Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Good Intentions
Long ago, in my first profession as an actress, acting coaches would ask “What is your intention in this scene, what does the character want?” Running lines and acting the part weren’t going to give you a real character unless you knew what that character wanted. Whether one plays Broadway or maternal role model extraordinaire, intentions are key.
As an organizer I’m always aiming for less drama, but I still put the same question to my clients — What is your intention? As in, what do you want to achieve in this organizing session? Yes, yes, we all want an orderly home, but why? To impress our mother-in-law? So that we can entertain more? To come home to a peaceful refuge after a stressful day at the office? Name it to claim it, as the T.V. preachers say.
Now, once you have crystallized your intention and put it into a simple statement, such as I want my mornings to be less stressful, then you can make a concrete plan to get it done.
There is another way that I think about intentionality which is wonderfully illustrated by a study involving hotel maids and exercise, in which a group of maids were told how many calories they burned as they vacuumed, scrubbed, made beds and so forth, which was a substantial number. Another group of maids was informed about the importance of exercise, but not that their work was a form of exercise. Four weeks later, the first group of maids had lost weight and lowered their blood pressure, without changing anything, except their mindset.
This is an intriguing finding, and yet it makes complete sense, at least to the Perfect Daughter. It is the power of mindfulness! These maids, without seeming to change their behavior, were ever so slightly more engaged in their daily tasks. Like them, if we have concrete intentions as we say, sort mail or hang shirts in the same direction in the closet, we can put a tad more order into our a daily routine. Why not start now?
1) Define a goal. It isn’t enough to say you want to be more organized. Why is your disorganization bothering you? What do you want to achieve?
2) Be mindful of your goal. Keep coming back to it. If you need to put a string on your wrist or a pebble in your pocket to remind you, do so! Or be very 2014 about it and find an app. There are apps for everything from weight loss to gratitude. While we may find it hard to keep coming back to an idea, we certainly have no trouble coming back to our smart phones!
A Reiki master once told me that one didn’t need to believe in Feng Shui for it to work. Let’s say you put a mirror behind your stove because you want more prosperity in your life. Now, every time you are standing at your stove, you remember that you want more prosperity in your life. That mindfulness can alter you in subtle but powerful ways.
So let’s start the New Year with good intentions. Define goals and keep them in mind, and who knows what organizational wonders we can achieve! We are likely already doing the deed and just need to honor our intentions.