Happy Healthy Loving Life: Overwhelmed?

Tags

energy, fatigue, Feeling energized, fulfilled, Healthy Happy Loving Life, Overwhelm, Overwhelmed, stress, stuck

© 2022 Kebba Buckley Button, M.S., O.M.  World Rights Reserved.

-Image by megapixl

I often hear people talking about feeling overwhelmed.  They describe feeling stressed, confused, fearful, overcome by events, or even lost.  They say they are exhausted and have trouble making decisions.  If you are overwhelmed right now, what would you describe as the cause?  Do you have too much going on with work, too much in your personal life, or an intense circumstance that takes all you have emotionally?

Merriam-Webster defines “overwhelm” as “upset, overthrow”, or “overcome by superior force”, even “overpowered in thought or feeling.”  So wouldn’t it be great to take power over this uncomfortable condition?  My friend Michael Price says you can do just that.

Michael is a consultant and trainer, and the creator of the program, “Your Powerful Mind Revealed”.  He helps people to realize and harness the power of their minds, to deal effectively with situations and feelings that may have left them feeling helpless in the past.  Michael says one of our most powerful tools is harnessing our self-talk, which may be working against our success and happiness much of the time.  For example, if you have too much to do, you may feel overwhelmed.  Yet you may realize you know others who are equally busy who do not feel overwhelmed.  In this case, Michael recommends you ask yourself if you really have too much to do in too little time, in which case you might consider cutting back. Or, he asks, is the background chatter in your brain making the situation seem bad?  Your self-talk may be in unnecessary panic mode, urging you to be upset and feel incapable.  Your inner chatter may be saying things like, “I’ll never get all this done!  This is too much for the time I have!  My mind doesn’t work fast enough to get all this done!  I seem to get more and more assignments each month!”  This self-talk only increases your sense of being overwhelmed.  You can change that.

Michael says overwhelm “is really an emotional reaction to our visual and mental perception of our workload.”  Further, he says, “Thoughts create emotion, and emotion dictates behavior.”  So continuing to believe we are overwhelmed only increases the sensation of overwhelm.  Michael also says procrastination is a big factor for those who feel overwhelmed.  He recommends we ask ourselves three questions:

1. Is this overwhelm, or is it simply the result of my procrastinating?
2. Did I really commit to too much?
3. Did I misjudge the time and resources this project would take?

Michael says, then, we are ready to prioritize, using his system to take the emotional charge out of the process, and start knocking out the list of projects.  Don’t let your self-talk distract you from the tasks at hand.  Take control instead of reacting.  You’ll find you have less stress and more productivity.  Now go and do, and succeed!

In my daily series this month, I hope to strongly convince you that positive living, using holistic tools, is the way to be, and that it results in greater health and happiness and joy.  It’s more fun!  And that would be you, ever more Healthy Happy and Loving Life^sm!

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress/energy management expert, holistic healer, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   They are also available in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Franciscan Renewal Center bookstore and at the bookstore at St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church. Or simply email us to order:  kebba@kebba.com .  Thank you!

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

________________________________________________________

Healthy Happy Loving Life: 3 Top Tips for Closet and Cabinet Control

Tags

energy, fatigue, Feeling energized, happy, less stuff, Organizing, stuck, Stuff, unstuck

© 2020 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

What if you came home to a lovely, relaxing, energizing and refreshing space?  Wouldn’t your home life be more enjoyable?  Wouldn’t you relax, rest, and sleep better?  Wouldn’t you wake up faster in the morning?  What if your office looked clean, neat, modern, and airy?  What if all your closets and cabinets looked organized and sharp, and worked that well?  As part of getting control of your Stuff, here are easy tips for conquering crowded closets and cabinets.  Take it one step at a time, and you’ll be amazed at how good you feel at each stage.

