Spring Clean: Your Mind and Space. Spring Clean #1

Quick recap of the Spring Clean series:
Week 1 — physical office and mind (below)
Week 2 — digital landscape
Week 3 — physical, outside the office

Bright sun, warm days, budding trees, vibrant green everywhere…

The energy of new beginnings is all around us!

Clearing out the no-longer-useful makes space for the new endeavors in your life and makes everything easier as you don’t have to wade through extraneous stuff.

It’s this time of year that you can really feel how anything that isn’t supporting you is getting in your way.

It’s the time of year that you want to be focused when you’re working so that you can play with abandon!

I know that you’re busy and have a lot going on, so over the next few weeks I’ll send you spring cleaning prompts covering: your digital life, your mind, your physical office, plus a few places outside the office.

I’m putting them in multiple posts because all of them at once would just be too much!

Next Actions

• Block out at least two 1-hour sessions per week for the next month.
• Download the Checklist. If you don’t get the New WoW, then you can get the checklist by signing up at the bottom of this post.
• Stick with the suggested prompts. Ignore everything else in the Checklist. The first ones (below) are for your Physical Space and mind.

Your Mind

Get all those things buzzing around your mind out!! This alone is going to get you feeling lighter, happier, and ready to fully appreciate and be present in the joy of Spring.

Mind Dump
Sit down with a bunch of paper and your fave pen and write down everything you can think of. Stuff to do, questions perplexing you that still need answers, looping thoughts driving you nuts—all of it.

This is one of the simplest exercises you can do to get major relief from the constant buzzing in your head. One of my personal driving motivators is to not be dragged around by the tyranny of my my over-active mind, so I do this exercise a lot.

If you’ve never done a full Mind Dump and would like a full explanation, step-by-step guidance, and fun visuals, then check out The Deep Clean Mind Dump tutorial.

Your Physical Space

We’re talking about your workspace, the place where you bring your brains and inner beauty to your work. Give it the honor of a clean space.

Clean sweep your desktop
Don’t just move stuff from your desktop… take it all the way to where it belongs =). If something doesn’t have a home, pause to consider where the best home for it would be. Now’s the time to set it up.

Transfer info from stickies, journal, random notes into your Dashboard
(I.e. ToDo Manager, Calendar, Password Manger, or Reference system for ex. Evernote).

File inactive/complete project files.
Only current files deserve to take up space in the prime real estate of your desktop.

Are all trays labeled?
When I was still working with clients as a Professional Organizer, they always looked at me a little funny when I insisted on labeling every tray. “But I know what goes there,” they’d insist. Yah, well, you’re hiring me is all about creating intention in your flow and labeling a tray is like a declaration to the world, “I Know What Belongs Here!” So we’re labeling the tray.

Not sure how to deal with your desktop? Check out my Organizing by Zones tutorial. It rocks. There’s real-world video example + workbook.

Those are your prompts for this week. They are summarized on the Checklist that I mentioned earlier. If you already get the New Wow, you got the link for the checklist.

Get the Checklist for this Spring Clean series

If you don’t already get the New Wow, then sign up below and you will get the checklist. (You’ll also get the helpful Insomniac’s Guide to Getting Rest!)

Now, when beginning a session:

• get clear on which task you’re going to do
• close unnecessary programs
• turn your phone to airplane mode
• stay out of email
• set a timer

The only accepted Facebook activity is to report at the Natural Professional page that you’re “going in” and will re-emerge in an hour =) (then let us know how it went!)

Let me know if you have questions or if you want kudos for progress at the Facebook page!

XO