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.

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 by Zen Habitswriter Leo Babatua, I learned that doing less made me more powerful. The once spread-thin me became a master of what I call “concentrated living” where doing less, means accomplishing more.

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.

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.

My One Goal is about helping The Giant Pool of Wisdom grow. This means teaching about soulcare, and encouraging others to teach what they know as well.  So to shorthand it, “Teach” is my One Goal. Let’s look at how my One Goal gets translated into the work that I do every day. It involves: determining which methods I’d like to use to meet that goal; breaking the goal into sub goals; and creating a task list of steps which can be accomplished in a relatively short amount of time.  Here’s my example: 

One Goal: Teach
Methods: writing, podcasting, Ecourses, guest lecturing
Sub goals:produce a series of PDF/POD books, create Ecourses, and offer spiritual direction to clients
Tasks (for books): gather already written material, create outline, design layout, edit current chapters, write additional chapters, request guest chapters and introductions, etc.

To help me stick to my One Goal, the sub goals and the tasks at hand, I’ve created a couple of “personal quotes” that sum things up for me. The two I’m working with right now are:

“There ain’t no place to go but together” (This reminds me that what I am doing is valuable, not just to me but to others.)

“Your story is important, sing it from the rooftops” (This I borrowed fromJen Lemen. It reminds me that my story — and the stories I’m helping others tell — are valuable, powerful, and much needed in this world.)

Assignment
Now, that’s all very well and good for me. But perhaps right now you are thinking, “I would really like to throw a book at Rachelle’s head.” I’m sorry. I know it’s hard when you are overwhelmed, or stuck, or just plain feel like giving up. But fear not, help is at hand in the form of -you guessed it-an assignment. Here are some things you can play around with to help you find your One Goal.

1. M.I.T. History. Have you been writing down your M.I.T.’s? If not, start now. After two weeks, or even after a few days, look over your old lists. What do you find yourself prioritizing most often? What tasks do you actually get done on your MIT lists? Which do you put off doing? These are directing you towards your One Goal. What are those things telling you about your passions and priorities?

2. Clarity from the Trenches. Look back at your Have Done list. What things did you highlight as things that give you good energy? Those are pointing the way. What things aren’t on your list that you wish were there? Perhaps you wish you had stuck with your language lessons, or made more time to work on a creative project. That’s valuable information about what your One Goal should be as well.

3. Job History. Make a list of all the jobs, paid or unpaid, you have had over the years. Alternately, make a quick list of all the projects you have started (whether you finished them or not.) They make look quite disparate at first. But there is an over-arching theme. While working with my Life Coach, Jena Strong, I made a list of all my past jobs: special events fundraiser, cultural and educational event programmer, social worker at a teen shelter, pastor, spiritual director for hire, freelance writer, and blogger. As I moved from one job to the next, I would mentally put that era in a storage box on a shelf. When I looked at all those dusty boxes I tended to think of each of those eras as a mistake. How could those have been the right choice if I tired of them and moved on? Jena helped me see that they weren’t individual boxes full of mistakes, but rather the building blocks of one great theme: Teaching. Teaching about the needs of the organizations I raised funds for. Teaching people about arts and culture. Teaching the kids at the shelter, and the community about the needs of those kid, etc. This revelation that all of my work was linked by a common theme, not only redeemed my choices, but also brought my One Goal into focus. And it had the added benefit of helping me feel more confident about my next venture, rather than looking into the future and worrying that whatever I did next would just be a dusty box in a few years time. What can your list do for you? See if you can distill it into one powerful, intoxicating theme.

4. Got It? Flaunt it! Do you think you have your One Goal Figured out? Then scroll back up a few paragraphs and break it down a little. What methods will you use to embody that goal? What sub goals can you break your One goal down into? What are the tasks you need to do to meet your sub goals? And what personal quotations can you create as act a mantra or motivator for your journey?

Now, perhaps you can see why I don’t lead the DO LESS Revolution with this One Goal concept. How can you do such heady work if you are overpowered by a to-do list as long as your arm? The first exercises in the DO LESS Revolution are like doing demolition work with explosives. With your master to-do list in one hand and your sharpie in the other, you blow stuff up and sweeping it out of the way. Now, the One Goal process is more like a surgical strike. You work to focus in on one guiding goal, which in turn lets you live a powerful, concentrated life where you actually do the work you love every day.

So keep at it my fellow revolutionaries! We are making progress! Let us know in the comments below if you’ve gained any insight into your One Goal. Or tell us where you are getting stuck. We of the enquiring minds want to know. Viva la Revolution!

The Do Less Revolution is a soulcare project from Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the DO LESS posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

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!

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!

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:

1. Take your to-do list (make sure you’ve done your bulk reduction program on it found here.)
2. Put it next to your Guiding Values list.
3. 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.

