Tag — do less
Magpie Suggests: The Art of Being Minimalist
Remember last month when I gave Everett Bouge’s The Art of Being Minimalist a kind of lackluster review in this post on *8Things to Minimize?
I changed my mind. (You knew I’d come around, didn’t you Everett?)
It’s sticking with me, this little book, and the ideas presented in it are turning ’round and ’round in my mind. Since reading it Paul and I are seriously considering:
- living without a car when we return stateside.
- extending the lease on our six bedroom house in Seattle in order to experiment with living in small, downtown condo.
- selling 90% of our 1,000 volume library. (150 is our new golden number)
- getting rid of most of our DVD’s.
Anything that makes you re-think that much stuff is worth the $9.95. (Soon to go up to $19.95.) Plus, it’s an ebook – no physical clutter required. And it has a beautiful minimalist design, which I, the migrainuer, appreciates. (No visual clutter!)
Now look, I know a lot of you are doing too much. So don’t buy this if it’s just going to be one more thing sitting on your desk waiting to be read. But if you have 90 minutes to read it this weekend, it might change your life.
Click here to buy The Art of Being Minimalist.
P.s. If you buy the book by clicking on a link in this post, you’ll be buying me a cuppa. For my full disclosure statement about how I love you and only tell you good things, click here.
*8Things: to Minimize
When I got sick with debilitating chronic pain, everything had to change. My once busy calendar had to be cleared. The defacto commune had to move out of my house. I had to Do Less. A lot less.
Thankfully, due in no small part to the book The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential
In the middle of learning this Do Less lifestyle, I moved out of a 6 bedroom house and into a 3 bedroom apartment. This meant drastically scaling back everything we owned. Two years later I’m happy to announce that I love my modernist apartment and my scaled-back stuff. So much so that I’ve already begun worrying about how we will be tempted to spill back into all 6 rooms (plus basement storage!) in our old house once we return to the States.
In an effort to study-up, glean ideas, and set some intentions for the move home, I recently read Everett Bogue’s new ebook The Art of Being Minimalist. I’m not an affiliate for this book, because I’m not sure there’s enough “meat” in it for me to recommend the purchase. Plus, I have a hard time taking minimalist living advice from someone who is under 30 with no kids. But the book is beautifully laid out and can be read in about 90 minutes, which I like. Check it out and if you think it suites you, give it ago. After all, $9.95 is not a huge price and maybe it will inspire you to a whole new way of living.
In the Art of Being Minimalist Bogue points out that he only owns 100 things. If he doesn’t use something in 1 month, he gets rid of it. It made me think about all the things I haven’t used in a month’s time, or even in 6 months time. And it inspired me to clear out some of those things.
So, for today’s *8Things, I suggest we make a list of stuff of which we could have less. Here is my list of *8Things to Minimize. (Thanks Everett. That was totally worth $9.95.)
1. Books: We regularly give away books, but our shelves are still over full to over flowing. The fact is, there are few of these we will ever re-read. If I can strong-arm my husband into it, I’m going to try to get us down to one shelf of books. (We have bookshelf in every room. Even the kitchen.) We live 6 blocks from the library. We’ll be fine.
2. DVDs:When we moved to Denmark we loaded up on DVDs. I have to stay, in these long dark Winters they have been a lifesaver. But when we are back in the land of Hulu and Netflix, we won’t need them. I’m hoping to leave most of them behind.
3. Dishes: I’m kind of torn on this one. On the one hand, we like to entertain. It’s a huge part of our ethos. On the other hand, how many teacups does one really need when one is no longer hosting a group of 12-20 for dinner every week, or living with extra adults? And do I really need an additional plastic set for outdoor eating now that the children are older? Methinks not.
4. Twitter Follows:Immediately after reading “Minimalist” I cut my list down to 249. (From 1,300) Everyone has to be on a sub-list (personal, artists, or coaches.) Much more manageable, and hopefully more productive work-wise.
5. Songs:I love Zune because you can download all the music you want for about $15 a month. But do I really need the definitive collection of every musician I like? I’m thinning this out on the weekend.
6. Cookbooks. I have this neat organization system for my recipes and I really only use this, my GF baking cookbook, and online resources. As long as I leave Paul his Joy of Cooking, I can get rid of the rest.
7. RSS Feeds: Also right after reading the book I narrowed my list down to 7 feeds — just the people I want to read but can never find easily on Google. I used to worry all the time that I was “behind” on reading my feeds. Not any more.
8. Cleaning Products: I mean seriously, we all know I rarely clean. Why do I have stuff under every sink plus a bucketful of potions in the hall closet? As soon as I can figure out how to dispose of these “greenly” in CPH, they are out of here!
