Just about everyone knows the feeling of having too many choices or too much information to process. So many sources of information are bombarding us from one moment to the next that we are immersed in a constant flow of data of all kinds. Think about it: radio, television, internet, from the moment you wake in the morning. Even the signs along the road on your commute to work are animated now so that far more information can be packed into that fleeting few moments of attention as you’re rushing past.

I’ve written before about ways of tuning out the information overload and how to focus through the deluge of data. Those techniques are valid, but there is one simple idea that shines through: act now.

I don’t mean to say that you should blindly make a decision, but that you should take the inputs that you have and act on them or choose not to act. Regardless, the idea is to take some sort of action to clear the mental clutter, to flush all that extraneous data out of the buffer of your mind so that you have room to move on to the next task, but, more importantly, so that you have peace.

Yes, peace. This sense of harmony and balance seems to be missing from today’s world. We all rush from one thing to another, rarely completing, really completing and putting an end to each task, before moving on to something else. Do you remember that feeling from long ago in your childhood? That sense of waking up with nothing to do? Nothing you have to do. Wonderful.

I’m not talking about being bored. I’m talking about the freedom to choose whatever you want to do today because yesterday you cleared your plate. You dealt with all of the myriad of inputs and decisively put each in its proper place or appropriately discarded it. This is harmony. This is peace.

Think about this today. How can I complete this task and just be done with it? How can I remove this nagging from my mental space? Make some decisions about the things that are bugging you and move on. You’ll feel peaceful.

I’m not here to whine about my life. Actually, my life is pretty great, all things considered, but sometimes it gets really stressful. I know this happens to all of us. Sometimes things build up, mostly little things, that add to a load of stress that becomes a heavy burden over time. You get to the point where you just feel like you need a vacation.

Unfortunately, you can’t always just take a few days or a week off and drink beer and play the xbox in your underwear. Or if you can, more power to you!

So, if you’re stuck with bulling through it, it’s OK to just take things one day at a time. You will get through it. Do what it takes to get through the day and while you’re at it, try to make one little thing better.

You don’t have to be a superstar every single day, so set your sights on the low hanging fruit. Knock out something simple, even if it’s just cleaning your desk at work or folding a few pieces of laundry that have been sitting in that basket for a week.

These tasks seem minuscule, but they have a cumulative effect on your life and sense of accomplishment. If you can do one or two small things today and just keep the rest of the pack of howling wolves at bay, then tomorrow you can tackle a few more things, a few slightly bigger things, and in a few more days you’ll be back in your superstar game.

Hang in there, we can make it through today.

What is it that motivates us to do a task or start a project that we’re not all that enthusiastic about? We may be wholeheartedly in favor of the goal that is to be achieved, like organizing my new place, but it’s still a terrific struggle to get moving toward this goal. Those first little steps can be so difficult for some that they are literally never taken.

I’ve found this to be a factor in many areas of my life. While I can find the energy to get up and go to work every day, take care of my family, and take out the garbage, etc, getting beyond the basics almost takes an act of God. Why is it so hard to find time to put away boxes from the move, go to the gym, practice guitar, or write a few pages of a novel?

Thinking back on the last couple of months, the most progress we made in clearing out the boxes and organizing our home was when we had guests coming over to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. We worked our butts off for hours because we wanted to make a good impression on my wife’s parents. This is despite the fact that they are easy-going people who are not at all judgmental.

Regardless, we were able to make some great improvements in the time before our guests arrived. This underscores the importance of having some sort of outside influence as a motivator towards those projects that we’re having trouble starting. With this in mind, I have a few thoughts that may be helpful in kick-starting stalled progress towards our worthy, but rusty goals:

1. Find a motivator outside yourself. Whether it’s inviting guests over to impose a hard deadline on cleaning your apartment, or taking a creative writing class with weekly homework, sometimes it’s necessary to have someone hold you responsible for meeting your goals. Invite friends over to your place, then, or take a class in writing or guitar playing or pilates where there will be someone expecting you to deliver something tangible on a regular basis.

