Quote of the Day -- Catherine Ponder

Nature does abhor a vacuum, and when you begin moving out of your life what you do not want, you automatically are making way for what you do want.

-- Catherine Ponder

Quote of the Day -- William Morris

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

-- William Morris

Quote of the Day -- Gretchen Rubin

Something that’s affordable quickly becomes disposable. 

--Gretchen Rubin

Quote of the Day -- James Clear

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.

-- James Clear, Atomic Habits

Quote of the Day -- Laura Ingalls Wilder

The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they're organized for.

-- Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Joy of Things

De-cluttering seems to be all the rage these days. Writers and practitioners are becoming wealthy helping people conquer their "stuff."  The Swedes have their death cleaning, the Japanese keep only what gives them joy, and my favorite habit and happiness author Gretchen Rubin writes about Outer Order, Inner Calm.

I admit that both the act of de-cluttering and the end result provide a sense of accomplishment and, yes, joy.  But I have a dirty little secret.  My "stuff" brings me joy, too.  Often on our adventures, our fellow travelers will say, "I'm not buying anything.  We're downsizing.  I don't need any more stuff." Meanwhile, I'm busily filling my suitcase with the perfect picture or knick-knack to commemorate the trip.  And I seldom stop at just one.  

Our house is filled with mementos from our journeys, and they bring us genuine joy.  They help us remember where we've been, what we've seen, and the people we've met.  They are great conversation starters.  And they just make me smile.

But as we travel more, it is becoming a bit harder to remember the stories that go with the things. Even worse, I sometimes can't remember the place -- was it Guatemala or Bolivia? Laos or Myanmar.  And our kids say, "I hope you are writing this down so someday, when you're gone, we'll know where you got all these lovely treasures." What a great sense of purpose to reinforce my renewed habit of writing -- tell the tales of all those things we love and why they give us the wonderful joy of memories.

Quote of the Day -- Charles Dudley Warner

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

-- Charles Dudley Warner

Quote of the Day -- Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Quote of the Day -- Jessi Craige

No matter what we try, work-life balance always seems like a destination that we have yet to reach. It’s around the corner, out of our grasp.
Maybe, we think, we could get there if we rearranged a little, woke up earlier, or just tried harder.

But maybe the problem isn’t what we’re doing, but rather the concept of work-life balance itself. Perhaps it’s time for a new standard: work-life blend.

-- Jessi Craige

Quote of the Day -- Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Quote of the Day -- John Rohn

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

-- John Rohn

Quote of the Day -- Dwight Eisenhower

What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.

-- Dwight Eisenhower

Quote of the Day --- Benjamin Franklin

For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.

-- Benjamin Franklin

A Place for Everything

"A place for everything and everything in its place." 

When our kids were growing up and our house was crammed full of the many artifacts of their lives, I dreamed of a decluttered nirvana. A place for everything... When I retired, I was sure that I would clean out all the closets and other collector's havens in our house and approach my nirvana. But my Myers Briggs results should have tipped me off that I'm very conflicted about a decluttered nirvana and its relative importance to me.

I've taken the Myers Briggs assessment several different times in my life and my results are quite consistent. I'm unequivocally thinking rather than feeling when it comes to making decisions. And I rely on intuition (which I think of as "big picture") much more than lots of details. But I'm typically right on the line (or "conflicted") when it comes to judging versus perceiving, which perhaps explains why I can't even describe very well what this dichotomy even is. According to the MB web site, 

This fourth preference pair describes how you like to live your outer life--what are the behaviors others tend to see? Do you prefer a more structured and decided lifestyle (Judging) or a more flexible and adaptable lifestyle (Perceiving)? This preference may also be thought of as your orientation to the outer world.

Simplistically for me, my conflict between J and P is that I think I should be highly organized and work my to do list, but somehow other things always get in the way. I tend to wing it but not necessarily admit (to myself or to others) that I'm in flight. So when it comes to being organized, I'm destined to live my life as a work in progress. But it also means that I'm always on the lookout for organizational tips or the now-popular term "life hacks." Which leads me to the raison d'être for this blog. I've struggled with creating something that is, more or less, a personal journal. Especially given that many entries aren't my thoughts but the wonderful quotations by others. 

I recently read a tip that you should create some kind of "file" to collect ideas, quotations, etc. that appeal to you. For me, this blog has become that personal organizational tool. Aside from providing an opportunity to capture my ideas, it's also a very satisfying method for recording my collection of quotations and other tidbits. It's visually satisfying and much easier to scroll back through than a physical journal would be. I read someplace that the majority of blogs are, in fact, personal journals with zero or minimal attempt to promote them to a broader audience. Thinking about this place as a tool for imposing outer order definitely elevates my inner peace quotient.

One of my "places for everything..."

Quote of the Day -- May Sarton

The constant remaking of order out of chaos is what life is all about, even in the simplest domestic chores such as clearing the table and washing the dishes after a meal…but when it comes to the inner world, the world of feeling and thinking, many people leave the dishes unwashed for weeks so no wonder they feel ill and exhausted.

-- May Sarton

Quote of the Day -- Bill Gates

Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a lifetime.

-- Bill Gates

(Note: it's a bit ironic that I'm quoting Bill Gates. When he was at Microsoft, I despised him. But now I greatly admire what he is doing as a "retiree.")

Quote of the Day -- David Allen

You can do anything, but not everything.

-- David Allen

Quote of the Day -- Benjamin Franklin

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Quote of the Day -- Alexander Pope

Order is Heaven's first task.

-- Alexander Pope

Quote of the day -- A.A. Milne

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.

— A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh