When is it time to clear out some of your clutter? As Beth Morrissey said in a 2010 issue of The Writer Magazine, it’s time to clear out the clutter when “disarray” has reached “dismay.” So what to do, what to do? Where should you start?

How about getting started with the book clutter you have amassed? Writers have many, many books. We’re starting with our books as a way of clearing the clutter because you will see an immediate improvement and will be motivated to continue with some of the de-cluttering that may be more difficult.

1. Buy book ends. Sounds simple. It is. Do this first.

2. Stand up all your books that are on shelves with their spines out.

3. Grab any and all books that are lying on their sides and put them in the vertical position.

4. Grab any and all books that are lying face down on flat surfaces. Put a post it note on the page so that it extends past the edge of the page. Write down the reason you had this page marked (i.e., why it was lying face down) on the sticky note. If you can’t remember why, just close the book and put it on the shelf vertically (spine out, of course).

5. Look in the drawers of your work space. If there are books in any of them, put them on the shelves, too.

6. Look in your file cabinet drawers and if you see books there, put them on your book shelves.

7. You should now have every book you own on a book shelf, placed vertically, with the spine out. Check and make sure that you do.

8. Start on the topmost shelf on the bookshelf that is the furthest from your desk. Regardless of whether it contains 20, 30, or 40 books, remove one of those books to give away to someone else. If you are so inspired, challenge yourself to remove more than one book, but you must at least release one book from each one of the bookshelves.

9. Challenge yourself to ultimately have 6″ of free shelf on each of your bookshelves that contains books. That means 6″ of each individual shelf. Note: This is why you needed bookends because your shelves are not ultimately going to be “edge to edge/wall to wall” with books.

10. Set aside 15″ each day toward this project.

Your books didn’t become a cluttered, less-than-productive mass in just a day or two. Don’t expect that you can rectify the situation in a few minutes. Spend the time needed and you will get that time – and energy – back in multiples.

Although most faculty use many high tech innovations in the classroom, let’s not forget the necessity for some of the basic accoutrements. After a couple of years of hearing frequent requests for some basic office supplies and also recognizing that there were times I wished I had some sticky notes or whiteboard markers in a classroom, I purchased a nice clean, new toolbox at a local Costco and then filled it with the following:

1. Post-it(r) notes - Nice for notes or for quick activities that required a sticky note.

2. Dry-erase markers - Even though these should be provided in the classrooms, they often are not or the ones provided are as dry as a bone.

3. Scotch tape - I can’t list the different uses you or the students might have for tape.

4. Masking tape - Could be for a classroom use or could tape in the hem of a pair of pants. Believe me. I know.

5. Stapler (and extra staples) – Not sure I need to explain why you might need a stapler. I’m sure you know. however here is what I would emphasize. Have a toolkit stapler that is separate from your office one. That is true for all of the items in the kit. You want to have your office set and leave the toolkit set in the toolkit.

6. Hole punch - This was important because many of my student assignments needed to be put into notebooks prior to turning them in. Students definitely appreciated the fact that I had a decent 3-hole punch that they could use.

7. Paper clips - Although I am not a big fan of paper clips, you might as well have some in there.

8. Pencils & pens - Just like elementary teachers keep extra writing implements available, we might as well, too. And sometimes it’s YOU who needs the pen or pencil, not just the students.

9. Scissors - You might as well have a pair handy.

10. Highlighters - I think it’s worth having these and marking them with a label with your name. You really are intending for these only to be used in the class and not carried off, so label your highlighters (and most everything else).

11. Chalk (yes, indeedy) – Plenty of classrooms still have chalkboards.

12. Extension cord - Pretty amazing how few plugs are in some classrooms; take a cord (and remember to take it with you when you leave!)

13. Door stop (I bought these in large packets at a local Home Depot) – I had to buy them in bulk because I often left them behind. I figured if I taught at the University long enough, I’d end up outfitting every classroom with a doorstop. I wasn’t there quite long enough for that…but I did my part.

