Escape from 2016

2016 is finally over! How has your first week of the new year been? Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean you can toss 2016 aside, however! Actually, it’s a good idea every year to escape the old year. Let me explain in three ways that don’t involve losing weight, quitting smoking or hitting the gym.

1. Update your resume

Even if you are happy with your job, update your resume! It's easy to forget all the new skills or projects tackled in the previous year and each year your memory will get fuzzier and fuzzier. Trust me on this :D This is also important for artists and writers who may have exhibited or published. Not only will you have a handy reference, you’ll always be prepared. After six years I haven’t forgotten trying to scramble everything when my group was laid off. Writing a new resume is painful and can be a chore - it’s much easier to keep an old one up to date.

2. Clean up your phone

Rather than buying a newer phone or more storage for it, check your downloaded files folder for PDFs, Word docs and other things you may have downloaded over the year (or years). Chuck those blurry selfies too :-D A little organization will go a long way. I always like to dump the previous year photos in a yearly folder on our home backup system after selecting the ones I want to keep.

3. Back up your files

If you still have some Christmas money from Grandma left, it might be wise to invest it in a backup solution if you don't already have one. It's not glamorous, but it's the gift that will keep on giving, especially when data disaster strikes. Remember this rule of thumb - have an original, a backup and a backup backup. As hubs likes to remind me, it’s not only important to have backups, but to be able to restore from backups. If you do have a backup system already, make sure it is still accessible. And don't forget to backup #1 and #2 :-)

Have a great year friends!

Escape from The To-Do List

When roughly half your year is spent in wintry cold, it's so easy to take summer for granted. Suddenly everyone is social and there's so much to do. I found myself slipping deeper and deeper into the To-Do List! The joke goes, "There are only two seasons in Canada, winter and construction." It's mostly true, because you can't paint your garage or pour a new sidewalk when it's -40C out. 

Not that long ago I was standing at the dinner table, wrapping several packages and I wondered why I wasn't outside enjoying this particular cool spring day. White and pink blossoms, the rich green grass, the cloudless blue sky - and I was inside, staring wistfully out the windows. It was like an invisible parent was staring down at me and saying, "No playtime until all your chores are done!"

And when life starts looking like a Buzzfeed listicle, you know you need to Escape from the To-Do List. Eventually everything becomes a chore. The To-Do List starts affecting your body and you don't really know why at first:

The To-Do List just becomes one never ending cycle. Inspiration to flee came from a safety ad on the bus:

 Stop          Think          React 

I put my phone away, I took a deep cleansing breath. The heart of my entanglement in the To-Do List was that I could not say no. It was a trap within a trap! I had to climb out of the Yes Pit.

It's not easy to say "no", especially for women. Some people are raised to put others needs before their own. Some people feel that it's incredibly rude to say no. And yet others say yes because it might be a career killer. My time as a temp certainly eroded my ability to say "no" too. It's natural to want to fit in, please people and say "yes" when we mean "no". Maybe the trouble with saying "no" is that we know how to say "yes" easily, but not "no".

"Practice big no's and little no's," I told myself. Yesterday my husband wanted to watch Dr. Who. No thanks! Last week an old co-worker was hopeful that I had some free weekends and evenings to help with her work project. No, my bandwidth has been exceeded lately! Last month I ran into someone from a group I volunteered with in the past - did I want to be webmaster again? Without burning a single bridge, I replied, "No, but I know someone who might be interested!"

The To-Do List shrank as I exercised the power of "no". Maybe it's easier to reframe "no" as "not today" or "not right now" when considering a request. Maybe I'll want to watch Dr. Who tomorrow! Saying "no" is actually saying "yes" to other things - like time with family, myself (remember, I'm an introvert!) and things I really care about. It's not fun giving up weekends for extra work - especially during a short Canadian summer. That's something I really can't say no to at all!

Escape From The Television Trap

Last week while I was sick I didn't actually watch any daytime TV because we don't have a television service. As I braved a trip to the mall to find some Emergen C, I cheerfully waved away a nice young man trying to sell the latest digital TV thingamabob from the phone company.

"We kicked the habit!" I chirped at him and a small part of him probably died inside as I walked on by. Such is the way of colds - filters are down along with your immune system. But almost six years ago we gave up our satellite TV. It was getting hard to justify spending $70 a month on the three channels we watched - Discovery, Teletoon and Animal Planet. Even a PVR and skipping commercials couldn’t keep us interested - TV piled up like laundry in a corner.

Consuming media had become a chore!
Sometimes it takes people aback, as if shunning TV makes one an instant snob, but the fragmented state of today's media means that something has to give. When I was a kid, I couldn't imagine giving up TV, even if it was peasantvision's eleven channel world (twelve, if you understood French, which we didn't). TV was the only currency the nerdiest child had in the playground, and missing an episode of Full House or Perfect Strangers was practically spending a night in Squaresville. Occasionally the local paper would run a story about some cute kid holding a fan of crisp new bills - their reward for giving up the idiot box. It's just a lesson that took a long time to learn, I guess.

Of course these days we have a better distraction, the Internet, and we pay $60 a month for that. At one of my past temp jobs, a visitor to the office asked me "what I did all night" if TV wasn't on the menu. Uh...read? Exercise? Visit my friends? Spend time with my husband? The rare time that we do watch TV has made it special again - commercials are actually interesting instead of annoying. But I look at it this way...

What am I gaining?

Time!
$840 a year!
Peace and quiet!
Hours to read!
More movies!
And suddenly the advantages start to outweigh being caught up on the latest thing to chat about around the water cooler. TV is such a constant presence, but one can grow to appreciate it's absence, like so much stuff from the basement.

