Most of those who sent emails admitted that they struggled with being happy and living in the moment. I know I do. That's why I work at it constantly and blog about the subject quite often.
So I thought I'd pass along a tip every so often about how to be happy. I'm definitely not an expert in the subject nor am I any kind of professional self-help guru. I'm just an ordinary person working at the state of being happy.
Everyone has triggers that make them fall into the blues or a state of being overwhelmed. For me, feeling overwhelmed is a big no-no. From overwhelmed, I go to cranky and frazzled in a nano second.
So it being overwhelmed is taking away from your happiness, here's a tip for you.
Get Organized and Stay Organized
Having your work space and/or your home environment messy and cluttered or even dirty and trashed is a major source of unhappiness.
Your surroundings effect your mood.
Want to feel better almost immediately? Tackle the clutter and conquer it.
I'm not talking about a few stacks of papers on 4 corners of a desk. Some people work well because they know what that 4 stacks are and why they have them there.
I'm talking about an office that you need to shovel out every time you want to work there. I'm talking about more than a week's worth of mail that hasn't been touched, receipts that need to be filed, bills that need to be paid, printouts that languish unread, etc.
If you want to immediately feel more peaceful, make your environment one that gives you peace rather than a feeling of anxiety and overwhelm. Work at it every day until it's a haven of peace for you.
There are only a couple of things you need to do on a daily basis to keep your home and office environments organized and peaceful.
1. Have a place for everything.
2. Always put things back where they belong.
3. Handle mail only once. Get it. Go through it. Sort it into bills to be paid, mail to follow up on in some way, and junk that can be trashed immediately.
4. Set aside a time period every week to pay bills, reconcile bank or credit card statements, and file whatever needs to be filed.
5. Use a calendar to organize your life. Notate everything that needs to be done: drive carpool, PTA meeting, writers' club meeting, guest blog post you arranged to do, deadlines, etc. Then schedule time every day to take care of those things.
6. Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today.
7. Work at this change for a solid month, taking care of your environment and managing your time for 4 solid weeks before attempting any other change.
Organization Affirmation
I have all the time I need to do all the things I want.
Write it. Say it to yourself when you feel overwhelmed or frantic. Post a little note with this affirmation on your bathroom mirror. Work at believing this, and you will internalize it. Internalize it, and you will believe it. That's when an amazing thing will happen in your life. It will be easier after a month to stay this way than to fall back into lazy habits that do not serve you well.
Takeaway Truth
Try this. It really works! I'm living proof of that.
If only it wasn't so hard to get the kids to put their things away!
ReplyDelete*LOL* It's a challenge, but I used to tell the kids that I was training them to be successful adults when they grumbled. I bet they heard me say a million times that "there's a place for everything and everything should be put back in its place." Now, I see them doing the same with their kids. *LOL* Too funny.
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