Now our minds and bodies continue their quest for more sunlight, we’ve marked the first day of spring. As I took my morning walk today I contemplated my own personal organization system and what I find appeals most to me about it. I have a schedule that stays on time, a to do list that is up to date and keeps me on top of things and a clean and uncluttered living space.

A while back I posted about Simplicity and organization and talked about mental debt and keeping the mind free and open.

While having systems such as to do lists and calendars in place to put the things that come to our minds, the reminders, the constant nag that you have something to do, safely away, I realize that doing that is not enough. We need to have a mind that flows and a mind that seamlessly is integrated into our body, keeping it calm and free of stress. A mind that flows with movement, that can be calm but powerful when need be. It occurred to me that we need to have a “Mind Like Water” state.

Letting go - Having a mind like water

A much famous quote from Bruce Lee:

“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”

The common way of thinking about this is that organizational or productivity system is the path or goal and the Mind Like Water is the destination. Having this fluid organizational system becomes something to attain.

The possession of anything begins in the mind
-Bruce Lee

To obtain anything, we need to possess it, own it and begin the process of integrating it into our minds and bodies.

I believe Bruce is right: possession of a mind like water begins in the mind. It’s not productivity first, mind like water second. It’s the other way around.

Find your calm places, find things to do that encourage peace and calm, rather than anxiety and anger. Empty your mind of the thoughts of busy and do not latch onto actions and interactions that cause unrest and turmoil.

A calm and adaptable body and mind are essential for health. Find yours.

Do you live an organized life? Waking up in the morning, are you clear on what your plans for the day are, where you are going and what needs to be done? Do you set goals, evaluate those goals and then seek to accomplish them? If you don’t do these things, do you have a set way of living that allows you to flow from one day to the other without stress, leaving you room for creativity and freedom to find ways of entertaining yourself?

In our society today, many adults, and tragically, kids as well find themselves lost in their lives when it comes to having a simple, straightforward life. I’d like to address two topics that I believe are important when trying to find ways to make stress less of a part of your life and to begin to take control of what your purpose in life really is.

Organization and Simplicity.

Both of these topics have been high on the list of buzz topics in the last few years. Everyone is into life hacks. In fact, one of my favorite blogs is Lifehacker, a website devoted to giving you easier ways to do things, better ways to live and simpler ways of being productive. There’s a reason these types of blogs are gaining in popularity. We’re all working ourselves to the bone, one job, and two jobs; sometimes three, to keep things running, but I often wonder how smoothly they really are running. We’ve complicated our working lives, our social circles and our health to the point of disease.

First of all, what is organization? My friends, family and colleagues often say I am organized, and one recently asked me, “You know, you are so incredibly organized and you talk about simplifying your life, but it’s never been my experience that being organized is simple, it’s always a mess of complicated things you need to do to make your life WORK.”
Organization really IS quite simple.

• Downsize
• The Home principle
• Mental Debt

Downsize

This is often the hardest part. You have to get rid of everything you do not want, need, or use. Those piles of boxes? They take up a lot of room that you “needed” so you got a bigger apartment. That bigger apartment costs more to keep at a stable temperature, takes more time to clean and keep neat and the sheer amount of things in it keep your mental debt high just thinking of them.

Simplifying your life can reap incredible benefits. A few years ago I began following this Simplicity Checklist. I looked at one thing a week and worked to accomplish that item all week if it applied to me. I’m now down to the bottom of the list and I can honestly say that this checklist alone changed my life in incredible ways. Check it out. If you’ve been wanting to clean up and make your life more manageable, this is it. While you are at it, check out the other great suggestions and productivity tips at Zen Habits

The Home principle

The home principle is very simple. Once you only have the things in your home and life that you need, make sure they have a home in your life. Go into each room and make sure every single item in your house has a place it’s supposed to “live” when not in use. This way, you completely eliminate the hard part of cleaning, “Where am I going to put all of this stuff?” Have a home for your Inbox, which is mail, paper items that come into the house that need to be taken care of, have a home for keys, toothpaste and shoes. Have a home for your extra candles, your watering can, your recycling. If you use items in more than one place, have one in each place. For example, I brush my teeth at night at the sink, so I have toothpaste and a brush there, but I like to brush my teeth in the shower in the morning, so I also have a set there. I have lubricating eye drop in no less than three places in my home. Every action has an item, and every item has a home. Cleaning then becomes easy. Just put everything away where it lives.

