NEAT & SIMPLE LIVING

It's official! Neat & Simple Living Blog is winding down...but it has had a baby!

It's official!

 My exploration of Neat & Simple Living has evolved into Agile Living, Work Design and Productivity!   This blog is six years old and rather than move it, I decided to just leave it here and start fresh.  

The new blog is called "Becoming Agile"   and lives on my new website www.arianebenefit.com. By January 2012 ALL of my new work is going to be exclusively published there.

Has the vision changed? 

My ultimate vision is the same...help people heal chronic disorganization, overwhelm and frustration and design a simpler life that fits.  I'm still working with the same audience of highly creative, gifted, ADHD or ADHDish, highly technical, sensitive people who struggle with the stuckness of procrastination, clutter, disorganization, depression, anxiety and chronic overwhelm.  To embrace all of us without so many labels...I am using the term Neurodiverse Outliers. It just feels better - makes it easier to accept myself as I am, not as a set of labels that focus on what's wrong with me. Over-identifying with the labels reinforces them. Changing the label changes the way you see yourself.  It's powerful stuff.

The Agile Life Design philosophy, mindset, skills and processes is the distillation of everything I've learned about what it takes to have a simpler, less pressured more satisfying life.  The agile approach to designing life, work, systems and relationships that fit together - WORKS.  As I'm working on resources to share the concepts and methods with the world, I'll be blogging the journey.  If you would like to continue with me on this journey

 I warmly invite you to join my mailing list.  

Going forward...the only way to get new content by email is to subscribe to a convenient, single mailing list...no more subscribing to both a blog and a mailing list. YAY!  : )   Thanks to my new email system, you'll have a lot more say in what kind of updates you want to receive from me as well!   

Wishing you much peace and an ever agile heart and mind, 

Sign up here if you haven't already....

 

 

 

Wednesday Wisdom - On Sacrificing Clutter in Order to Have What We Truly Need

“To receive that which is worth having,
It may be necessary to lose everything else.”

- Helene Bonet

Garage - BEFORE letting go of clutter

Garage - AFTER letting go of the clutter
my client can now have what she truly needed -
her car parked in the garage!

This is some of what my client had to "lose"
in order to park her car in the garage
for the first time in 30 years.
 

RELATED POST: 
This is the same home featured in this post with photos in July:

http://blog.neatandsimple.com/2007/07/organizing-and-.html

"See you" when I return from vacation!

Photo by Ariane Benefit - Copyright - All Rights Reserved.
Do not use without permission.

Wednesday Wisdom - On Getting Started Letting Go of Clutter

"A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step.”

- Lao Tzu

Getting started letting go of clutter can feel overwhelming - especially if you have a lot. The trick is to find a way to get started.  A single step in the right direction may be all it takes to gain momentum you never even imagined possible.

Choose something easy. Start by taking 2 minutes.  Grab a trash can and a donation bag/box. Inspect a drawer, a single cabinet, a portion of your closet or maybe your medicine cabinet.  Pull out the things you know you can easily let go.  Set a timer and notice how much you really can do in just 2 minutes.

Even if you only choose a couple items a day...you will be progressing towards your goal and before you know it, you'll soon notice a huge change in your energy and in your space!

Photo Source Site: Flickr , Title: Wooden Steps, Username: Clearly Ambiguous
License: Attribution License

NOTE:  I'm currently on vacation till 9/9/07 (I preprogrammed this before leaving)  So please forgive me it I don't respond to your comments right away!

Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend! 

Wednesday Wisdom - On the Beauty of Imperfection

“Ring the bells you still can ring
Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.”

- Lyric by Leonard Cohen

Source Site:
Flickr
Title: Liberty Bell
Username: TimWilson
Date Taken: 2005-06-29 14:57:05
License: Attribution License

Wednesday Wisdom - On Unlearning Cluttering Habits

“I have spent most of my life unlearning things
that were proved not to be true.”

- Richard Buckminster Fuller

My friend Dwayne Melancon of Genuine Curiousity recently invited me to become part of a wonderful community of bloggers called Joyful Jubilant Learning (JJL) which was founded by Rosa Say, a leadership coach from Hawaii who is also the author of Managing with Aloha Coaching.  Rosa is such a warm and energetic spirit that you can feel her energy come through even by email! To get a sense of how awesome she is check out the welcome post she wrote about me.  I'm so thrilled and honored to be part of this talented and insightful group of bloggers!

UNLEARNING SO I COULD LET GO OF CLUTTER - One of my most personal posts yet

My first post  "Things I Had to Unlearn Before I Could Let go of My Clutter" addresses the current theme of the month which is "Unlearning" and it's one of my most personal posts ever.  I'll be posting on the topic again soon because I think it's really important for me to share my own journey in releasing clutter and not just present it as "here's what you have to do." 

My hope is that by sharing my own actual experience, people won't feel like I'm telling them what to do. Letting go of clutter and creating spaces you love to be in is not a simple matter of "follow these steps".  It's a very holistic process that involves your mind, body, emotions, spirit, values, goals, beliefs, health, relationships and more.  My feeling is that you won't be motivated to do it until you believe with all your heart and soul that creating a home or office you truly love is a form of nurturing yourself AND nurturing yourself HAS TO BE IMPORTANT TO YOU.  You have to care enough about yourself to take the time and action necessary to have what you want.

I never fully understood this until I finally took the time to clear clutter and learned how organize my closet in such a way that I could see everything I have and easily get things in and out of it.  It was such a joy every day to use and I finally got it.  I was over 40 years old the first time I really organized a closet and experienced the difference it makes.  I hope you don't have to wait that long!  : )

A home you love doesn't have to look like a page out of a magazine.  It just has to feel good to you. It needs to have just enough order, balance and things in it to make it easy for YOU to the things YOU want to do.  For some people having a lot of stuff feels good and that's okay. But when the stuff is in your way and prevents you from doing other things like cleaning your home regularly, it's too much.  It's time to really start rethinking the habits and beliefs that have gotten you into the situation you are in.    

"Things I Had to Unlearn Before I Could Let go of My Clutter"  is the beginning of me sharing what beliefs and habits I had to let go of so that I could begin to create a home I really love.  I hope you'll stop by and share a comment even if it's just to say hi!

______________________________________

RELATED POSTS on the topic of unlearning too!

• Release your grip! by Dean Boyer
• Developing a lifestyle of simplicity is not simple!
• Unlearning the power of 'should' by Joanna Young
• Unlearning: The Road by Dave Rothacker

Check out my fellow JJL contributors!

• April Groves
• Ariane Benefit
• Benjamin Bach
• Blaine Collins
• Chris Owen
• Dan Ward
• Dave Rothacker
• David Zinger
• Dean Boyer
• Dwayne Melancon
• EM Sky
• Greg Balanko-Dickson
• Joanna Young
• John Richardson
• Karen Wallace
• Phil Gerbyshak
• Rosa Say
• Steve Sherlock
• Terry Starbucker
• Tim Draayer
• Tim Milburn
• Toni Howard

Wednesday Wisdom - On Keeping Perfectionism at Bay

Several of you have asked me to write about my tips on how I work at overcoming perfectionism. I've been working on a post about my battles with perfectionism, but one thought comes up over and over again.  

“Today’s Solution is Tomorrow’s Problem.”

 

I'm not sure who said it first, but I first heard it in 1989 from our Managing Director when I was an Education Manager at Arthur Andersen's Center for Professional Education in St. Charles, Illinois.  It has stuck with me all these years because it seemed so profound to me at the time.  It was one of those Light Bulb moments when you have to unlearn what you thought was true and start reframing your mind to understand things in a completely different way.

In 1989, the quality movement was in full swing and my perfectionism was feeding on it.  The pursuit of perfect quality was causing me to work 100+ hour weeks and I was stressing badly.  My health was suffering in a big way. I was rapidly burning out in the name of quality.

One day my managing director said, "Ariane, quality is important, but perfectionism is a losing game." I was quite taken aback.  He went on to counsel me that it was just as important to balance the amount of effort and time that you put into things according to the true potential lifespan of the solution.  Why?  Because today's solution ultimately becomes outdated or outgrown and becomes the problem you have to fix or rework in the future.  And because if you don't get solutions to market at the right time, all of your work will be for nothing.  It was then I started really learning the concept of choosing what not to do at all, and what not to bother to do perfectly.