Now if you really want to know how people in the past thought TV was a trap, watch this 1936 movie called Trapped by Television. It's not much different from the way we try to imagine technology in our lives today.

Escape From The Clutter Trap!

"Out, darn stuff! Out, I say!" That was me a few autumns ago, embarking on a major household declutter. Maybe it was because I had reached LP speed (33 for the young folks) or maybe it was the major life change that rose up as my old workplace downsized. 

In the months that I plotted my escape from the clutter trap, our city finally rolled out a blue cart recycling program. Prior to this, recycling meant loading up the hatchback, driving to a drop off location and hoping for empty bins. Now try doing this in a Canadian winter. It was easier to let stuff pile up in the basement and garage. I was also becoming more pressed for time. Creative time was nonexistent. Anxious and hemmed in, my brain finally realized what my heart was feeling:

"I'm so tired of looking after stuff! What if I spent less time looking after stuff and more time looking after myself?"

Since I'm a big nerd, I even calculated just how much left the house by way of trash bag, copy paper box or blue cart. Are you sitting down? 249 cubic feet. That would fill three quarters of my home office.

No corner of the house was spared. I gave away clothes, old furniture, half the plants. Chipped dishes, broken this and that - out! Called up the Girl Guides and donated a big box of craft supplies. Took all the old paint cans down to the eco station. Donated the giant chest freezer to a charity. Giving became a huge source of satisfaction. 

These tricks worked for me:

• Put belongings and clothes in a box, seal, and if unopened after a year, donate
• Enlist a friend to help - they're impartial and will offer support
• Photograph items being discarded or donated (especially helpful if a memory is associated with the item)
• Make piles - keep, sell, donate, recycle/trash

Of course, there are lots of websites to help you out (Unclutterer is my favourite).

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's all too easy to wind up with a giant collection of something. Instead of opening my own Horse Gift Emporium, I kept my most cherished horsey things and found a few horse crazy girls who were thrilled to be given figurines, bags and t-shirts. I emphasized to close friends and family that experiences were better than things. They could show their affection without stuff - time with them is the best gift of all - instead of something that collected dust or could break.

A kind of ripple effect occurs when one escapes the clutter trap. Suddenly everything is up for evaluation. It became easier to find better ways of doing things and manage mail, plus the sense of accomplishment that went along with my newfound free time and space. My goal had come true - I was looking after the things that mattered more than just stuff! 

And it was great. It is great. Getting rid of the physical clutter had gotten rid of the mental clutter. The ripple washed over my husband and my mother. Mr. Potenti found himself with a workspace after hauling away four shopping carts of old computer equipment at Staples. Mom, who was never good at letting go because it was such an emotional process, found the same relief I did as she sorted, tossed and donated. The mental aspect of hanging on to stuff cannot be overlooked - and the difficulty individuals face is very real - but can be overcome. 

The best part of all is that what went out has not come back in. It’s not perfect, and maybe some day my house will look like an IKEA catalogue. Some people go really hardcore and try a 100 Thing Challenge. Do a few hundred books count as “one thing”? Yes? No? Well, you can't get rid of every thing sometimes!

Escape From The Time Trap!

Escape From The Time Trap sounds like a work of fiction, but it's a movie or book that we have all starred in. There is no shortage of advice online to combat time traps (try Lifehacker and 43 Folders) - plus it's also the name of a 1972 time management book, The Time Trap. The key seems to be first realizing that you are the star of this story and that you need to escape from an overused plot! Every time you hear yourself say...

"When I have enough money..."

"When the kids are done school..."

"Someday I will..."

And ESPECIALLY if you say

"When the time is right..."

...you are stuck starring in Escape From The Time Trap. Trust me, there will never be a 'right' time to get started or get finished your creative project. There will only be the time you have not spent working on it. Also playing a role in Escape From The Time Trap are these antagonists cleverly disguised as:

"I'm not good enough..."

Trust me, you are good enough! It's hard to overcome fear (and fear of rejection) but feedback will only help you learn and grow. Mistakes are the fertilizer for success. Weird, but true. The road to success may look like a straight path, but really it's a twisty turny one. Make sure to surround yourself with people who will support you in your growth, and never those that will try to bring you down. The time for being "good enough" is now.

"I don't have the time..."

I was one of those people once. "Eh, I don't have time to go to the gym. I don't have time to read anymore. I'd like to be a writer, but I don't have the time." One will never Escape From The Time Trap with those kinds of excuses. The hard truths are:

You don't have time because you prioritized something else over your creative output.

and

If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.

Now, surely, no one would ask you to de-prioritize important things such as bills, family or things that make you happy or are truly important to you. But if you find yourself lacking time, keep a time journal and see where your time is going. Are there things you do out of a sense of obligation or because you've always done it? Are you passively consuming media when you could be actively creating your own? Are you giving your time away too freely to others? Have a hard time saying no (especially if you are a people pleaser)? Spending too much time on Facebook? Heh, even I will confess to playing an hour of Bejewelled when I should have been creating :-D Find out where your time is going and learn to manage it better.

Lastly, it's possible to be stuck in the most vexing maze of all - procrastination. I am a recovering procrastinator and here to tell you that you can break this habit. Pick up a copy of Getting Things Done by David Allen (now!). It will change your life, even if you only practice a few of the simple habits. This book is a life preserver in a sea of tasks and priorities. My favourite habit is the "Two Minute Rule" which goes:

Can I get this thing done in two minutes or less? If “yes”, do it right now.

What do you think? Does any of this sound familiar? Helpful? Can you be the hero of Escape From The Time Trap?