks ago, I attended the season opener of our local roller derby league.

Of course the rosters had shifted about since last season, but that only mattered to one team. Somehow, our Guns-n-Rollers ended up seriously outmatched.

It was a painful (and eventually tedious) thing to watch. 128 to 37. 135 to 22. Ouch.

The Guns-n-Rollers have a lot of new skaters. And the thing that fascinated me most about them was the way the jammers would eventually break through the pack (yay!) – and then promptly fall down (groan). [ jammers? pack? don’t know what I’m talking about? click here ]

I’m sure there’s a lot to passing your opponents without losing your balance, but from the stands… it looked like self-sabotage.

And I found myself thinking,

“I bet I do that very same thing all the time.

And it must make my coaches and fans crazy.”

This month at the Maintenance Department, we’ve been talking about the importance of making space for the New.

I think one of the primary reasons our plans and goals for a new year go unrealized is that we don’t allow enough space for them.

New takes a staggering amount of space – not just for the learning curve, but to process and adjust to what your achievement brings with it.

New is weird and unfamiliar territory. But so is space itself.

And I think that’s what those new skaters were experiencing.

Keep skating!

If all you’ve practiced is breaking through the pack,

- if all you’ve known is fighting your way through a crowded, overwhelming schedule,

- if all you’ve experienced is chasing down customers through a chaos of marketing and compromise,

then finally moving through the opening you’ve been looking for can be rather disorienting.

The other side can turn out to be quite different than you imagined or expected. All that room to move without anything in your way or anyone trying to stop you can feel pretty weird at first.

(If you have any conflicting feelings about success, this is the moment they are going to show up.)

You can respond to that moment of confusion by falling down and returning to the familiar work of breaking through the pack.

Or you can keep skating.

Down on the track, the momentary awkwardness of the transition can fool you into thinking space is harder to navigate than the crowded bits.

But up in the stands, it’s clear how much easier it is for you to move in the open than in the overwhelm and chaos.

So, please, don’t fall down. Keep your balance. Trust yourself. Do what you’re there to do. You’ve got what it takes. Go for it.

I’m reminding myself of this as much as I’m saying it to you.

Keep seeking out space. It’s key to achievement. Your ambitions need room to grow. You can’t score any points if you stay stuck in the pack.

Getting used to having space is a learning process. That urge to fall down? Completely normal. It will also fade with practice. So practice.

The crowded bits will come back around. Breaking through the pack is part of the cycle. Become skilled at finding and moving through openings.

Knowing what to do with the space you’ve worked so hard to create is also a learning process. Space makes things easier, but not always immediately.

It helps to have mentors who understand all this and can point out when you are falling down (sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing it).

Raving fans who love you so much they will don fishnets, dye their hair your team colors, and gladly cheer themselves hoarse is also highly recommended.

SKATE! SKATE! SKATE!

• • • • •