I took the same toolkit to class regardless of whether I was teaching an undergraduate methods course, a graduate level seminar, or a class for professors. I never knew for sure which items I would need and I did not have to pack and repack my toolkit; it was always ready to grab and go.

This was a good investment on my part and saved me a great deal of time and frustration over the years.

Successful people are productive people. Part of being productive is taking control over those areas where you can exert some control. Here are 10 areas of your personal and professional life over which you can exert some control:

1. What you wear. I’m assuming that if you are reading this article, you are an adult. So you get to choose what you wear.

2. What you think. Exert the executive control that is part of the mature human’s brain. You are not a goldfish.

3. Those with whom you associate. We are defined partly by those with whom we associate. It has been said that others know who we are if they know who we “hang out” with. Associate with the best. If you want to grow and be successful, be around others who are growing and being successful. Duds hang out with duds.

4. How you spend your time. You have 168 hours each week…just like everyone else. It’s the great equalizer. What makes the difference is how you spend (or invest) that time.

5. What you do with your money. You get to decide where your money goes. Really.

6. Where you work. If you find yourself complaining day after day, week after week, month after month, or (heaven forbid) year after year about your job, your boss, your profession, then make a change. You choose.

7. Your responses to others. You can control whether you allow others to offend you, make you mad, give you joy, insult you, inform you, edify you, build you up, support you, or…

8. Your attitude. As an adult, you get to decide whether you are positive or negative, open or closed, and so on. Take a good look at your attitude and see if you think it is the attitude of someone who is successful.

9. Portions of your environment. Take control over the aspects of your environment that you can (lighting, colors, clutter, etc.)

10. What you ingest, including food and drink. By the time you are out of your teens, you have a pretty decent sense of what food and beverages work for you and which ones don’t. Have more of the ones that work for you and less of the ones that do not. No one is forcing you to do any differently. It’s under your control.

My belief is that we all have more control than we think we do…at least over those items that I’ve listed above. Be thankful for the control you have and use it in a productive manner.

How do you talk to yourself as a writer?  How do you talk to others about yourself as a writer?  Are you clear on your boundaries – or is it a little fuzzy, both to yourself and to others?  Take a look at these five ‘talking points’ and use what fits with your style and need.   

1. “That’s my scheduled writing time – let’s find another time (or not).”  While there are times to be flexible, you don’t always have to be the person who flexes and thus flushes out your writing time. You may offer alternatives to the other person and he or she can flex – or not. It depends on what the priorities are for either of you. If someone really doesn’t ‘get it,’ and says, “Oh, pooh. You can write anytime,” ask that person if that’s what he/she has found to be true.

2. “Right now, while my ideas are flowing, I want to capture them, so…” You just let this drift off – or you can end your sentence with a specific request such as, “…I want to capture them, so, I can’t really talk now” or “so, I need to get back to what I was working on,” or “so, I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to put my headphones back on to block out the plane noise,” or any other appropriate ending. You can also say everything you need to say but the expression on your face when you say, “so….”

3. “I’ve got some of my pieces to edit today.” This helps you know that today is not a composing day; it’s an editing day. Since there is a definite difference between composing and editing, clarifying for yourself that today is an editing day helps to get you in the frame of mind necessary.

4. “What are you writing these days?” Just as it’s normal to ask other professionals what they are working on, no matter what their job might be, it is normal to ask other writers what they are writing. Find other writers to talk with about the very normal endeavor of writing.

5. “I learned something today while I was writing that I never knew I knew.” Say it to yourself to reinforce how magical writing is in terms of letting us know what we know – or helping us know something we didn’t know we knew. And, say it to others to validate the power of writing.

Whatever you say about yourself as a writer…reinforces that idea for you.  Take a look at when you can use one or more of the ideas from this article in the next few days.  Then come up with some of your own that give YOU and others the message that you ARE a writer. 

If entrepreneurs and small business owners do not market themselves, chances are, they won’t be in business for long. Here are some mistakes entrepreneurs may overlook or struggle with when marketing themselves:

1. Thinking that one ‘touch’ is going to do the trick. I have recently been in conversations with someone who does workshop and he has done one mailing to 300 people and thinks that marketing doesn’t work because no one contacted him based on that mailing. I have been trying to help him understand that his first mailing didn’t even cause a blip in the brains of those who even saw it. I encouraged him to narrow his mailing list and to “mail the heck out of them.” (I think that is the language I used).