First, decide what really belongs in your closets and cabinets.  Files go in file cabinets.  Office supplies need their own area.  Clothing goes in clothing closets and drawers.  And indoor home improvement tools go in hallway closets and usually one kitchen drawer.  If you are storing lawn tools or potting soil inside, move them to an outside storage space.  If you are storing paint, properly dispose of any paint more than 3 years old, or dried-up paints.  Donate old linens to an animal shelter.  Cluster all the lightbulbs together.  Donate duplicate tools and discard dry glue and old tape of all types.  Put batteries in a cool cabinet or in clear plastic bags in the refrigerator.  Get clear plastic boxes the same width as your closet shelves, and store and label everything that can fit into the boxes.   The clear boxes speed up finding anything.  Get a $20 office labelmaker that makes white labels; you’ll be surprised at how readable the labels are.  Now you have retrievability.

Second, for your file cabinets, keep it simple.  Remember that most of your bank account records and charge account records are now online.  You do not have to keep paper copies of many things you had to keep years ago!  Forget color coding and simply label each file.  Make a file for “Taxes 2020”, for any records that may bear on this year’s taxes.  Have a file for “to be filed”, and go through it every few days.  Shred anything you no longer need.  If you teach and have class notes printed out, scan them and store the pdf versions on your computer.  A $30 software program can turn pdf files back into Word files later, so don’t keep your class records in file cabinets.

Third, for your clothing closets, pause and  imagine you could quickly glance over your collection and select an outfit.  Wow!  Now imagine all the pieces and accessories were clean, in good repair, a great fit, and easy to retrieve.  You can get to that stage in about one afternoon!  Ready to play?  Good! Then pull out every item in the closet, one at a time.  Each piece has to go in one of 3 piles:  “Love it”, “would love it if cleaned/repaired”, or “don’t love it”.  All the “don’t love it” clothes, shoes, and accessories now go into bags and directly to your car for donating.  For the “would love if…” group, use your labeler or masking tape and marking pen to label each piece with what it needs.  If you can hand wash it or repair it, set it in an area of the laundry room to be done in the next two days.  If it needs dry cleaning or a tailor’s attention, bag it and take it directly to your car to go to the dry cleaner/tailor today.  If some shoes need repair, are they really too old now?  If not… straight to the car and to your shoe repair shop today.  The “love it” items can now go back in the closet, unless you want to quickly use some of that extra paint to do the inside of the closet.

Now decide if your hats need to be on hooks on the wall, or in hat boxes on the upper shelf.  Purse collections can go in larger clear plastic boxes (visibility of contents saves time) on an upper shelf, and shoes in clear plastic shoe boxes, stacked as high as you like.  If you only have a few pairs of shoes, you may want to keep the clear shoe boxes on the floor of the closet, or use a floor shoe rack big enough for all of the shoes.  Shoe lovers can find over-the-door hanging shoe caddies or vertical caddies that hang from the closet rod.  Scarf lovers, get a special hanger that has a dozen holes in it, and thread the scarves through it.  No more hunting for the right scarf, now.

At last, your closets and cabinets are much easier to navigate.  File access, home repairs or getting dressed should now be far easier and take less time.  You’ve just eliminated a lot of stress and given yourself some time and freedom, which means more energy!  How can you take these tips and techniques into your workplace?  Are you closer to the life you want?  Post your results and comments!

In these strange times, just do your best to stay in your best, in Healthy Happy Loving Life^sm!  Are you in?

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She also has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

UpBeat Living: Responding to the Massacre at Newtown

Tags

Effective living, grateful, Gratitude, Newtown, stress, Stress Management, surviving disaster

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Today a young man, who had planned ahead, killed 28 people in and near Newtown, Connecticut.  Adam Lanza apparently killed his mother at home, shooting her in the face.  He then went to the Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 children and 8 faculty, including the much-loved principal.  In minutes, the world of these children was turned upside down.

Soon after Lanza entered the school, around 9 am, teachers and students were astonished to hear the school intercom come on, broadcasting a strong interaction between people, including swearing.  Teachers locked their classroom doors, hid children in cupboards, and in the gym, shielded the children with their bodies.  At least one teacher convinced her class there was a wild animal loose in the school, and that was the reason for cautious behavior.