2. Multitask the simple stuff. If you have a box of papers sitting in the corner of your living room that needs to be sorted or shredded, grab a beer, pull up the box, and turn on that Breaking Bad or Californication that you’ve been waiting to watch on the DVR. OK, ladies, you’re allowed to watch Dancing with the Stars. While you’re watching, sort a few papers, you can shred during the commercials instead of fast-forwarding.

3. Focus on the built-in rewards. Having a clean, well-organized place makes you feel good. I don’t think anyone really likes living in a cluttered space. Similarly, it also feels good to work out, to burn away all the stresses that have been building up like clutter in your soul. This isn’t always the best motivator, obviously, because even though we know these things, we don’t always get started. This leads us to another step:

4. Make it fun. If you’re having trouble going to the gym, then it’s probably not fun enough for you to even want to begin. The answer to this is to mix it up. Do something different that will stimulate your motivation and build some excitement and interest. The treadmill is boring? Then join a hiking group or Krav Maga (brutal, but effective Israeli martial art) class. If the story you’ve been working on no longer gets your juices flowing, try writing about something completely different, a topic that you’ve never explored before.

5. Get a partner. I’m not saying that you should go sign up for e-harmony, but aligning yourself with a friend or family member who also needs a little encouragement toward a common goal can be an enormous benefit. Even if it’s someone from work whom you can trade updates with during lunch once a week, this can be the one thing that motivates you to do something before that next lunch date. Maybe you can talk your spouse or neighbor into trying out rock-climbing and then if you both like it, turn it into a regular exercise thing.

I hope that these ideas will prove useful for you. It’s the result of my reflecting on the issues affecting my own life and my own lack of progress toward certain goals. Living a successful and productive life means filling your days with positive activities that benefit you and the people around you. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about your own experiences.

Since I wrote that last post, we’ve been busy, busy, busy with work, school, family, and everything else that seems to happen these days. We’ve continued to put away a few things here and there, not always hitting our goal of emptying one box per day, but sometimes exceeding that.

One thing that I’m trying to conquer is that it’s really difficult to sustain that motivation from day to day. After working all day and fighting through 30 miles of traffic each way while answering emails and taking calls on the Blackberry, all I want to do when I get home is kick back and have a cold beer. Unfortunately, I’ll never make any progress on anything other than work if I let myself do that.

While it’s a good thing to be successful in your job, it’s also vitally important to spend time on your home life. Just as a healthy body is key to a healthy mind, a healthy home life is key to a healthy work life. Everything we do is connected in some way.

It’s important to keep motivating yourself in order to keep moving toward the goals you’ve set for yourself. I’m thinking about motivation a lot lately as there are areas in my life I’d like to improve, but I’m finding it hard to get started (like exercise!). I have a few ideas on this that I’m going to put together into a new post in the next few days.

So, here we are again. After another job change, another move, numerous large expected and unexpected expenses, I’m finding myself in a state of disorganization. Life has certainly been hectic over the past few months. I’ve found a fantastic young lady and remarried and also upgraded my employment to a job that suits my lifestyle and career goals much better than the last one. On top of this, we’ve moved to a new place, not far from the last one, but moving is one of those disruptive events that has the potential for disrupting routines and budgets and, worst of all, starting bad habits of spending and non-productivity.

I’m not writing to express my sense of self-pity, but to take the first step in dealing with the issue at hand: Yes, I admit it: I’m completely disorganized right now. I know that I need to take a few steps to get out of the rut I’m falling into. Based on past experiences, here is what I’ve come up:

1) Just admit it, you’re a mess! OK, we’re done with this step. My budget is in the red and my house is full of boxes. Too much eating out and not enough unpacking are the main culprits. Sure, I can use the excuse that my wife and I both work full time and we have kids to take care of, etc, etc, but those are the realities of most people’s lives these days.

2) Get the clutter of your head first. This is all about one of David Allen’s most powerful techniques. If you haven’t heard of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, then you must have been living under a rock. Go check it out now. This is the idea of getting all of those little (and big) things that are cluttering your mind, out of your head and into some place where they can be organized, acted on, or filed away as necessary.