2. Thinking that one kind of marketing is going to do the trick. Today, there are so many options for marketing and we need to consider all of them. Direct mail, email, articles that draw people to our websites, social media, face to face, ‘stuff,’ word of mouth…it’s ALL important and very few entrepreneurs can go with only one type.

3. Not understanding that you need to build your ‘list.’ If you only have 6 people or 73 people or some reasonably small number of people to whom you are marketing, they had better be pretty darn responsive or you’ll starve! Building a list through opt-in methods is the way to go and it’s part of why it’s smart to offer products (digital, for example) for free. People come to your website, find what you offer to be helpful, download it, take the teleseminar (or whatever), and if they like what they receive, they “hang out” for awhile. The hope is that they will continue accessing some other products or services. Someday…they’ll buy…or at least that’s the idea. Since you are in business, if no one buys, you are not in business for long, but it’s about building relationships along the way.

4. Not budgeting time to do all the marketing activities that need to be done. It’s extremely short-sighted to say you don’t have time to market. If you don’t MAKE time to market, you’ll soon have nothing but time because you’ll be out of business. And remember, you do not have to do it all yourself. Tap into the expertise that is out there.

5. Not paying attention to the marketing intervals in addition to the marketing frequency. If you send out something 15 times, but over 15 years, you won’t have much (i.e., any) impact. Your marketing needs to be frequent but also done within a short enough time frame that people remember and think, ‘oh, yeah, I think I’ve seen this person/service/business before.’

6. Not realizing that you are either going to spend money or time or both. You can’t market without some investment of your capital – either the $$ or the time part. Target your message and your efforts so you don’t dilute your impact.

See if you are making any of these mistakes – and if you are, take steps this week to start correcting them. It will be perilous to your business if you don’t.

Have you failed lately? It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this who hasn’t failed in a big or small way in the last few days.

So, think of a current failure. If you are like me, you do not have to think too long about this. You may have felt failure as a parent, as a spouse or partner, as a child, as a boss, as a neighbor, as a human… I know I have quite a few failures that I can refer to – just from recent days and weeks.

So, get one of these failures in mind. Got it? Now, what are you most grateful for about that failure?

Really…answer that and stop reading for a few minutes to to give yourself time to consider this. What are you thankful for about your failure? You might just think about it, write it down, or say it out loud.

Depending on what it is you have identified as your failure, there are a multitude of possibilities for which you could be thankful. I can’t even list them all because I can’t even think of all the possible failures you’ve had. A few possibilities though, are that, because you “failed,”

• A relationship was ultimately strengthened

• You got a job you like better than the one you had

• You learned to measure your words before letting them come spilling out – and this helped you in a situation where the consequences of letting them spill out would have been significant

• You had a discussion with someone about your failure and found some solutions or possible help

• You met someone after you hit her car at the grocery store (with your car)

• You got feedback on a presentation you did that you will use when creating an upcoming presentation (that is of even more importance than the one you ‘messed up on’)

• And the list goes on and on….

As Michel de Montaigne said, “There are defeats more triumphant than victories.” You may not have had one of these triumphant defeats or failures in the last few days – or maybe you have. I will bet you can think of one of them from this recent year, however.

Ponder – and be thankful for – those defeats, i.e., those failures. Begin to announce mentally and verbally your thankfulness for failure. It is very attractive.

Let me say again, be grateful for your failures. With each failure, say a word of thanks. As Meister Eckhard said,

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Why in the world would you have ‘class sets’ of dictionaries?  Because that’s what everyone else does?  You are  smarter than that, right?

To explore that further, please answer the following questions:

1. Do all of the students in your class read at exactly the same level? 

2. Does any dictionary have ALL the features, words, tools, and resources that you need?

3. Are you capable of – and interested in - differentiating instruction for your students?

Here are the answers I’d predict for anyone reading this article:

1. No.

2. No.

3. Yes.

Given those answers, let’s think about making the case with other teachers in your building about using a variety of dictionaries instead of the proverbial ‘class set.’ 