 Today, after weeks of my Most Important Tasks involving only feeding the children, writing my for-pay articles, and packing for our island Summer, I finally had a day that felt like the cream of the DO LESS crop.  I knew when I woke up my MITs had to be the following:

• pace yourself to keep pain at a dull roar
• write for your DO LESS comrades
• kayak

I also knew that a lot of other stuff would have to be done. There are 5 cousins here, and no grown-up gets to do exactly what they want in a situation like that. But with my values list in one hand and my MIT’s in the other. My day shaped up to look like this:

• Sleep until my body asked me to wake up. (Truth: My health requires me to have a real, full night’s sleep. I am no longer 20. To help yourself figure out truths like this try this exercise or this one.)
• Spend some quality time with my hubby. (Connection)
• Eat a simple, healthy breakfast with the 5 cousins. (Truth: I need protein. Connection: listening to the kids’ stories.)
• Let the 3 year old try on all my jewelry while I got dressed for the day. Answer numerous questions about sparkly things. (Generosity, Whimsy)
• Spend an hour paddling with Paul in the kayak, saying hello to the seals. (Beauty. Freedom. Attentiveness.)
• Come in from the beach before the others to make lunch with no other sound but Paolo’s voice. (Truth: I’d get sick if I rushed around the kitchen with noisy crabby kids. Attentiveness: I value being present to food. Beauty: Paolo sounds like this. Need I say more?)
• Take a 20 min rest in the sun. (Truth: I must rest/nap every day or my migraines flair. Also Vitamin D is key for me.)
• Come downstairs to my quiet bedroom and write the next installment of Do Less. (Connection. Creativity. Generosity.)

Everything I’ve done today has been something I’ve valued. So right now-right now this very minute-even though I am not walking down the beach with the crew, fishing pools in hand, I am living without regret. Why?  Because I know that while fishing in the sun with adorable cousins is lovely, it is not my Most Important Task, and it’s not Essential for right now. Right now what is essential is that I write this post. How do I know that this is what is essential? Two ways: 1) it fits my values list (connection, generosity, sharing) and 2) it fits what Leo calls my “One Goal” which is all about contributing to the Giant Pool of Wisdom. (More on the One Goal concept in an upcoming DO LESS post.)

 In contrast, this is what my day would have looked like before I committed to the DO LESS principal and to Concentrated Living:

• Set the alarm and force myself to wake up too early in order to write.
• Eat whatever starch-based sugar-infused breakfast was easily available.
• Get crabby that the kids were talking while I was answering email and eating at the same time.
• Feel pissy that I rushed around to a million fun-fun-super-fun activities with the family instead of choosing just one or two that we could enjoy the most.
• Do too many fun-fun-super-fun things and get the children to lunch table too late, resulting in whimper and whine fests from the severe drop in blood sugar.
• Keep going after lunch without a rest in spite of the building pain in my head, be in tears, throw up, and have to miss the evening activities in order to wrap my head.
• Finally get to sleep with a long list of things I wished I’d done running through my dreams.
• Wake up tired and start all over again.

Isn’t the first way better? Know what? You can live like that too. You really, really can.

Assignment
So here’s your home work for the next week (or two) until the next DO LESS post gets born.

• What can you do this week to carve out some space to compare your Guiding Values to your To Do List?
• How can you change your routine just enough to make time to write your MIT’s each (most) days?
• And of course, where are you having success, or conversely, getting stuck in the DO LESS Revolution?

Put your ideas, comments and questions in the comments below, because “there ain’t nowhere to go but together.”

 See you in a Friday or two, (the fast and dirty production method continues to saves the DO LESS day!) May your week be one of doing less and living more.

Viva la revolution!

Rachelle

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the DO LESS posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

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

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!)

First there is the zen-ish, pragmatic Lisa Baldwin of Divine Order, clutter coach and professional simplifier. She specializes in the practical how-to’s of clearing the clutter to help her clients—you!– recover a sense of self, increase your sense of calm, and heighten your internal confidence. Her work releases you to have more time and energy so you can focus on what matters to YOU.

Then there is the colorful, enthusiastic Leonie Allen of Goddess Guidebook. Leonie’s hopeful, joyful approach to all things mysterious empowers her clients to live the kind of life they dream of by accessing their internal strength, and gaining the help of the positive energetic forces that reside around us and within us.

Leonie and Lisa are teaming up to offer an e-course in house (and life!) decluttering – Divinely Decluttered: Six Weeks to A De-Cluttered, Space-Cleared Home. Lisa will bring the tip and techniques to clearing, and keeping, your home clutter-free. While Leonie’s self-professed woo-woo goodness brings treasures to clear out the icky, stressed-out spiritual residue from the place you call home. Her herbs, crystals and rituals will help you create centered, joyful energy in your internal and external living space. (Centered, joyful energy is Leonie’s trademark. Get a little taste of her generous spirit in this ten-minute Space Clearing 101 video here.)