Mental debt

This is a huge problem for me. I’m a multi-tasker by nature and used to go on and on to my friends about how I enjoyed doing more than one thing at a time, even before the concept was in common usage. However, doing so requires that I keep everything in my head all at once. To do this, I need space in there. The concept is like freeing up RAM in your computer so that it is more capable to process. If your mind is always over loaded with when your next dentist appointment is, how you are going to organize that next work party and whether or not you want to take that new job, its pros and cons, it won’t have space to process the creative impulses it naturally gets. Worry, rumination, remembering, considering, reminding and daydreaming all take up space in your head and are considered mental debt. The key is to find ways to removing these things from your head, and keeping them somewhere safe, that you trust.

Some ways I use to keep mental debt out of my head

Google Calendar – For keeping track of things such as appointments, schedules, menus (what foods we’ll be eating on what day, also reminds me to take things out of the freezer), my monthly cycles and related reproductive information, ritual schedules and the like. I review my calendar weekly to make sure it is up to date and then never worry about when and where again.

Remember The Milk – Now I am a huge fan of this service. It’s not for everyone, but it is so highly customizable that I have been in to do list love with my “Cow” as I call it since these guys were still in beta. It’s a free service that you can use to set reminders of all types, keep lists, birth day reminders, housecleaning reminders and your to do items split up by lists, categories and priorities. My lists include my yearly goals and are things like:

• Health – Goals and reminders for my health.
• Housework – Simple reminder to clean various rooms on various days. I do one room a day, based on Feng Shui.
• Family and Friends – Reminders to schedule lunches with my son, potluck shared dinners with my closest friends and date nights with my honey.
• Esoteric Studies – I set out a curriculum for myself yearly as to what I want to learn and accomplish and this reminds me what topic I am learning today and to stay on track.
• Tensegrity Health To Do list – My work, insurance reminders, birthday reminders, inventory, scheduling, meetings for lunch with doctors to grow my network, everything.
• Event organizing – I volunteer and organize a lot of events as a part of my duties. This reminds me to make announcements, get volunteers and follow up with people on items.
• Wedding – We’re getting married in May and this has the to do items such as buy wedding rings, make dress and send out announcements.
• Personal To Do – Things such as journaling daily, record my cycles etc are here in daily reminders.
• Volunteering – Other miscellaneous items in regards to my volunteer work. I have other lists I use here as well.
• And many others

My cell phone – I use my phone to remember things when I am away from the computer. I have voice notes, but you can also just send yourself a voice mail. “Remember to put that dinner with David on your calendar when you get home.”, “Remember to schedule that lunch with Joseph”. Etc.

Email – Now I use Gmail, and I love it. Threaded conversations make older email clients seem useless. The spam filters alone mean that I never have to spend time in my head wondering/worrying and figuring out how to get Viagra ads out of my personal space. I consider it a huge part of my healthy lifestyle. It also allows me to keep in touch with my family and keep organized.
Chinese Medicine and Organization
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, all things have correspondences and all things must be in balance for health to occur. Each organ relates to each other organ. All of the systems are interwoven to feed, nurture and control each other.

A lifestyle that balances out the various aspects of your life so they too can feed, nurture and control each other is essential. You must eat nutritious, healthy foods. Exercise and move your body. Have fun; enjoy your friends, your family and your loved ones. Work hard and well.

All of these things are much easier to put into place when your basic needs are well taken care of, balanced and organized. Have a clean living environment in which to do your life’s work and you will find that the space you’ve made will then be able to be filled with all of those things you’ve been putting off, but which your heart has been yearning to do.

Start a new career. Learn a musical instrument. Travel around the world. What is stopping you today? What are you using as excuses?

Look around you now and see if your world view is cluttered and messy. Spend just a few minutes today thinking about ways that you can clear your vision, make room for your real purpose and get to work.