• Students read at a range of reading levels, no matter whether they are in first grade or are juniors in high school.

• Students need dictionaries that are appropriate for their reading level or there is little or no chance that they will access them.

• If students don’t use the dictionaries that are in a classroom, then there is little reason to have them in the classroom.

• Students need dictionaries that are challenging enough to make them interesting but not inaccessible because the reading level is too high.

• If everyone in the classroom is using a different dictionary (or at least it appears that way) when students are doing dictionary work, then no one feels singled out because s/he is the ONLY one with a higher or lower level of dictionary.  The idea is for all students to feel included in the learning event.

Let’s hope you can use some of these reasons/arguments with some of your colleagues.  When you do, then have a dictionary ‘swap.’  Have all the teachers (who ‘get it’) bring their dictionaries to a central location (like your classroom).  Whatever number of dictionaries that a person comes in with is the number s/he will leave with.  Everyone can wander around the classroom choosing from the piles of dictionaries that are displayed. 

An additional way to differentiate your dictionary selection is to go to garage sales (normally I’m not a fan) and buy dictionaries that are available.  Old, new, battered, whatever…buy them for 50 cents or thereabouts.

Another way is  to check out the discount tables at bookstores.  I’m stunned at the fabulous, brand new dictionaries that one can purchase for a few dollars.

And yes… yet another way is to ask parents, friends, or local libraries to donate dictionaries for your classroom.  MANY people will say yes – and this adds to the array of choices your students will have the next time you say, ‘Good news, it’s time for some word play and dictionary fun!’ 

Have you “traded” some dictionaries with grade levels above or below yours so that you have a wider range of dictionaries?

Make the dictionaries in your classroom irresistible and then students will clamor for opportunities to just enjoy them.  I know because I was one of ‘those’ classroom teachers who did things like that.  I’ll bet you are, too.  Hooray for us!!!

If the reason you are tense is because you are worried, here’s a tried and true idea that you may need to revisit if you’ve tried it before, or test it out for yourself if you never have before.

To make, use, and benefit from a “Worry Jar”…

1. You need to have a physical worry jar and it can be a can, large jar, box, basket…whatever.

2. Label it for what it is, i.e., Worry Jar (Worry Basket, Worry Box).

3. Write down every single thing you are worried about. It can be gigantic events like global warming, economic crashes, raging fires in your community, floods, plagues, locusts…whatever. Big stuff you are worried about.

You may very well have medium-sized things you are worried about, e.g., whether your child gets into the college she wants, whether your grant proposal that funds a portion of your salary will get funded, whether your spouse will have an affair (you can see that I have not escaped the news lately), if your house will be finished on schedule, etc.

And then there are the smaller items such as, a new haircut turning out right, if you picked out the right card for your mother, whether or not the shoes you just bought are going to match the jacket you hoped that they would that is currently at the cleaners so you can’t look at it right now, if you are going to run out of milk before the next time you go to Costco to buy the double gallon pack. etc.

Hey, we all worry about myriad items…I know.

So just write it ALL down. Any and all things about which you are worrying.

4. Now, put all if these individual items in the jar so that they can be there when you need them.

5. Once a week, get out every single one of your little pieces of paper and sort them into 4 piles:

1. Didn’t even happen.
2. Happened and I survived the consequences.
3. Happened and I didn’t survive the consequences.
4. Still worried about it.

Put the ones from the last pile back in the jar. Well, I guess if you have something in #3, then you won’t be able to do anything with any of them, right….

I’m serious…there are many versions of using a worry jar…and the idea works. It helps us gain some perspective. If your tension is arising from your worries, try out the worry jar.

Do you sometimes wish that things were different for you? Have you often thought of, “If only…”? What if you combined those two ideas – and turned them into actions you could take?

Let us start with you making your own list of things that you would like to be different. It might be relationships you have, certain work that you do, something about your physical being, or other practices in which you engage. So make your list and then read the rest of the article.