Traveling too much to take on Divine Decluttering this Summer? No worries, you can sign up now and receive all the workbooks, mp3 meditations, and guidance whenever you are ready. (Ready is important. You gotta know what you are ready for.) Browse Lisa and Leonie’s personal sites, or check out their course site and see if decluttering is the right thing right now to catapult you on to fuller, more creative, more joyful life!

What do you need to declutter in your home and heart? What might you achieve if your clutter was draining you? Leave your thought in the comments below. Thanks for being here.

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the DO LESS posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

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

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!

Uncovering your Guiding Values will help you:

• See how fantastic you are. (You value amazing things! Not a vapid choice among ‘em!)
• Trust your instincts around how you spend your time. (Because woah! Check out your awesome internal compass!)
• Make choices for yourself-including choosing your Essential Tasks–knowing they are birthed out of solid, meaningful values.
• Resist Gremlins (and societal messages) about how “everyone else” is doing the things you’ve left asunder. (Your Gremlins don’t get a say in this-Gremlin values tend to be a bit dodgy.)

Are you ready to have that powerful of a tool in your spy gear? Let’s go get your decoder ring!

How to Uncover your Guiding Values

(Notice I didn’t say how to “find” your values. They’re already there. We just need to adjust the focus.)

Some of you right now as we speak are writing down your list of Guiding Values. You can’t get enough of them! The words are just rolling of your tongue. Connection. Financial Security. Fun. Presence… You are probably one of those people who played *8Things this week–and we like you, we really do. But right now you get to chillax, because some of us are having a small but obvious panic attack right now. (Hold on, we’ll be right back – unless you want to come with us to check your work.)

Okay, you folks that are feeling a little panicky, here’s what to do if your Guiding Values aren’t holding still enough for you to take their picture.

• Make a list of Activities that Matter. What do you like to do most? (Hint: it’s probably in whatever color you used to mark “Things That Give Me Energy” on your Have-Done List.) What makes your day feel icky if you don’t do it? What things do you always make sure happen for yourself/your family?
• Look for What is in Common. I like to think of this process as “distilling.” If you distill these activities into a potent brew, what’s left in the bottle? For instance if cleaning your house makes you feel good, then Organization might be one of your values, or perhaps Esthetics. If you always get in your morning run, Health or Fitness maybe tantamount. If there are lots of birthdays and holiday celebrations on the list, maybe Connection is the value they hold in common. This is one of those “don’t overthink it” things. Just run your eye down the list and see which words come to mind. 
• Pick *8 Things: From your list of words naming the commonalities, pick the *8 Things that ring the most strongly with you. Give yourself five minutes to do this. Now breathe a little. (Phew!) Give yourself one more minute to swap one more than 1 thing (if you must.) There you have it. Your super-distilled ultra-potent decoder ring!

Still need help?
When I first started working with life coach Jena Strong of Strong Coaching my head was awhirl. I had a zillion thoughts about my work and vocation, and all the accompanying “but why’s” and “but how’s.” My existential Monster To-Do List was totally out of control!

Jena spent one hour–just one hour!–helping me uncover my Guiding Values, and within a week I had begun to use this powerful tool for making life decisions. My inner whirlwind immediately began to still and eventually my Gremlins settled down as well.

Now, I know I don’t normally do such a direct pitch on my Magpie Girl. But I think the work Jena does around Guiding Values is incredibly helpful. So as a special favor to me, Jena is offering Magpie Girl readers a discount on a one-hour Uncovering Your Guiding Values Session. This session is available at the reduced rate of $75 through July 31^st. (Tell her Magpie Girl sent you.) A Facebook quiz is just not going to do it for you here, folks. If you’re stuck, Jena can help.

Up Next

Now that you’ve been amazed by your Have-Done List; set limits and eliminated stuff off your Monster To-Do List; and uncovered your Guiding Values, you are ready to start doing what Leo Babauta calls “Choosing the Essentials.” You’ve already had some practice with this when you chose your three “Most Important Tasks (M.I.T.s)” for last week. Take a few minutes now to identify your M.I.T.s for this week as well. Want to know mine, just for fun?

Body Maintenance: Walk, swim, or do yoga every day.
Connect: host expat coffee hour, call Emma on graduation day, go to Lisabeth’s concert, dinner with the Marshes before the move Stateside, my first Danish dinner with the parents from Eden’s class, spend the morning with Paul before he leaves for the States. (There are more of these than usually b/c we are leaving the country for six weeks)
Teach: write Ask Magpie, *8Things, DO LESS, and Soultribes columns.

Those things in bold? Those are what Leo calls my “One Goal” (as you can see, I’m very good at rebelling.) They are born out of my Guiding Values, and they help me develop what Leo calls “the fine art of choosing the essential” so I can have a powerful, concentrated life.

Your one goal is waiting to get born too! So choose your M.I.T.s (this will calm your To-Do Gremlins down while we work on things); and make a list of your Guiding Values. We’ll see you next week when we learn to choose the essential. Viva La Revolution!