This can take the form of just opening up a text file on your pc and typing line by line all of the things that are worrying you, writing it all down on paper, or even just gathering up all those bills, receipts, and notes to self and putting them in one box or pile to be gone through. When you think of or come across something else that should go in this list or pile, get it there as soon as possible. There’s no need to be handicapped by carrying all of those anxieties around with you.

3) Make a plan. This is another important step. Now that you have all these things in a pile of some sort, figure out what you have to do with each thing. Obviously, I can’t put all of the boxes in my house into one big pile, but I know I have to do something about it. How about my wife and I commit to clearing out one room today. This is, in fact, what we have talked about. Today is Sunday and we’re both off of work and the kids are out of the house until tomorrow. Our goal is to clear out our family room first.

I’m making this a much more concrete goal by committing to it to writing and publishing it on my blog, so I’ll have to keep that in mind as I work through the day.

We’ve also taken steps to reign in our nasty little habit of dining out. We’ve purchased the makings of cheap lunches and taken them to our jobs so that we always have a quick, inexpensive option that we can take advantage of right in the office rather than having to leave work and spend money. We’re also working on doing the same thing at home. After working all day, no one wants to come home and spend an hour cooking a meal. We’re going to shop for some quick and cheap meals for home, too.

4) Execute. This is the tough part. We’ve already started working on some of the things that we need to do to reign in our budget and our clutter, but this is definitely a mountain to climb. It’s really difficult to stick with a plan that involves climbing a mountain every day, though. The solution to this dilemma is to break up these tasks into small pieces. For instance, if we can commit to unpacking one box each night, we will continually be making progress towards our goal of having a clutter-free home. This is a doable task, even after working all day and fighting through traffic for an hour to get home.

Also, we can allow ourselves to have a lunch out once a week instead of every day. We can do the same with dinners, too, but on a more limited basis since those can easily get way too expensive. If we can commit to eating out only once or twice a month instead of two or three times a week, then we can make some real progress.

In the end, it’s necessary to start taking some action in a positive way in order to overcome the stresses induced by too much clutter, whether it be a box-filled home, piles of unpaid bills, or a mind filled with anxieties about all of the above and more. Feel free to leave a comment and share your ideas.

This has honestly always bothered me. I’ve worked hard to build up habits that will get me where I need to be on time and to drop those bad habits that get in the way of timeliness. I’ve met with some success over the years, but the underlying issue of tardiness has stuck with me.

I’m getting a little introspective here, but I believe all this may be due to some inner rebellion against society. Call it my own little revolution against the man. I just want to do my own thing without having to worry about some arbitrary set of rules imposed by someone else.

This sounds a bit childish, I’m sure. Like most people, I definitely see the value in being on time. It’s essential to be on time or early to a job interview. There are also other situations where it’s vital to be on time (like, catching a plane). Being habitually late is generally considered a sign that a person isn’t dependable, too. This can be a difficult label to overcome once it’s applied.

There is also a bright side to being late, though. It occurred to me recently that many times when I’ve been late, there has definitely been a reason. I’m almost always doing something that is valuable to me, something that is, in that moment, far more important than whatever it is I might be rushing out to do. In fact, there’s a huge opportunity cost in stressing yourself to always be on time.

Thinking back, there have been many times I’ve taken just a few extra moments to enjoy that last sip of excellent coffee, a few more words of conversation with a loved one or a good friend, another long hug and “I love you” from one of my children, or a few minutes more of closeness with someone I love. How can you place a value on these precious moments?

These are the times that will be most important to you when you look back on your life. No one is going to eulogize you and say how great you were because you were always on time. No one will wipe away a tear and comment on your excellent punctuality. However, many will remember those precious few moments that you spent with them, doing something you love with someone you love.

I went through a range of emotions as I came to terms with the result of my efforts and as I thought about it, I realized it might be helpful for me to write about. I find a kind of catharsis in writing and also feel that some of you may benefit from my experience as well.

I’m no psychiatrist, but I do believe there are stages that a person goes through in dealing with disappointment just like when grieving. In fact, disappointment could be seen as a loss of opportunity that certainly could trigger the grieving process. With that said, here are the steps that occurred to me:

1. Be hurt. It’s OK. It’s likely that a lost opportunity will leave you with injured pride or injured feelings. Don’t fight this feeling. Just let it happen, but don’t dwell there for long in self pity. Let it go.