What is your list of *8Things to Minimize? Share in the comments below grab a button and play along. If you post on your list on your blog, please give us the permalink in the Mr. Linky below so we can come say hi! Maybe you will inspire someone to live with less stress and more space today. Thanks for being here.
The DO LESS Revolution: Finding Your One Goal
Important Announcement
Hello Revolutionaries! It’s time for an important troop briefing. This will be the last DO LESS Revolution post at Magpie Girl. Why you might ask? Because the Revolution is going underground briefly so it can re-emerge as an Ecourse on doing less and living more.
Through comments and emails I’m finding that while this material is helpful, some of us need a hand to hold. So I’m working hard to offer a 6 week course with soulful, focused assignments; on-line group support and personal coaching. This will help you pare down your life, allow you to focus on the essential, and move you into a more concentrated, powerful form of living. I’m super excited to offer this course to you, and hope it will be available as an advanced preparation for the over-booked holidays. (A calmer Holiday Season… wouldn’t THAT be nice?) If I can’t get it prepped by then, we’ll do it in January as a New Year’s soulcare practice. So stay tuned for some personalized, focused support coming your way!
The One Goal Concept
But before we take our hiatus, let’s talk about the One Goal. Remember when we were choosing our Most Important Tasks (M.I.T.s)? Well some of us were struggling to identify those M.I.T.s , even with the help of our Guiding Values. It’s a common problem. But Leo Babauta’s concept of One Goal can really help. Leo’s theory is that if you have just One Goal, say for the next year, and you break that down into sub goals, it will keep you focused and motivated. (For a more detailed left-brain take on this process see “Chapter 7: Simple Goals and Projects” in The Power of Less.)
My application of this theory has been to name One Goal for my vocational life – my “calling” as it were. To me, this is not something I chose, but something that chose me-a powerful internally motivated pull towards work that has attracted me my entire life. However, even though I’ve been moving in this direction for a long time, I could not name my One Goal until recently. Let’s look at my One Goal and how I use it. Then I’ll give you a handy-dandy assignment to help you uncover your own. [Read more →]
*8Things: Enormous Time Suckers
For more about *8Things, click here.
You know you have them. Those tricksy little things that suck away your time and cast your good intentions into the corner of the universe reserved for socks-that-get-lost-in-the-dyer.
I am a particularly good victim to these little items. And while I’m not sure what to do about them, I thought if I made a list, I’d at least recognize them when I see them. So here are my *8Things: Enormous Time Suckers:
1. Hulu. I admit it. I’m a Hulu whore. You can’t even stream Hulu in Europe — unless you are such an addict you find a work-around. (Hello Hotspot my old friend…) When I ran out of episodes of my favorite shows, I started watching stuff I do not even like. (Private Practice Rachelle? Seriously?)
2. The Tryanny of “The Best.” I spend loads of time — and I’m talking hours of dithering– tyring to decide the best use of my time. New method? Step 1: Write down 3 things that have to get done today or somebody’s gonna be disappointed about something. Step 2: Start one. Step Three: Repeat the mantra “Nothing is ever wasted.”
3. Facebook Applications. I use FB like it is my own personal office assistance. It’s truly valuable to me. Until the elusive appeal of the ‘Pick 5′ application comes around. Or the siren call of the the books and music boxes. That way lies madness.
4. Organizing. Junk drawers, sock drawers, linen closets. I love them all. When the girls were toddlers I would set up the dollhouse everyday, just to have some order (and to avoid the need to order my own big house!)
5. Regret. Lots of energy spent on this…less so nowadays tho, thanks in part to this. (Phew.)
6. Worrying. My favorite things to worry about are my kids, especially the one who doesn’t live with us. Right now tho, I’m worrying less about him and more about Eden, who is not at all challenged at school and who is having trouble making Danish friends. School worries are huge for me.
7. Wondering.What would it be like to be emotionally balance? What is the 19yo up to? Can you make gluten free challah? My mind rarely quiets down.
8. Obsessing about Food. Okay, this is kind of a necessity right now, because I’m re-learning how to eat without gluten or sugar. But I do think my mind spends waaaay to much time on food, and my body spends too much time preparing it. (The children, they need to eat HOW often?) I have separate blogs to “help” with this obsession, the theory being if you give it a place to live it won’t knock on your door as much.
What is your *8Things: Time Suckers list? Put it in the comments below or grab a button and play along. And for a soulcare challenge, why not try to curb the enthusiasm of one or two of them? Me, I’m eliminating the “email me when there’s something new in my Queue” option on Hulu. What will you do? Do tell, and thanks for being here!
DO LESS Revolution: Holiday Edition
The DO LESS Revolution is on much needed R&R . Please come on back next week for my guide to the DO LESS Vacation. Happy Canada Day and Fourth of July!