After police arrived, children were cleared from the classrooms and groups began running to the nearby fire station.  Connecticut State Police began arriving in minutes, since these State Police take their police cars home and everywhere with them, for fastest response.  Today, this paid off handsomely, with an array of  dozens of sedans and trucks arriving, low-set flashing police lights bright.  ATF arrived.  Canine officers arrived.

President Obama made a short, emotional speech.  Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy met with the families.  At this hour, 10 pm Central,  a memorial Mass has already been held, with even the Pope sending a message of comfort.

We are left now with many questions.  What could possibly have been Adam Lanza’s motivation?  What could he possibly have wanted to achieve by shooting all these people, especially children ages 5-10?  Did he plan all along to end his shooting spree by ending his own life?

So how can we respond to the massacre at Newtown?  In several ways.

1. Pray, for the families of those shot today, for the investigators and the counselors, and for all those affected by all similar events.  Keep praying.

2.  Hold Go(o)d Thoughts.  Whether you believe in prayer or not, stay positive and believe that the investigators will answer the questions as fast as possible.  Believe that, with Lanza dead, this can be the last mass shooting in this country.  Are you open to that possibility?  Believe that people can and will heal in time.

3.  Get into the gun control conversation.  Follow the commentary of people like Captain Mark Kelly, astronaut husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  Giffords was one of 19 people shot at a Tucson Safeway, almost 2 years ago; 6 of those shooting victims died.  Ask yourself where you are on these issues, and whether different gun control laws could have changed today’s outcome.  Know and speak for your position.

4.  Give thanks and hold your loved ones tight.  You get to spend another holiday season with them.  In some homes, certain chairs are empty this year.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You, and the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core.  She is also an ordained minister.

● Your comments are welcome!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column!

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

UpBeat Living: Instant Yoga, Instant Energy

Tags

energy, exhausted, fatigue, Feeling energized, Instant Yoga, stress, tired, Yoga

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button, M.S., O.M.  World Rights Reserved.

Hands up, anyone who feels tired right now!  Oh yes.  Hands up, anyone who is routinely more tired than they want to be!  Oh yes.  By the way, you look like you’re tired.  Just kidding.  Some of you are wearing makeup, and it keeps you from looking so tired.

Not having the energy you want is a pervasive condition many have been noticing in recent years.  We have fatigue from sleep disorders including from breathing errors during sleep.  We have fatigue from stress overload or from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, overlapping with fatigue due to bad dreams.  We have fatigue from eating too much sugar, fatigue from eating foods containing microtoxins, fatigue from air pollution, and fatigue from drinking too little water.  We have Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome (CFIDS).  Substituting coffee for sleep can work for a while, then make us deeply fatigued.  There are many more causes for being too tired.

Tired people may have trouble concentrating, may ache all over, and may be cranky.  Their reflexes are impaired, slowing down their thinking and actions.  They may make be unproductive and make mistakes that result in losses at work.  They may cause accidents while driving and hurt relationships at home.  They get sick more easily.

In contrast, we feel great when we have lots of energy.  Vitality is a magic ingredient that can completely turn around attitudes, productivity, and relationships.  There are many ways to trade in stress and fatigue for energized living.  In the 2009 book, “Discover The Secret Energized You”, this writer provides hundreds of understandings, tips and tricks for literally trading in your stress for energy.

But what if you need some instant energy, you don’t have time to read, and you’ve had enough coffee for the day?  Some basic yoga, that doesn’t even look like yoga, can help.  This is called “invisible yoga”.  Everyone has seen regular yoga:  it looks like stretches and breath techniques.  Here are 2 subtle-looking yet powerful techniques you can do in almost any situation, no one will notice, and you will increase your vitality within two minutes.  Do either Instant Yoga Energizer for just one minute, if that’s all you have before your meeting starts.