2. Allow yourself to be angry. Maybe not everyone will feel this way, but I found myself getting angry after the initial shock passed. This is another emotion that’s useful, but only in the short term in this case. Let it be a motivator to further progressive action, but don’t allow it to fester and consume you. As with hurt, just let it go.

3. Take a little time. Yes, take a breather for a little while and let things sink in. It often helps to give these things a day or two to sink in. With a good night’s rest or two, your perspective on events will begin to change and the other emotions will begin to fade.
Count your blessings.

4. Count your blessings. I’m sure if you consider for a moment you’ll see that there are many good things in your life. Things aren’t as bad as they may seem at times. It may take a bit more than a couple of days, but let yourself enjoy the good things about the life you have.

5. Put a positive spin on events. As you realize that there definitely are good things in your life, spend some time casting the events of your disappointment into a better light. Don’t misunderstand that I’m advising you to lie to yourself. Far from it. What I would like to stress is that there are different ways to view the things that have occurred. You can choose to view them from a positive perspective or you can dwell on the negative. It’s your choice.

6. Get back on the horse. After you’ve taken some time and worked through the earlier stages of this process, it’s time to get back to work. Whatever your disappointment was, don’t allow it to haunt you through life. Remember that there will always be some disappointments and failures in life and that those who overcome the trials are the ones who will be successful. There’s no other path to success.

I truly hope that these steps are of some value to you. Taking the time to write about this topic has been a positive experience for me and I’m ready to get back to work. How about you?

Actually, I just moved to a new apartment in the last few weeks and, as many of you know from experience, the moving process doesn’t end when everything has been moved to the new place. In fact, much of the work still remains to be done after the ‘move’ has been done.

So, we spent the weekend unpacking, organizing, and getting rid of many things that no longer have value or no longer have a use for us (Yes, I said ‘us’ – I have a new girlfriend and we’re living in sin. Shhhhhh…).

While going through all this stuff, it really struck me as to how much we accumulate over the years. There were a number of things of my own that I no longer used or needed. This is after just moving about a year and a half ago and throwing away a mountain of stuff at that time, too. My girlfriend was no exception. We ended up taking boxes and boxes to a consignment store for children’s clothing and toys and also to charity.

The funny thing is that the apartment still isn’t all the way cleared out. Most of the boxes are gone, but many still remain. I still have to go through a lot of old clothing of my own (did I really ever wear that shirt? UGH!) and boxes of papers and, well, just junk.

All of this stuff is weighing on me, though. The clutter becomes an awful burden that lingers in the corner of my mind when I’m away at work as well as the corner of my eye when I’m at home. I need to get organized.

I wrote an article last year around this time about how to deal with lack of motivation. One of the points that I made in that article was that getting rid of useless junk in our immediate environment is cathartic and helps to not only clear our living spaces, but also to clear our minds.

This idea still holds just as true today, if not even more. I feel better after having gotten rid of so much that I no longer need, but much remains to be accomplished. There are boxes to be unpacked still, papers to be gone through and filed or disposed of, and decisions to be made about whose stuff we’re going to keep.

This is a lot of work and exhausting, to say the least. Honestly, I would love to take the whole week off of work and finish the job. Yes, the whole week because I think it will take that long to really get the job done the way I’d like to.

Ultimately, I realize that it’s vitally important to clean house on a regular basis. It’s important to refresh out surroundings as well as our minds and spirits. In my mind, both are intimately connected. Just as a healthy body is key to a healthy mind, an uncluttered space is key to an uncluttered mind.

I’m going to be writing some articles about employment issues, including searching for a new job, coping with your current one, and being more happy and productive wherever you may be working. There are so many people out there who are dissatisfied with their lives and a large part of that is due to their work situation or their perspective on their own employment. These are factors that can be changed and the realization of that is the first step toward a better, more positive life.

I have a lot of ideas already, but if you would like to suggest some topics to be included or offer your own perspective on the current job market as well as employment issues or searching for a job, please leave a comment or use my contact form.