Fantastic post from David Allen re new beginnings
December 10, 2010 | 1 CommentGot this in my inbox the other day. I love David Allen’s work and really believe in its premise, that if you attend to your environment properly, confidence, creativity, opportunity, and joy will increase. Check this out. Great, great thoughts as we begin the new year.
GOOD RIDDANCE
It’s time to purge.
The end of a year and start of the new is a great metaphorical event you can use to enhance a critical aspect of your constructive creativity—get rid of everything that you can.
Your psyche has a certain quota of open loops and incompletions that it can tolerate, and it will unconsciously block the engagement with new material if it has reached its limit. Release some memory.
Want more business? Get rid of all the old energy in the business you’ve done. Are there any open loops left with any of your clients? Any agreements or disagreements that have not been completed or resolved? Any agendas and communications that need to be expressed? Clean the slate.
Want more clothes? Go through your closets and storage areas and cart to your local donation center everything that you haven’t worn in the last 24 months. And anything that doesn’t feel or look just right when you wear it.
Want to be freer to go where you want to, when you want to, with new transportation? Clean out your glove compartments and trunks of your cars. And for heaven’s sake, get those little things fixed on your car or bicycle or motorbike that have been bugging you.
Do you want more wealth? Unhook from the investments and resources that have been nagging at you to change. (And give more than usual to someone or something that inspires you to do so.)
Do you want to feel more useful? Hand off anything that you are under-utilizing to someone who can employ it better.
Want some new visions for your life and work? Clean up and organize your boxes of old photographs. Want to know what to do with your life when you grow up? Start by cleaning the center drawer of your desk.
You will have to do all this anyway, sometime. Right now don’t worry about the new. It’s coming toward you at lightning speed, no matter what. Just get the decks clear so you’re really ready to rock ‘n’ roll.
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.”
-Albert Einstein
categorized in: dharma
1 Comment
Thank you for sharing this. I took David Allen’s words, as well as those of your teacher to heart, and I find as a result a great difference between feeling exhausted (quite physical, and normal for anyone who works hard) and depleted (quite emotional, and normal, as well, for those who think they might not be good enough just as they are). I met with my own teacher on this matter on Saturday, and after a session of restorative yoga (poses and guided meditation designed to make one feel truly held) proceeded to go home and clean the garage, the basement, the car, the tub, the toilet, and on and on to the point of exhaustion. Quite different, and much more tolerable than depletion. And at the end of a difficult day, it feel so wonderful and restorative to be in a clean, simple, beautiful space.