Instant Yoga Energizer #1:  Find a spot where you can see a clock or your smartphone’s clock. Notice the time.  Now think of stretching as you roll your shoulders slowly, gently, “stretchingly” for 2 full minutes.  Roll them in the same direction and then in opposite directions.  Notice that your head seems to be down and forward compared to the refreshed shoulders.  Gently bring your head up and back, until it is centered over your shoulders.  Repeat.  Now notice the energy has reached your toes and the balls of your feet.  Notice the lightness in your head.  That is the improved circulation of blood and oxygen in and to your brain.  Enjoy!

Instant Yoga Energizer #2:  Seated, become aware of your fatigue and how your body is positioned.  Where is your fatigue?  If your shoulders are, for example, off to the left of your body’s center, gently glide them back to center.  If your head is down and forward, gently move it back to being upright and centered between your shoulders.  Now become aware of your breath.  How shallow or deep is it?  Begin to exhale out to the end of your breath.  Push the last bit of air out of your lungs and allow the reflexive inhale, or gasp.  The inhale will automatically fill your lungs completely, replacing the urban pollutant-filled air you just pushed out.  This is a complete breath, the exhale plus the inhale.  Do this twice more.  Notice the light sensation at the back of your head, plus the warming of your ankles and neck.

Congratulations!  You have just had your first Invisible Yoga Class.  Namaste!  Use these techniques often, and enjoy the effects.  After all, it’s your energy and your life.  Why be tired?

________________________________________________________

●  Your comments welcome!

 

●  Reach the writer at Kebba@kebba.com

UpBeat Living: Beating Holiday Stress

Tags

choices, energy foods, exhausted, fatigue, fulfilled, holiday stress, stress, stress tips

© 2011 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

In the USA, “The Holidays” broadly means the entire season from before Thanksgiving to after Christmas and New Year’s Day.  This season sweeps through Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, HumanLight, and Ramadan, with Boxing Day on December 26th. This year, The Holidays seemed to start before Halloween: I saw my first red- and green-labeled carton of eggnog around October 25.  In this country’s popular culture, The Holidays are supposed to be a happy, bustling time when people love to buy gifts, decorate seasonally, have large gatherings, play and sing seasonal music, and eat and drink copious quantities of rich and sweet foods.  Yet many feel mildly- to completely stressed during this time.  If you are one of those who get stressed, these tips are for you.

First, simplify.  It’s important to realize The Holiday Season now reaches over almost a 3-month period, so you need a strategy other than trying to ignore it.  What plan have you used for previous holiday seasons?  Write down everything you usually expect from yourself, such as:  buy seasonal candy, put it in seasonal candy dishes in home and office, buy cards and mail, buy gifts for 10 relatives and take or ship, attend 4 parties with special appetizers you made, attend 2 holiday concerts or dance performances, attend 2 on-holiday family dinners, take the kids for a carriage ride around Kierland or Central Park, take holiday photos, post all those activities on FaceBook, feed the homeless at St. Vincent de Paul on Christmas Day, buy larger pants in New Year’s sales.  Whew!  Did you feel energized, or did you feel tired and worn after reading this list?  Now that you have written it all down, try cutting those expectations and events by half.  Now order the gifts and have them shipped.  Use a card service to get the cards out, or email your good wishes, or skip the cards altogether this year.  Take the photos with your phone or your kid’s phone, and post them and your holiday wishes on FaceBook.

Second, take timeouts.  Even if you cut your expectations of yourself, there is a lot of busy activity around you, wherever you go.  It’s a very stimulating time of year, and now it’s a quarter of the year.  It’s like the anti-vacation.  So you need microvacations to see you through.  Take quiet moments in a still area of your home.  Exhale and drop your shoulders, imagining quiet energy moving from your head down to your toes; picture your cells holding onto that quiet.  If you enjoy praying or meditating, take time for those regularly, giving them your full attention.  If you like to read fiction, take two hours at a time to get totally involved in a good novel.  Practice totally letting go of the hustle and bustle around you.