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the DO LESS posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

If you need some help making your list, my life coach Jena Strong, is offering us a kindly deal on Values Assessment Sessions.  Magpie Girl readers will receive a reduce price of $75 for an hour-long session* — a super rate for some valuable soulguidance. Jena helped me find the right words to describe what I hold most dear. Those words, in turn, helped me stand in my own power and make choices for myself, knowing they were being birthed out of solid, meaningful values. In short, Jena taught me how to value my values! (Oh those professionals, they are ever-so-helpful.) Here are *8 Values that Guide My Life: 

1. Whimsy
2. Generosity
3. Attentiveness
4. Creativity
5. Truth
6. Beauty
7. Freedom, and above all things
8. Love

What are the values that guide your life?  Grab a button and play along or put your *8Things in the comments below. Don’t know? Call Jena and drop my name!  Thanks for being here!

*The Strong Coaching reduced rate offer good thru July 31, 2009.

Why Less is Powerful

Six years ago I was diagnosed with an untreatable condition, status migrainosus (chronic daily migraine). Suddenly, most of my time was spent either managing my health, or being in pain. This left little space for anything else. As I listened to the waiting room conversations at the pain clinic, I knew I was in danger of allowing this disease to take over my world. I became determined to not be defined by my pain. But as I watched my ability to write, volunteer, and counsel disappear, I began to despair. For months I struggled to come to terms with a life that felt increasingly limited.

The reality is we are all limited. There are a finite number of hours in the day, and while most of us can ignore that, eventually it catches up to us. We overbook, over commit, and try to ‘do it all.’ Then we crash with exhaustion, ulcers, and little ease or enjoyment in our life. 

This limited time thing? It’s not going to change. So I started to ask myself, “What would it look like to turn this “limited time” thing into a Superpower?” I started to imagine a scenario in which my life was not small, but as concentrated—a life where less was powerful. I named this scenario “concentrated living” and began looking for helpful resources.

With my limited energy and time, I needed something concise, evenly paced, and reasonable.That’s when I found Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less: The fine art of limiting yourself to the essential.The basic thesis of Leo’s Book is “how to do less while accomplishing more by focusing on the essentials and setting limitations.” As I listened to the first chapters I was immediately hopeful. The two main goals are:

1) learn to set limitations (which had already been determined by illnesss)
2)  identify and choose the essentials.

Leo’s premise is “limitedlessness dilutes our power and effectiveness.” So the inverse of that is “limits increase our power and effectiveness.” Isn’t that great news! Less is powerful!

How to get Started

If you are listening or reading along in the Power of Less, you know that the first chapter is dedicated to setting limits. How do you discover the things you need to set limits on? Lists, of course. You can either make one Monster To-Do list and start eliminating from there, or you can make shorter lists of things the things you choose to set limits on under various categories. This is helpful because it’s less overwhelming than tackling your whole world at once. Plus, Leo’s method involves focusing on one thing at a time at categories will help maintain focus. My short list of things I needed to set limits on is :

Projects
Chores
Internet/Email Use
Clutter

What are the areas you need to set limits on? Use your Have-Done List for guidance. I’ll give you a hint. They’re probably in whatever color you used for “Things that Drain Me,” but some could be hiding out in the essentials as well. Got it? Now pick just one of those areas and write down absolutely everything you can think of in that category that you “have” to do.

I did the Projects category first, because that was hanging over me the most heavily. I was surprised to find I had over 38 Projects in-the-works! (I know, that’s insane, right?) Leo suggests setting limitations by eliminating things, again and again until you get down to the essentials. Here’s how I did it.

Round One: Cross off anything that isn’t important to you any longer, or doesn’t feel urgent. (16 items – almost half my list!)

Gremlin Alert! You may feel badly that you started so many things and then lost interest; or that you aren’t going to do things “everyone” says are important. But who cares, really? It’s your prerogative to begin and end interests as you like. And this is your life to spend as you see fit. Stand in your own power and say “goodbye” to the stuff you don’t want to do anymore. 

Round Two: Cross off anything that doesn’t need to be done in the next month or two. (3 more items- – now half my list had been eliminated!)

 Gremlin Alert! If it’s making you panic to cross off things you still want or need to do eventually, try crossing them off but writing a date next to them such as “Winter Project” or “In Six Months.” Tell your Gremlins to breathe easy, you wrote it down!

Round Three: Gather up all the little tasks that would take less than one hour to complete. Move these on a separate list. (5 more items down)

 Gremlin Alert! This list becomes a Gremlin training tool .Whenever your Gremlins start panicking that “You aren’t getting ANYTHING done!” grab this little list and do one or two things on it. Getting a smaller unfinished project all the way done will help you see clearly that you ARE getting somewhere.

Round Four: Now choose three things and put them on a list. These are what Leo calls your MIT’s – Most Important Tasks. I’ll talk about this more in upcoming posts, but for now these are the things you are going to do in the next week. Maybe not all of them, but these are your priorities.

