Monday Inspiration: Order from Chaos

Dom Deluise as Captain Chaos in Cannonball Run

Order can beget contentment, happiness, and even motivation in the same way that chaos can make you want to cringe or even crawl up into a little ball and cry out for your mommy.

I have a confession to make: I am not the most orderly person in the world. And that's okay. I keep things in my own form of organization (I say that "I organize spatially" - my wife disagrees with that categorization). But in today's non-stop pace of information and business and managing work and family time, things fall through through the cracks. Those things accumulate. And then they become a project in themselves.

So today's message is a simple one: Clean your room! If it's your office space or your inbox (or inboxes), make sure that you have a place for everything - and put everything in its place.

"Woah, woah! But Eric," you quiver, "that'll take me a whole day - I'll lose a whole day of work!"

Relax! You've let it go this long; don't break yourself trying to get everything done at once. Break the Gestalt you see as potential clean into bite-sized pieces. Create a plan. Write it down somewhere. Stick to it. Heck, make it a 30 minute scheduled appointment in your day. Before you know it, you'll be on your way to more order in your life and your work.

And the best part of the whole thing? Each step, each piece of your ordering lifts a weight off your shoulders. You will feel lighter. You will feel freer. And that, in itself, can be a motivation, can be the wind of inspiration blowing at your back.

Challenge: Do something small today to bring more order to your life. File some papers, disentangle your computer cords, throw something away that needs to be tossed. Post in the comments what it was and how it made you feel.

For my part? I have 4 very active inboxes, all of which need a good cleaning. I will clear at least 2 of them at some time today and update this post at the end of the day and let you know how it went.

What will you do to to make your life more manageable today?


UPDATE: In the spirit of full disclosure, I have only cleared one of my inboxes to less than 5 emails. Hoping -- NO! I will complete the other 3 tomorrow.

No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.