Today whenever I catch myself spending a lot of time at something trying to make it perfect - I think about this concept and consider the following 8 questions that help me conquer perfectionism (Kara, this is for you!) : )

 

1. Will anyone get hurt if this isn't perfect?
    
2. Will anyone get hurt waiting for me to get this perfect?  (this includes me...like will I lose sleep? miss out on time with my family and friends?)
    
3. Does the lifespan of what I'm working on justify the time it's taking me?
    
4. Will this solution lose its value to others if I don't finish it more quickly?
   
5. Will I miss a deadline or other commitment if I don't ease up?
    
6. If I don't put a solution in place quickly will the problem keep getting worse as I try to get the solution to be more perfect? 
    
   (This is a good one to remember when agonizing over paint colors or organizing solutions.  I've been known to take years to choose a paint color and meanwhile the walls get dingier and dingier - not anymore!)
    
7. Will the solution take more time to implement than coping with the problem will take?
    
8. In 5 years, will I feel the time I spent on making this perfect was worth the sacrifice of other things that I could have been doing with my time?
    

So now, without any further attempts to make this post perfect, I'm moving on to my next thing to get done - like get some sleep!!  : )

Wednesday Wisdom - On Being of Service

Try to forget yourself in the service of others. For when we think too much of ourselves and our own interests, we easily become despondent. But when we work for others, our efforts return to bless us.

                   - Sydney Powell

Learn more about how cultivating a Service Heart increases your Happiness from Gretchin Rubin on the Happiness Project Blog.

Wednesday Wisdom - On Perfectionism

“A man person would do nothing if s/he waited
until s/he could do it so well that no one could
find fault.”
 

- John Henry Newman

(the edits to make this apply to everyone are mine) 

Many thanks to Brandie Kajino for this awesome quote on perfectionism.  This is something I have made great strides in overcoming.  Writing this blog has helped me tremendously with it as I have dared to post things that I've only reviewed a couple times before posting live.  It hurts deep in my stomach every time I go back to an old post or look at the Free e-book I posted and see a typo.  But I put it out there anyway and just keep fixing things as I see them or when I have time. I still fear that putting out writing with typos might hurt my reputation for doing high quality work but I also keep telling myself this: If I wait till I get it perfect, I'll never get it done. Better to err and help people who don't care if there are typos in it, than to be perfect and never help anyone. 

RELATED POSTS

10 Myths about Managing Your Time

How to Avoid Perfectionism without Becoming Careless or Sloppy From the Goals to Action blog by Roger Constandse

Wednesday Wisdom

You are more - much more -
than what you have...

- Don Wilson

Wednesday Wisdom - Using what you have to get organized without spending a penny!

WISDOM

I have always preferred having wings
to having things.

                   - Pat Schroeder

This quote is so true for me.  In 1992 when I moved from Oak Park, Illinois, to NJ I had to sell or donate nearly everything I had.  Because I had so much stuff it had cost my company over $14,000 to move me out to Illinois.  (I told you I used to be a packrat)  But when I wanted to move back to NJ, the only way I could afford it was to lighten my load. (it only cost me $1200 to move back) I eventually collected more stuff, but then I let go of it once again after I got my first Feng Shui Consultation.  Read here about how letting go of clutter may have been the thing that helped me get married for the first time when I was 41 years old!  Ultimately, my quest to let go of clutter led me to finding my passion, taking charge of my own happiness, and starting this business which has truly given my spirit wings.

BONUS NEAT & SIMPLE ORGANIZING TIP!

Here is my latest foray into using what I already have to get organized.  I needed a plastic bag holder in a closet where I put a litter box for my cats.  I didn't want to run out and spend $12 on a new one, so I thought for a minute, and here's what I came up with...I took the last few tissues out of the package and stuffed it with plastic bags!  It works like a charm!

Happy Fourth of July!  : )

Wednesday Wisdom

               Joy is not in things; it is in us.

                                - Wagner

Wednesday Wisdom - On Having Too Much

            When there is too much,
          something is missing.

                   - Hasidic Saying