 Gremlin Alert! Your Gremlins may try to freak you out by mumbling about how you are “forgetting something, I just know it.” Look, this list isn’t set in stone. You can change it if you need to. And there’s always next week for new MITs. It’s will be okay. I promise. You can tell your Gremlins I said so.

At the end of this process I had eliminated 24 projects and had just three things on my to-do list for the next week. Now, I know this doesn’t mean you or I will only do 3 things all week. All the stuff on your Have-Done list will still get done (feeding the kids, sleeping, etc.) And stuff from the categories we haven’t worked on yet will still happen (email, chores, surviving the clutter, etc.) But I hope it’s empowering to know that you just got rid of a shed-load of stuff, and that what you’ve decided to do next are the most essential things for you. Do you feel it? See. Less really is powerful.

 Up Next

Okay, here’s the deal. There’s still stuff on your list right? The stuff you didn’t cross out, and didn’t list as you MITs. (I had 14 things left on mine.) Next week we are going to talk about making choices based on your values, and on what Leo calls your “One Goal.” I’m tailoring *8 Things Thursdays to support the work we are doing at The DO LESS Revolution. So check back on Thursday for a mid-week exercise that will prepare you for next Friday. In the meantime…

How to Use Leo’s Book

…If you are reading The Power Of Less, I will be using it in a non-linear fashion. But basically this week and next we will be using  chapters 1-4. I suggest reading until you start to feel overwhelmed. The minute the book starts to bug you, or you start thinking “Too much! Too much!”, put it down. Let the ideas simmer a little, and then come back to it when you feel like it. It may seem like a simple thing, but this approach to reading will teach you how to listen to your intuition – a powerful tool for any endeavor! And again, you don’t have to have the book to join the Revolution.

Keep your eye on your Most Important Tasks (MITs) and hold on to hope! Feel free to drop you ideas, blocks, and questions in the comments below. Viva la Revolution!

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the DO LESS posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

Got a question about The DO LESS Revolution or anything else under the sun? Ask Magpie is my newest fun-thing, and will be posted most (some?) Wednesdays. Email Rachelle  with “Ask Magpie” in the message line, or watch for reminders on Twitter.

Sometimes, I think we take the idea of Doing Less too literally, restricting ourselves to reducing only our external tasks and chores.  But our internal tasks demand our time and energy as well. By internal tasks I mean the activities of our monkey mind – mental and emotional busyness. So here’s a little warm-up exercise for Friday’s DO LESS post. What *8Things do you need less of– from the internal or external list? Here’s mine, share yours! 

1. Worry. I worry about my children almost all the time, especially the oldest one. Mabel likes to tell me, “You have to know deep in your soul that your kids are going to be okay.” She’s right, she’s right, I know she’s right. Now to live like it…

2. Regrets. Since midlife has come, looming regret has been a major theme of mine. Tess of Anchors and Masts has this quote as her email tagline. It helps me a lot: “It’s only too late if you don’t start now.” -Barbara Sher

3. Second Guessing. Ohmylord, my Gremlins have me doing this a lot! Especially around food and exercise. If I walk a few miles my Gremlins say, “Maybe you should have gone swimming instead.” If I eat a sandwich I get, “A salad would have been better.” Urgh.

4. Violence on Television. It’s the “Summer of Crime” on local Danish TV, which means non-stop crime dramas. Now I love Dexter as much as the next gal, but I think I’ve finally hit my limit of crime images. My psyche’s starting to feel a little bruised.

5. Laundry. I’ve got to get my kids to stop “cleaning” their room by dumping all their clothes –even the clean ones–back into the hamper.

6. Clothing Crisis. It is ridiculous how much time I spend trying to figure out what to wear these days. Two cotton short-sleeve blouses, a pair of capri jeans, and some brown sandals would solve my problems. That’s my limited shopping list when I land in the States next month.

7. Self Criticism. Specifically, I need to do less beating-myself-up about my limited ability to read these days. My migraines flare worse at night, so my evening routine of reading a novel before bed has evaporated. Instead I listen to books from Audible.com when I walk, but the available literary quality is significantly lower than what I’m accustomed to. I feel my intellect atrophying! Making peace with this reality might quite down the self critic. But how?

8. Medication. The migraines, they are awful these days. I’m pain free maybe a week all-told out of the month. Without access to the alternative  practitioners that keep my pain at bay, the amount of meds I’ve had to take is creeping up. It makes me feel toxic, and stresses out my liver. Thankfully I’ll practically live in Dr. Woo Woo’s office this Summer and the meds will have a hiatus. (Phew!)

What do you need less of in your life? Clutter? Commitments? Caffeine? Complaints? Grab a button and play along or put your *8Things in the comments below.  And don’t forget to join The DO LESS Revolution, here at Magpie Girl on Fridays. Go recruit a friend! Thanks for being here!

“Holy Sh*t! Look at all that stuff I just did!”