Third, give your body extra support.   Drink extra water between holiday beverages.  Eat fresh fruit, vegetables, and lean protein whenever you have the option; these will strengthen you between sweet and rich holiday meals.  Add ginger to your chicken soup to counter the effects of sugar.  If you can nap, take naps.  Different lengths of naps work for different people, but research has shown that naps as short as 20 minutes can totally refresh you.  Create time to walk, hike, or work out, to flush the toxins and clear your mind.

Fourth, enjoy what nurtures you.  Whatever there is about The Holidays that fills you, uplifts you, or restores you, keep those pieces.  If spending a day with Grandma makes you feel great, be sure to spend a day with Grandma.  If Skyping with your niece or grandchild leaves you joyful all day, make time to be fully present for that.  If walking alone in the snow, or attending Midnight Mass, or journaling, or practicing your guitar, leaves you feeling calm and happy, make those priorities.

Take these tips to heart, and you will beat stress during The Holidays.  Remember, it’s your life, and you are always at choice.  Will you choose to take care of yourself during this season?  It’s up to you.

________________________________________________________________

Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com.

Stress & UpBeat Living: Hope and Vision Fight Stress

Tags

choices, energy, exhausted, fatigue, Feeling energized, fulfilled, happy, stress, Stress Management, Too much news, unstuck, vitality

(c) 2011 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Some days, it’s easy to get too much news.  Local news tells us how many people had home invasions, drive-by shootings, violent attacks, house fires and financial violence by fraud.  National news tells us how bad the backgrounds of key candidates are, how many lost their homes in natural disasters, and how unbalanced the national budget is.  International news tells us countless stories of unrest, famine, oppression, and war in many countries.  How do you feel after taking in a half hour of such news?  Probably not joyful and energized.  Don’t you feel stressed, concerned, possibly discouraged?

According to A. C. Neilson Company, the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV per day.  The Pew Research Center says 40% of Americans regularly watch their local broadcast news.  Thirty-eight percent are regularly watching cable news and 34% regularly watch the news on the three major broadcast networks.

How much bad news are you taking in?  And how stressed is it making you feel?  Dr. Andrew Weil is a famed integrative medical doctor and author.  He recommends, for overall stress reduction, that we all take a “media break” or “news fast” as much as possible, for week.  Dr. Weil says research shows that emotional content of news can bring moods down and increase sadness and depression.  Why not try a news fast, and find out how you feel?

You can also use good news to lift your spirits and metabolism.  I recently got a personal example of this effect.  On August 11, 2011, the Arizona Republic ran a 3-sentence news item, enticingly entitled “Navy Destroyer is Now Serving as Artificial Reef”.  I got very excited about this.  I love good news, and here was a story of both repurposing a giant structure and helping the world’s degrading reefs and related biosystems.  My face broke into a huge smile, my head bent closer to the paper, and my heart was racing.  The article reported the 563-foot destroyer was now sunk “in a spot in the Del-Jersey-Land reef created by Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey.”  (Hey, if you were the Navy, where would you store a huge ship that could no longer serve afloat?) Since I spent my public school years in Delaware, I was pleasantly jolted to hear there was now a tri-state effort to rebuild the reefs and protect the coasts.  I copied the whole 3-sentence article into email and sent it to my mother and my sister, who also spent a lot of time in Delaware.

There ensued a merry exchange.  My sister started searching “artificial reef photos” and came up with some extremely beautiful scenes.  One example collection is at http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/artificial-reefs/doubilet-photography.  I kept thinking about the metal-eating bacteria that are breaking down the Titanic hull.  Experts have said we need to study the Titanic now, while it still exists.  Perhaps the coral and similar sea life could be enticed to build up new structures before the metal of the ship-cum-reef breaks down.  Following the search links, we discovered that a creature called a “soap fish” now makes its home in one reef, in what was once the barrel of a military tank’s gun.  We also discovered there are reef-loving fish called “tasselated blennies”.  Glad I’m only human.  Can you imagine that fish introducing itself at parties?

While you may not find this particular item fascinating, how did you feel while reading it?  Did you feel different than you felt when reading about the last airline disaster or the search for Muammar Gaddafi?  Were you aware of feeling pleased, or even less stressed?

