How to Feel Good by Opening a Single Drawer–Declutter, Discover, and Create in One Small Space

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Feel overwhelmed?  No time for anything?  Cursing those apparently perfect people (let us call them PPs) who smile a lot and seem to have everything in order?  Guess what?  They don’t (and the smile is a grimace, grasshoppers).  It’s the illusion of the margarine commercial, the enticement of the biscuit ad.

They, too, have their secret stashes of smouldering stuff.

Yes, you heard me, stuff.  Smouldering stuff.

Smouldering PP stuff.

When the little director in their heads yells, “Cut,” and the studio lights strobe down, when the guests go home, and the dishwasher begins its mesmeric hum, that’s when the smiley grimaces disappear and they, too, the PPs, have to deal with their stories of stuff, their stuffy PP stories.

Stuff in drawers.

Innocent looking enough on the outside, the drawer has come to symbolise the epitome of the bland but lethal cover story for stuff.  But it doesn’t have to be so.  You, grasshopper, and you, PP, can turn the drawer into your friend.

You can declutter, discover and create in your drawer space, and you can do it now. A Few More Blinks

Decide to Read Decisive Moments

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Want to read up on how your brain works and, more specifically, how you make up your mind.  Why not decide to read Jonah Lehrer’s book The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind.  The title is self-explanatory (there’s also an edition called How We Decide – it’s the same book), but here’s some text from the blurb to help you decide:

If you believe rational thought is the foundation of wisdom and that the best decisions are based on logic not emotion, think again.  Our decisions are products of an intricate mix of reason, intuition and emotion.  If we relied on reason alone we’d be almost incapable of deciding anything at all.

The Decisive Moment tells the amazing story of what goes on in th ebrain when we make a decision.  In lucid and accessible prose Lehrer presents cutting-edge neuroscience and psychological research.  He uncovers the debate occurring between different parts of the brain when we face a choice – a debate we are almost always unaware of and often have no control over.

Jonah Lehrer also has a very interesting blog at Wired called The Frontal Cortex where you can read more about the brain and its funny little ways.  Highly recommended.

Two for the Price of One: Mindful Meditation & Memoir

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Sculpture by Ron Mueck – Drift, 2009

I’ve realised that sometimes you can effectively do two things at once and succeed at both. 

Research is increasingly revealing that multi-tasking isn’t necessarily the way to go, but here’s something that can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and apologies to the birds – who would ever think to do such a thing?  Not us grasshoppers.

The two things allow you to calm down, meditate on specific things, and create memoir if you choose to do so.

A Few More Blinks

The Decisive Day is Nigh, but Don’t Max Out Your Credit Cards Yet.

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It seems we’re inching closer to Armageddon, the end of days, the last of the Autumn Sales, with diminishing opportunities to enjoy a really great cheesecake.

How do I know this?  Because I read the billboards, grasshoppers.  And the billboards here in my adopted hometown tell me that Judgement Day is scheduled for 21 May, 2011.  That’s a Saturday, and according to my funny little 2011 diary, it’s also Armed Forces Day.  I don’t know which Armed Forces, could be the Four Horsemen of the Royal Apocalypse Regiment, I guess – good old FH RAR.

Interestingly, my funny little diary continues through to the end of the year, so I suppose that’s a waste of paper.  I plan to make the most of those spare pages by doodling my way out of existence on 21 May while drinking tea, eating pizza and sliding that last delicious slice of cheesecake off the spoon and into my soon to be immolated innards.

So, to cut things short – I’m sure you’ll understand I don’t have time to dawdle – here’s the deal: use Saturday, 21 May 2011, as a Day of Decision. A Few Blinks More

Record, Write, Declaim a Pocket Memoir and Create Your Legacy

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One of the easiest ways to begin to create your legacy is to record, write, declaim or otherwise remember a Pocket Memoir.

What’s in a person’s pockets can be revealing.  It may prompt you to revise your usual pocket form and change your ways.  Or it may remind you of something you forgot a long time ago – why you pocket things the way you do, or why you don’t pocket anything.

For most of my life, my pockets have been empty, except for a spare tissue.  In recent years, due to the exigencies of life, that changed entirely.  But the reason why a pickpocket would have been very disappointed in picking my pockets for most of my life is quite simple – I blame it all on Mum. 

Yes, mothers like smooth lines, they like non-stretched clothing, fabrics that retain their spring, or their starchy straightness, their minty-fresh, crease-free, just-ironed sparkle.  Mothers hate disreputable-looking fashion, hanging carelessly as though it’s been pummelled with river rocks, or turned into a carrybag for spuds and carrots.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a clue where our iron lives anymore.  I used to iron hankies, and serviettes.  I ironed everything, and then, one day, I didn’t anymore.  Fabrics changed, I changed, and the iron went into seclusion somewhere in the house.

Why am I telling you all this?  Because empty pockets – they too have their story.  If you feature empty pockets, what’s their story?  Is it your own choice, or a hangover from someone else’s idea of impressive?

Here’s a pocket memoir I recorded for Ridley Scott’s and Kevin McDonald’s film project Life in a Day.  I watched it again recently and realised that what I carry in my pocket now has changed yet again.  And I know that empty pockets are a thing of the past for me.  How about you, grasshopper, what do you have in your pockets, and why?

How to be Decisive Momentarily and Live a Different Life

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My cat constantly decides - to eat.

What does it take to provoke active decision-making in our lives?  We go along to get along, don’t we?  It’s hard to change even if we want to.  Routine is comforting and useful, it’s handy when you need to know which way’s up.  But sometimes – more and more frequently these days, it seems – events occur – decisive events, fatally decisive events – that shake you up and out of your routine and running on automatic.  They can shake you into a decisive moment.  A Few Blinks More

Embrace the Ephemeral: Create a Cloud Memoir

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Monday’s Cloud Audit

Most of the time, I’m too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other to look up.  But when I do, 99 times out of a hundred, I love what I see, whether there are clouds or a clear blue sky.

I decided to create a cloud memoir to remind me of the sky at a particular time.  A Few Blinks More

The Decisive Moment in a Nutshell

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It’s short, it’s sweet, and who can argue with a guru like Seth Godin.  This is what he advised in a recent post on his blog :

You don’t need more time…

you just need to decide.

It’s as easy and as hard as that.  Decisive moments will save us time, there’s no doubt at all about it, it’s getting the practice in that’s important.  How much do you dither during a day?  Do a dither audit and find out.  What’s cooling in the kitchen, lurking in the lounge-room, bloviating in the bedroom, slithering around the study, waiting for you to make a decision?  Is it animal, vegetable, mineral, metaphorical, or thoughtful?

What small thing could you decide to do now so that you can start practising for real?  Maybe you could:

  • Pick up the phone and renew your gym membership, or cancel it. 
  • Go to where your sneakers are cowering, put them on, slip, slop and slap, and get out the door for a walk. 
  • Find a notebook, grab a pen, and start the journal you always said you wanted to keep – write for five minutes, and five minutes only, then stop.  You can decide to do it again tomorrow. 
  • Go to the nearest gadget selling shop, buy a digital camera (they’re very cheap these days), get them to throw in a camera bag and an extra battery, and start your life with photography today. 

Whatever little thing you decide to do, you’ll feel better, I guarantee it.  Eleanor Roosevelt said, You must do the thing you think you cannot do. 

So begin today, grasshoppers, decide to make a decision, and be decisive about it.