In the movie Sneakers there’s a scene where Robert Redford’s character is repeatedly saying the team’s code word over and over again in front of the bad guys. Finally, his partner, played by River Phoenix, breaks through the acoustic ceiling panel where he’s been lying in wait and lands on the bad guys. Redford says something like, “It’s about time.” Phoenix replies, “That was hard what I just did…that thing, that was hard!”

That’s kind of how I feel when I look at my Have-Done list. I feel a little bit marveled, and a little bit put out that no one is noticing how tricky it was. So this week, I just want to say, I notice. I see you, doing all that stuff and you are freakin’ amazing! (Let’s try to rest in the sparkly and marvelous moment, shall we?)

A Word About Gremlins
Now, before we move on to step two, let me lay out a little word of encouragement for some of you. Some of you may have had a Gremlin uprising last week. The little buggers may be doing that thing where they poke you repeatedly on the shoulder and say the same things over and over again. And if they aren’t poking you in the shoulder right now, they’re probably just cracking their knuckles and flexing their fingers for next week. There’s no point in ignoring them, so let’s just take a mo’ to hear them out.  Here’s what they might be saying:

“You waste so much time.”
“If you cut back on any of this it will mean you’ll cut back on being a ‘good’ parent.”
“There’s so much here, but nothing you can cut out.”
“Sure this is impressive, but look at all the stuff you DIDN’T get done.”
“Sure this is impressive, but SO-and-SO did waaaaaaay more.”
“What about the one thing…that thing right there…N-A-P…yeah, that was a big waste.”
“Now on top of all that stuff, next week we should also _______________.” 

You can fill in your gremlin’s ‘House Special’ here:

Now the Gremlins, they aren’t all bad. Sometimes they are even trying to protect us. It’s just that they kind of have a one-track mind. And Change? They do not like Change AT ALL. So they get kind of chatty when new things come up. The thing to do is to sit them down and pour them a nice vodka tonic and let them chillax a little. Write down all their messages and just give them back to them. “Thank you, Gremlin Dears. Here are these words you feel so strongly about. You can just hold on to them now. Do you need a slice of lime in your cocktail?” 

I know it seems ridiculous, but it helps, trust me.  Write, Hand Off, Repeat. They will quieten down eventually. (Got a better method of combating these messages?  I bet you do! Put it in the comments below for the more rational types out there who don’t jive with Gremlin happy hour.)

The Next Step
Okay, the next step—if you can get the Gremlins to GET OFF THE PAPER!!! long enough for you to read it–is to do a little bit closer observation of your Have-Done List. Spread it all out in front of you and:

 -Grab three colored highlighters. (Don’t have highlighters? – just use a code like star, checkmark, dot.)
-Invite a gentle and non-judgmental spirit to sit down with you. (I like to breathe her into my heart.)
-Give yourself permission to do this intuitively, without over thinking it. (Say it aloud, it helps.)
-Go thru your list and use one color for each of these three things:

Category One: Things that are absolute essentials. (eating, bathing, sleeping, etc.)
Category Two: Things that feed me/give me good energy.
Category Three: Things that drain me/give me bad energy.

Now, I know you want to go back through your list and fine tune it. This is because either:

 1) You are a Type A personality -OR-
B) You don’t trust your intuition. -OR-
 iii) You are a combination of both.

That’s okay. So say we all. So let’s give ourselves a little wiggle room here. Let’s allow ourselves to go back over the list and make 3 category changes. Just 3. And let’s  set a timer so we don’t take more than 3-5 minutes deciding which three. This will let us practice two things: releasing perfectionism and trusting our intuition. (In short, it gives us a chance to practice Doing Less.) Ready? Go!

Good job! Okay, now you’ve got this little bit of an observed life: the stuff you have to do; the stuff you like to do; and the stuff that sucks your soul. I know that RIGHT NOW you want to move it all around and make decisions about what stays and what goes. But stay the course a little. Just give yourself a week to live with this newly recognized reality – “This is what I do nowadays. This is how my time goes.” Let the reality of what you are doing now sink in a bit, because guess what’s coming up next!

Up Next:  Setting limits and simplifying,The Power of Less way.
I’m writing this series on a fast and dirty philosophy, which is part of how I get more done while doing less . (I’ll tell you about it more in a later post.) But for now let’s just say that the fast and dirty approach means I have a rough outline, but not a perfectly-detailed master plan. So the Up Next may change as I continue to reflect on what’s worked for me, and how to distill that so it’s helpful for you.  But for right now Up Next will mean dipping into Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less – an excellent little book on doing less to live more. The first two things in Leo’s book are setting limits and simplifying. We’ll start working on those next week – and you will be amazed at how powerful those are. (And guess what? They are easy!)