The DO LESS Revolution: Choosing the Essential
Hello Comrades!
Have you been writing down your M.I.T.s (most important tasks) most days? Did you create your list of Guiding Values? Oh, Leo would be so proud!
Today in The DO LESS Revolution we are going to experiment with “Choosing the Essentials”. Like Leo says, when you choose the essentials you do less but accomplish more because you are doing what matters to you. I call this Concentrated Living, where every hour is full and rich – not because it’s jammed packed with activity-but because each activity is deliberately chosen and done with intention. As I’ve said before, all of us have a finite number of hours in day. Don’t you want to be present to them?
The concept of Choosing the Essentials is all about picking the thing you must do and wantto do in a way that reflects your values. If your daily to-do’s are all things that are valuable to you, your life is more satisfying and you live with less regret. Now, that’s not to say that everything you do is something enjoyable. Changing the diapers may never be fun, but raising healthy kids is worth its weight in gold, right? So a-diaper changing we go.
But there are plenty of things in our day that we can enjoy, and IF you identify your Guiding Values and use them to Choose the Essentials, more of your hours can and will be spent doing things you enjoy – things that nourish you, inspire you, and leave you feeling satisfied at the end of the day. (Rather than regretting what you didn’t do, or trying to go to sleep while you race over all the Most Important Tasks that didn’t get done in the flail of urgent-but-unimportant stuff you did do.)
The Shorthand Version
The way you Choose the Essentials is basically three steps:
- Take your to-do list (make sure you’ve done your bulk reduction program on it found here.)
- Put it next to your Guiding Values list.
- Find the ones that match, and make them your Most Important Task for the day.
The Storied Version
(You knew that was waaaay to few words for me right?) The best way I can think of illustrating this for you is to tell you a story. [Read more →]
Lessons from an Artist: Blogging Without Obligation
Hello Loves,
You are probably wondering where *8Things and The DO LESS Revolution are this week. The answer is “late,” that’s all just late.
You see my dear hubby is in the States which means I am single parenting, with migraines, in what can only be described as B.Y.O.A. rainfall (Bring Your Own Ark)—which of course, I must navigate on foot-or-bike because somewhere along the line somebody got the bright idea to move to Europe and live car-free. (Oh yeah that somebody would be me. Well, at least I have very VERY cute rainboots.)
So taking a page from my own DO LESS advice book, I’m narrowing my tasks for the week down to basic survival skills which include: feeding the children, clothing the children, and trying to keep myself from being bludgeoned to death by the children’s all-drama-all-the-time emotional states. (I wanted girls, right?) So *8Things and DO LESS are coming, just not until the weekend. And when they do could y’all please leave me lots of comments because I’m kinda in THAT kind of headspace right now—oh yeah, the needies.
Before I go, I would like to introduce you to Tiffani Electra X, owner of the charming TartX and maker of art. I want to give Tiffani big props for introducing me to the concept of BWO, Blogging Without Obligation, in which we people who work-for-free cease to beat ourselves up when we don’t show up to the virtual page for a day or two. Tiffani’s theory is that if you don’t beat yourself up about when you blog (or don’t, as the case may be) you’ll blog longer, write better, and give the world more love.
Amen, sisterfriend.
Tiffani’s art at Tartx is fantastically off the beaten path and a good fit for anyone who regularly flings themselves down the rabbit hole. It’s romantic and goth at the same time—a little bit like an Alice in Wonderland tea party, if maybe you like your tea with the tiniest smidge of arsenic. I highly recommend you take a little foray over to her place while you wait around for me to come back from the Mad Hatters. (Do you think I could woo her over here? That would be lovely! I DO so love a good crush!)
Much love to you all.
Magpie Girl
DO LESS Revo Bonus Post: Clear your Clutter!
There are things you want to be doing with your life. There are adventures to be had, projects you’d love to dive into, and people you want to have time for. You want room to breathe, to think, to play.
Yet, there it is. The stuff in your home, the paper piles in your home office, and the 101 things on your to-do list, all clamoring for your time and attention.”
–Lisa Baldwin, Clutter Coach and Professional Simplifier
In the gap between the day we signed our mortgage and the day we could move into our 1920’s craftsman, I would sit on the back porch with my soulful housemate Sharon, and wait for the day we could call The Densmore House home. “It’s good here, Rachelle.” she’d say “Someone has been prayerful in this space.”
Where we live has a feel, an energy…a zeitgeist. We long to live in peaceful, beautiful spaces. But often we find ourselves living in clutter, mess and mayhem. There’s the physical clutter—the mail, and the socks, and the stacks of paper. (How does all that paper procreate anyway?!) Physical clutter stops us in our tracks. It keeps us from starting creative projects—because who wants to work at that messy table? It keeps us from finishing tasks because we can’t find what we started on. It drains us of our inspiration, and tires us out with menial tasks.