Given that we often hear or see news of world wildlife populations being endangered, how would you feel if you read of a turnaround?  Would you feel encouraged?  Would you feel happy?  Listen to your system as you read about this item, also from August:  Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs have doubled in population in the last 2 years, since they were at a critical low population, and the government banned fishing them.  While they are still down 25% from the measured population a few years ago, they are on a definite upswing.  A further rise will permit a return to some level of crabbing again.

If too much news is stressing you out, why not try reducing the amount you take in?  If you love the morning newspaper, why not try reading the entertainment news and comics first, then only scanning the headlines?  Notice your stress level going down and your happiness level going up.   The news will wait.  Your life doesn’t have to.

Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

UpBeat Living: Tips on Closet and Cabinet Control

Tags

energy, fatigue, Feeling energized, happy, less stuff, Organizing, stuck, Stuff, unstuck

© 2011 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

What if you came home to a lovely, relaxing, energizing and refreshing space?  Wouldn’t your home life be more enjoyable?  What if your office looked clean, neat, modern, and airy?  What if all your closets and cabinets looked organized and sharp, and worked that well?  As part of getting control of your Stuff, here are easy tips for conquering crowded closets and cabinets.

First, decide what really belongs in your closets/cabinets.  Files go in file cabinets.  Office supplies need their own area.  Clothing goes in clothing closets and drawers.  And indoor home improvement tools go in hallway closets and usually one kitchen drawer.  If you are storing lawn tools or potting soil inside, move them to an outside storage space.  If you are storing paint, properly dispose of any paint more than 3 years old, or dried-up paints.  Donate old linens to a shelter.  Cluster all the lightbulbs together.  Donate duplicate tools and discard dry glue and old tape of all types.  Put batteries in a cool cabinet or in clear plastic bags in the refrigerator.  Get clear plastic boxes the same width as your closet shelves, and store and label everything that can fit into the boxes.   The clear boxes speed up finding anything.  Get a $20 office labelmaker that makes white labels; you’ll be surprised at how readable the labels are.  Now you have retrievability.

For your file cabinets, keep it simple.  Remember that most of your bank account records and charge account records are now online.  You do not have to keep paper copies of many things you had to keep years ago.  Forget color coding and simply label each file.  Make a file for “Tax”, for any records that may bear on this year’s taxes.  Have a file for “to be filed”, and go through it every 2 days.  Shred anything you no longer need.

For your clothing closets, pause and  imagine you could quickly glance over your collection and select an outfit.  Imagine all the pieces and accessories were clean, in good repair, a great fit, and easy to retrieve.  You can get to that stage in about one afternoon!  Ready to play?  Then pull out every item in the closet, one at a time.  Each piece has to go in one of 3 piles:  “Love it”, “would love it if cleaned/repaired”, or “don’t love it”.  All the “don’t love it” clothes, shoes, and accessories now go into bags and directly to your car for donating.  For the “would love if…” group, use your labeler or masking tape and marking pen to label each piece with what it needs.  If you can hand wash it or repair it, set it in an area of the laundry room to be done in the next two days.  If it needs dry cleaning or a tailor’s attention, bag it and take it directly to your car to go to the dry cleaner/tailor today.  If some shoes need repair, are they really too old now?  If not… straight to the car and to your shoe repair shop today.  The “love it” items can now go back in the closet, unless you want to quickly use some of that extra paint to do the inside of the closet.  Now decide if your hats need to be on hooks on the wall, or in hat boxes on the upper shelf.  Purse collections can go in larger clear plastic boxes (visibility of contents saves time) on an upper shelf, and shoes in clear plastic shoe boxes, stacked as high as you like.  If you only have a few pairs of shoes, you may want to keep the clear shoe boxes on the floor of the closet, or use a floor shoe rack big enough for all of the shoes.  Shoe lovers can find over-the-door hanging shoe caddies or vertical caddies that hang from the closet rod.  Scarf lovers, get a special hanger that has a dozen holes in it, and thread the scarves through it.  No more hunting for the right scarf, now.