Now, looking at your list, you need to begin to think about “If this, then, this.” That is, you will consider, “If this (relationship, work, practice, or habit) is going to occur, then this (action, conversation, etc.) will need to happen. You can set up a page that has lots of sentence frames like this:

If ________________________, then _______________________.

Now, begin to fill them in. Let me give you a few samples first:

• An example would be, if I am not going to work with high maintenance clients, then I need to talk with my colleagues to find out if they want these clients or if we need to verify the ease of working with the person before our firm ever takes them on.

• Another example would be, if we are going to donate money to a special cause instead of buying gifts at the holiday season, then I need to have a way of letting people know that this is our choice and we encourage them to do the same.

• Here’s another: If I am keeping the door closed on cynical, negative language, then I need to remind the people in my house that I don’t want to hear such language and will just take myself out of the room if that is the level of discourse they are engaged in. (I know… I make it sound easy, don’t I?! HA!)

Write out if ______________ (I intend to keep the door closed on x) then ______________ here is what I will need to do.

It is not some magical occurrence to make changes in your life, that is, closing or keeping closed certain “doors” in your life so that your life can be better next year than it has been. You need to be deliberate about keeping doors closed that you just don’t want to pop or creak open this next year.

So with your if, then statements, I imagine you found yourself with some work to do.

1. Maybe there are conversations you need to have.

2. Maybe there are phone calls you need to make.

3. Maybe you need to schedule time weekly to take care of something.

Keep in mind, If this, then that. Be purposeful and deliberate about your decisions to stay on the upside vs. on the downside. If you are going to stay in an empowered, positive frame of mind, it involves taking actions based on the decisions you make.

You can do this.

Doc Childre of HeartMath® said:

Managing our emotions increases intuition and clarity. It helps us self-regulate our brain chemicals and internal hormones. It gives us natural highs, the real fountain of youth we’ve been searching for. It enables us to drink from elixirs lock[ed within our cells, just waiting for us to discover them. 

How do you know if you have no emotional energy pockets?

It is different for all of us but here are some commonalities among human beings:

• We feel drained and we will often say, “I’m just emotionally exhausted.”

• We feel depleted and tapped out emotionally.

• We either react in a hyper-emotional way or a hypo-emotional way to particular events. The emotional response is out of kilter with the event. That’s a clue.

• We are short-tempered with people we care about and with ‘everyday’ people.

• We feel depressed (although others may be noticing and we aren’t).

• We….you add your own here.

What do you need to do to create some emotional energy pockets? You will have to answer for yourself, but if I may I make some suggestions…

1. Disconnect from anyone you can who sucks the energy right out of you. It does not give you a pocket yet, but it at least stops some of the ‘outflow’ of energy. You can choose to disconnect for a short time or you can disconnect forever. I recommend the latter in nearly every case.

2. Open up some emotional space (that’s the pocket) where you give yourself what you need. If you need time alone, get that time alone. If you need time to laugh with someone, set up that time. If you need to call someone who loves you no matter what, call him or her. Just tell them what’s going on and let them minister to you.

3. Imagine yourself enfolded in a cocoon. You are protected. It is not that you can not breathe and it is not that you can’t grow, but you are protected while you gain some strength.

4. Trust your inner self, your intuition, to direct you. As Andrea Hess says, your intuition is like a radio station playing softly in the background, and if we just listen more carefully, it is not that what is playing is unfamiliar because it has been playing softly in the background for awhile. It is just that now, we are listening. Tune in and see what your SELF tells you.

5. Get a massage. Massages are fascinating because although most people go to get a massage because they have a physical need, they end up getting emotional (and other) benefits as well.

6. Get some sleep. Our bodies, minds, and souls need sleep. Make arrangements to get some sleep – for many nights in a row. One night of good sleep is not enough to replenish your emotional energy pockets – and even many nights are just part of what you will need if you have become significantly depleted emotionally.

When you are emotionally sapped, i.e., when all your “pockets” are gone, then you are unable to be fully present personally or professionally. No one is served when your stress and exhaustion have taken their toll.