Then there is the energetic clutter—the anxiety, the regret, and that mysterious slimy residue that hangs around when something particularly sad or nasty has gone down. Energetic clutter is more subtle than the physical kind. It resides on the edge of our awareness like something you can only see out of the corner of your eye. Yet energetic clutter can be just as distracting and draining as the stack of mail on your countertop.
Thankfully I have two stellar practitioners who can help you remove BOTH kinds of clutter from your life – and they are teaming up to offer an e-course! (Oh you are so lucky!) [Read more →]
Saturday Housekeeping
Hello Loves,
There’s a lot going on over here, and even now I hear the sound of my hubby vacuuming —unbidden!— downstairs. While he does the IRL housekeeping I’ll do the virtual stuff. Here’s what’s going on today in Magpie Girl world.
Soulsisters!
Are you coming on the Soulsister’s ‘09 Retreat? Do you wish you were? Do you want to form your own tribe of soulsisters (or soulsiblings?) Follow our progress and learn our hopes here.
Fun & Helpful Twitter Play-a-Longs
Do you Tweet? So do I! I’m starting some fun new trends on Twitter.
- #gigglepics: photos to cheer you up or soothe your soul via TwitPic.
- #dailywhimsy: cheeky little tweets about the playful things we do to embrace whimsy.
- #dreamboards: do you dreamboard? share your results using links to your blog, Flickr, or Twitpic.
- #soulsisters: for those of us attending the first retreat and dreaming or forming the next one.
- #doless:join The DO LESS Revolution and learn to do what Leo Babatua calls “the fine art of choosing the essentials,” and achieve what I call “concentrated living.” (Plus, just feel better!)
- #soultribes: follow the “How to Build Your Soultribe” series and share ideas and plans with others.
- #*8Things: to share your weekly *8Things and see what others come up with. (It’s fascinating)
Wreck this Journal
Over at Starshyne Productions, my soulsister Jamie Ridler offers The Next Chapter — virtual book clubs for the arty at heart. Right now she’s encouraging us to make a mess with Keri Smith’s Wreck this Journal. Eden, Cate and I started wrecking ours two summers ago. But I’m working on finishing the demo now. Here’s my page for this week. The instructions were “cover this page with white things.” It’s doubling as this month’sdreamboard. My theme for the month is “be still. be now.”
Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday. Don’t do too much housekeeping…go outside and do something whimsical!
Love,
Magpie Girl
The DO LESS Revolution: Uncovering Your Guiding Values
Listen to the podcast here:
Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.
Hello Revolutionaries!
This week we are going to uncover our Guiding Values so next week we can apply them to choosing our Essential Tasks. This will free us to be concentrated powerhouses who DO LESS and LIVE MORE! But before we do, let’s do a brief check-in so you can feel great about how far you’ve already come.
Last week our theme was Setting Limits. We took our Monster To-Do list down a notch by eliminating things that were haunting us, but not serving us. Now pretty please answer some or all of these questions in the comments. Or, if you blog answer them in a post and add the unique URL to our Mr. Linky. (I know. “Mr. Linky.” That sounds naughty doesn’t it? Tee Hee.) Feeling shy? Like pen-and-paper? That’s fine. Just scribble it on the back of that receipt there on your desk. That would work too. (Remember, Fast and Dirty is the way to get it done.) Ready? Here we go!
- Name one thing you crossed off your Monster To-Do list because it wasn’t important to you any longer.
- How many things did you have on your Monster To-Do list that actually didn’t need to be done in the next 30-60 days?
- When your Gremlins started to nag you about “not getting anything done,” which of your one-hour-or-less tasks did you complete?
Which of your Most Important Task (M.I.Ts) got done last week? How’d that feel? - Which M.I.T.s are still hanging out? Do they still get the special M.I.T. rank, or can you demote them?
- Name any Ah-Ha Moments you’ve had so far in the process.
There. Don’t you feel better? I knew you would. Onward!
How Your Guiding Values Help You Choose the Essential
The next stage of the DO LESS Revolution is identifying your Guiding Values and using them to determine what’s essential. This sounds kind of onerous, and I can’t think of a way to make it sound cheeky, but really it isn’t bad at all. Maybe it will help to know that I turned mine into a multi-colored mobile. How tough can it be if it looks like something out of Dr. Seuss?
It’s relaxing to note that choosing the essential isn’t like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You don’t have to determine at random what is most important amongst all your tasks. Once you peek inside and see what values you already carry, you can use them to ferret out the imposter-tasks hiding out among the essentials. It’s like a decoder ring! Doesn’t that seem like fun? You get to be Dick Tracy! [Read more →]