Now, your closets and cabinets are much easier to navigate.  File access, home repairs or getting dressed should now be far easier and take less time.  You’ve just eliminated a lot of stress and given yourself some time and freedom, which means more energy!  How can you take these tips and techniques into your workplace?  Are you closer to the life you want?  Post your results and comments!

UpBeat Living: Less Stuff

Tags

energy, fatigue, Feeling energized, fulfilled, happy, less stuff, Organizing, stress, Stress Management, stuck, Stuff

© 2011  Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Do you crave to feel lighter?  Do you think of fresh air, blooming plants, new life, new starts?  Do you think of feeling carefree and lighthearted?  So, what if you felt that great in your home or office environment all the time?

Get a piece of paper and pen, or your favorite electronic list maker, and start a list of the areas you love or don’t love in your environment.  Make 2 columns and record what you notice in the Love and Don‘t Love areas.  Are the areas you love airy, clean, lovely, organized?  Is it easy to find what you need, quickly?  Now what about the areas you don’t love?  Might these include the back room with the boxes and other odd storage?  Or the closet in which it’s hard to find your favorite pants?  Or the backed-up filing system with nearby unfiled stacks?  Note how you would like the don’t-love areas to be different.

Many people have too much Stuff, in their closets, in their filing system, and on their flat surfaces.  If you feel crowded, you have too much Stuff.  If your rooms feel small, short of relocating, you have too much Stuff.  If you can’t find the files you want, you are trying to keep too many files.  Do you ever think of a document you would like to have in hand, and you know you own it somewhere, but you don’t even know what box it’s in?  Then you have too much Stuff.  The fact is that, if you can’t retrieve it, it’s the same as not having it!  So what’s the difference between having 20 boxes in storage or in your closet, from which you can retrieve nothing, and just not having those boxes?  Right now, those boxes are just sucking up your space and your energy, as well as possibly looking embarrassing.  It’s shocking to face this bit of reality, isn’t it?  So resolve now to reduce your Stuff.

Now stop whining.  You know you’ll feel better as the outdated and useless Stuff leaves.  Your job is to take a box, file, or area at a time, and divide everything into 4 piles: trash, recycle, donate, and keep.  Keep a high-speed shredder in your work area, and shred private material without stacking it.  Start with the idea of reducing the Stuff in each area by half.  Use the Magic Motivator to eliminate procrastination:  Set a timer for 45 minutes at a time and force yourself to stop for 15 minutes– break time and reward time!  Not being allowed to do more than 45 minutes of sorting at a time reverses the usual resistance to choosing to work on this project.  For papers to keep, scan what you can and file them in the computer.  Your bills and bank records are all online, so you need to keep almost none of these.  Try for one or two 45-minute spurts a day, or more, for one month.  Notice how free you begin to feel!

Next time: Closet and Clothing Control.

UpBeat Living: Spring Springing

Tags

Effective living, energy, energy foods, Feeling energized, friendships, lifestyle, Organizing, stress, Stress Management, vitality

©2011 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Did you read this column title as “Spring Cleaning?”   I have lived in places with actual winters, cold weather, ice, wind, and snow.  In those areas, Spring Cleaning was widely understood as an annual ritual.  It took place in many households, when the weather finally became warm enough to open the windows again, after the relative confinement of Winter. As plants began to sprout, leaf out, or bud, so people would take a fresh look around the house and air out, clean out, and toss out unneeded items, dirt, and general clutter.

So, what if your home and office were very clean, all areas were decorated to please you, and you knew where everything was when you wanted to reach for it?  How much time and stress would you save?  How much energy would you have, compared to moving around in your Winter space, with stuffy air and plenty of dust and clutter?  How long does it currently take you to find the office stapler, the correction tape, the blank CDs, or your computer’s portable backup device?  Do you know where all your bills are, and when you last paid what?  Can you quickly put your hands on the tool you need, the extra blanket for company, or the sweater Aunt Pat gave you last year?  How much time do you spend searching?