You don’t HAVE to have the book to join the The DO LESS Revolution – but if you want to read or listen along, now is the time to order. I downloaded mine instantly from Audible.com, and while Jen Lee has accurately pointed out that the reader sounds annoyingly like Mr. Movie Phone, if you can bear that sound then you might find that listening along is easier than reading along. (I listen while I take my morning walk.)  Check out the sample on the Audible site and see what you think.

Okay, just one more little caveat before you all run over to Zen Habits to become a fellow Leo junkie. I love Leo’s work, I really do. But sometimes he rocks this “20 Steps to Better Eating Habits” thing and, IDK, I just think 20 of anything is about 17 too many. (I like between 3 and *8Things, thank you very much.) Also, he’s in the middle of a redesign, which is a bit tough to navigate right now. So if you feel a little fragile, and think one more suggestion for life improvement might push you over the edge, then maybe you shouldn’t head over there just yet. It’s your call, I’m just sayin’.

Alright loves, it’s time for another week of being hopeful for a Do Less kind of tomorrow. Have fun gazing at your Have-Done List, and don’t forget to let us know how it’s going, because we can fine-tune along the way. In my experience, these next steps were about as close to instant gratification as you can get, so go recruit someone new to The DO LESS Revolution! It’s about to get really good.

Yours Warmly,

Magpie Girl

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the Do Less posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

Got a question about The DO Less Revolution or anything else under the sun? Ask Magpie is my newest fun-thing, and will be posted most (some?) Wednesdays. Email Rachelle  with “Ask Magpie” in the message line, or watch for reminders on Twitter.

To busy to read a blog post? You can listen-a-long here:  

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My memories from the days of raising infants are a bit on the fuzzy side. I didn’t really hit my stride until the toddler era. But there is one memory that stands out loud and clear: 

Paul comes home from work and asks me how my day was. I start crying and say: “I just didn’t get anything done.” Then he asks me what I did that day, blow by blow. I begin a long list. “Well, I made breakfast for Eden. Then I grabbed a quick shower. Then I had to nurse Cate. Then I managed to get to the grocery store for milk. Then I fed the kids again and when I finally got them all down for a nap I opened my thesis file and re-read the last few paragraphs I had writte, but then Eden woke up. Then I cleaned out the dryer trap, but the baby started crying before I could load the washer. Then…then…then…”

The end result of this scene, replayed many many times is that I realized how much I really had done in a day.

Fast forward ten years later and that “I didn’t get anything done” routine? Yep. Still doing it. Only now my angst isn’t brought on by babies, but by a lack of work-time due to chronic pain. Up until recently I would sit on my sofa with my head wrapped in ice and make lists of all the things I needed to do when I “got better.” My to-do list literally filled 1-2 notebook pages every day. I would have a good day, or even a good couple of hours, and I’d work like mad to get that list done. But I’d barely get anything crossed off before I was in pain again, when I would return to the ice and the sofa and write a whole new To-Do List with even more items.

Then life coach Jena Strong gave me a solution:  The Have-Done List.

In my experience, it’s hard to give yourself permission to Do Less unless you realize how MUCH you are already doing. The Have-Done List helps with that.  Here’s what mine looked like for this morning:

Wake up. Morning cuddle with the kids. Talk Eden out of panicking over volleyball tournament today. Kiss Pooh Bear for Cate so “he doesn’t feel left out”. Make breakfast (scrambled, eggs toast). Make lunches (bagel sandwiches, fruit, mix up some trail mix). Talk about after-work plans with Paul, kiss him goodbye. Make sure Cate remembers to say her little goodbye phrase to him, which is a ritual for her every morning. Make another round of toast for the kids. Turn on the kettle, forget to make tea. Check Facebook. Email teen mentoree back. Hear the one hour snooze on my alarm clock go off; holler out that it’s time for socks and shoes. Throw on sweats. Walk kids to school. Negotiate argument over who is faster, Eden on her bike or Cate on her scooter. Say hello to the neighbor family, wracking my pre-caffeine brain to use all five sentences of known Danish. Make quick arrangements on the corner with a classmate for an after school play date. Kiss children goodbye. Walk the lakes home while listening to This American Life. Battle Gremlins who tell me that even though I am exercising every day, it is not enough. Come home. Give the dogs the leftover scrambled eggs. Delight in happy puppy. Clean up the breakfast flotsam and jetsam. Check email. …

Okay, that was two hours – TWO HOURS – of my day.  Every weekday I’ve made two meals –TWO MEALS — in the first hour I was awake. I mean, come on! Plus, check out the brain-activity level and emotional energy that went into those action-packed hours. Child psychology 101, a little bit of priestess work, Gremlin wrangling, and teen angst before the caffeine. Damn. That’s pretty much a full day’s work, in my humble opinion.

I’m guessing your day isn’t much different from mine. We need to start giving ourselves credit for that, yes? We need to stop lying to ourselves about how much we do, and how much more we “should” get done.

Try it. Right now. Grab a piece of paper and start. Write down everything you do – and don’t forget the brain and emotional projects as well.