My friend, author Donna Smallin (Kuper), has written several books that can help you get control of your home and office.  An expert organizer, Donna believes in simple organizing. In her book, Organizing Plain and Simple, Donna even offers a quiz to help you identify your Organizing IQ.  She suggests we each ACT:  Assess the situation, Commit to a plan (in writing), and Take action.  What if your overall need is simply to reduce your clutter?  Might you want to go room by room, reducing your belongings by 20 percent?  Perhaps all you need is to centralize your workspace and equip it to work better for you.  Or, if you can never find your keys, checkbook, purse, or phone, perhaps the main thing you need is a designated landing pad relatively near your front door. This might be a table, shelf, or drawer, where you drop the keys and other items on the way in, and from which you pick them up on the way out.  Pick one small aspect or area of your home or office to start with.  Once organized, the area will be easy to clean.  You’ll be running more efficiently, feeling good about your decluttered space and yourself, and finding your energy springing forth.  Soon you’ll want to tackle organizing a new aspect or area.  And there is no limit to how far you can take this chain reaction of Spring organizing and cleaning, then springing up to new energy levels.

Officially, Spring begins on March 20th.  But what’s holding you back from springing forward with your environment, your stuff, and your life right now?  Start small, and soon the rewards will be great.

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Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com.

UpBeat Living: Overwhelm

Tags

energy, fatigue, Feeling energized, fulfilled, Overwhelm, Overwhelmed, stress, stuck

© 2010 Kebba Buckley Button, M.S., O.M.  World Rights Reserved.

I often hear people talking about feeling overwhelmed.  They describe feeling stressed, confused, fearful, overcome by events, or even lost.  They say they are exhausted and have trouble making decisions.  If you are overwhelmed right now, what would you describe as the cause?  Do you have too much going on at work, too much in your personal life, or an intense circumstance that takes all you have emotionally?

Merriam-Webster defines “overwhelm” as “upset, overthrow”, or “overcome by superior force”, even “overpower in thought or feeling.”  So wouldn’t it be great to take power over this uncomfortable condition?  My friend Michael Price says you can do just that.

Michael is a consultant and trainer, and the creator of the program, “Your Powerful Mind Revealed”.  He helps people to realize and harness the power of their minds, to deal effectively with situations and feelings that may have left them feeling helpless in the past.  Michael says one of our most powerful tools is harnessing our self-talk, which may be working against our success and happiness much of the time.  For example, if you have too much to do, you may feel overwhelmed.  Yet you may realize you know others who are equally busy who do not feel overwhelmed.  In this case, Michael recommends you ask yourself if you really have too much to do in too little time, in which case you might consider cutting back. Or, he asks, is the background chatter in your brain making the situation seem bad?  Your self-talk may be in unnecessary panic mode, urging you to be upset and feel incapable.  Your inner chatter may be saying things like, “I’ll never get all this done!  This is too much for the time I have!  My mind doesn’t work fast enough to get all this done!  I seem to get more and more assignments each month!”  This self-talk only increases your sense of being overwhelmed.  You can change that.

Michael says overwhelm “is really an emotional reaction to our visual and mental perception of our workload.”  Further, he says, “Thoughts create emotion, and emotion dictates behavior.”  So continuing to believe we are overwhelmed only increases the sensation of overwhelm.  Michael also says procrastination is a big factor for those who feel overwhelmed.  He recommends we ask ourselves three questions:

1. Is this overwhelm, or is it simply the result of my procrastinating?
2. Did I really commit to too much?
3. Did I misjudge the time this project would take?

Michael says, then, we are ready to prioritize, using his system to take the emotional charge out of the process, and start knocking out the list of projects.  Don’t let your self-talk distract you from the tasks at hand.  Take control instead of reacting.  You’ll find you have less stress and more productivity.  Now go and do, and succeed!

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Overwhelmed? Fear not!

Reach the writer at Kebba@DiscoverTheSecretEnergizedYou.com