Now, hold up a minute dearies, that thing you are doing right there — where you are trying to think of some perfect notebook, or a super-creative system for keeping your list straight — stop doing that right now. Any writing surface will do. You can even write some of it in your journal, and some of in on the receipts in your pocket, and some of it on the notepad by the phone. That’s fine, really it is. You can always pull ‘em all together later and feel super bad ass about your nice big stack. And the beauty thing about this is, even if you don’t do it consistently, even if you skip large portions of your day – it will still be massively impressive.

This is step one:  Notice how much you are doing. Don’t analyze it. Don’t make any changes. Just notice. Notice your very productive, very busy life. There’s time for step two another day.

Now, I would love to set up a Flickr group and have y’all send in photos of your Have-Done list, because I think it would be fun. But it’s one more thing for you to do, and it’s one more thing for me to do. It’s not that essential so we’ll skip that bit. But I do hope you’ll drop a comment below sometime this week and let us know how it’s going. That will help me customize the DO LESS Revolution for you, my lovelies, and it will contribute to the giant pool wisdom  that we all need so much.

Have fun watching your amazing, productive, colorful life unfold on the page before you!  See you next week here at the DO LESS revolution.

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the Do Less posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

Wouldn’t you know it?  I’m gearing up to write a series of posts for the new Do Less Campaign, and my to-do list is suddenly stressing me out.

Universe, meet Sense of Humor.

Do Less kicks off tomorrow with Why I Keep A Have-Done List. But since it’s *8 Things Thursday, let’s do a little warm-up exercise.  It’s time to think about what you need to stay healthy and sane on a day-to-day basis. Here’s my basic set:

1. Sleep: I need 8 hours a night, and if my migraines are flaring I grab a nap at 3pm as well.

2. Exercise: A walk or swim and at least 10 minutes of yoga a day is helpful in keeping the migraines and bay.

3. Quiet: My brain hyper-processes all sensory intake, so background noise stresses me out. I work without music or talk radio in the office.

4. Meditative Activities: If I’m feeling stressed, a few rows of knitting or some time on the guitar always helps.

5. Work/Rest Rhythm: This book helped me figure out a good work/rest pattern.  If my migraines are bad I have to work one hour, rest one hour. One good days I can work 2-3, rest 1. It makes me feel lame, but I’m learning that it is what’s functional for me right now.

6. Morning Cuddle: this 15 minute check-in time with my girls is a must. (more here)

7. Grown Ups: I work alone and live in a culture where I don’t speak the language. At least one coffee or lunch with a friend each week is required to keep me sane.

8.  Meaningful Conversations:  “Only Connect” is a big theme for me. Talks with my Soulsisters and my teenage-darlings must regularly for my spirit to feel strong.

What *8 Things are your self-care essentials? Grab a button and play along, or leave your link for this week’s list is the comments below. Thanks for reading!

 Rather listen than read? Here you go:

Hello loves! Listen, I’m worried about you.

I read your Twitters and Facebook status updates, and occasionally peek at your blogs. And you know what? Y’all are way WAY too busy! I see a lot of posts about too many meetings, insurmountable to-do lists, and rushing about on weekends. I’m beginning to suspect that some of you have caffeine running in your veins.

Now you know I love you right? So this is not a critique. I mean, we are all just trying to work it out with the smallest amount of fear and trembling possible. You’re doing your best. But if you feel like your adrenaline is constantly pumping because you can never get enough done then maybe, just maybe it’s time for an little Magpie Girl  intervention.

So let me say this about that, there is no way you can shuffle your current schedule around to make things fit. You cannot fit two gallons of water in a pint glass. You’re just going to have to Do Less. I know it feels like you can’tdo less. I know it feels like you HAVE to to everything on your list and more. But I can virtually promise you that this is not the case. I think we can help each other through this.

Are you practically salavating right now? Are you simultaneously wildly hopeful and scared shitless? I thought so. Then this Do Less thing is for you.

So here’s the deal, beginning this month I am going to write a series of posts on how to Do Less. I’ll start right now, with this guest post on What the Danes Taught Me About Finding Balance over at Starshyne Productions. Just breathe into that one for a minute, and while it may not have all the answers for you, if it is speaking to your heart trust that you’re on the right track.

Then tune in on May 15th for the plan of action. Some of it will involve this book, which you can order or dowload on Audible.com. If the thought of having ANOTHER unread book on your bedside table causes your chest to sieze up, don’t worry, if you don’t have to read/listen to it — you can still play along. There will be lists (I LOVE lists) and then smaller lists and then you will emerge this concentrated powerhouse of focus with a Zen like ablity to float. Okay–maybe not that great, but you’ll feel better.

What do you say? Wanna play? Great! See you on the 15th.

P.s. Are you already playing along with Soultribes? Guess what, this will help. It’s hard to make space for soulsiblings when you are spininng around like the Tazmanian Devil. So ask your gut if you should play here too, and trust her answer. Love, R.