i just cleaned my glasses for the 3rd time today. for whatever reason my furiously typing fingers keep grazing the plastic when i go to adjust them or take them off for a moment while i stare blindly into the distance to think. and clearly i need to wipe down my keyboard more often because these causal brushes with my glasses are resulting in hard-to-see-through smudges.
glasses wearers the world over understand how easily it is for our glasses to get smudgy, dirty, or otherwise hard to see through. we’ve all done the head tilty thing to figure out if it’s the world that isn’t clear, or if it’s us. it’s usually us (well, our glasses). once we’ve figured it out, we reach for the hem of our shirts, some glasses cleaner, or that special little cloth we all love to clear away the mess. i’m always amazed after i’ve cleaned them how much clearer the world is. i may have only seen one smudge, but apparently i had been looking through an entirely dirty glass.
which makes me wonder- what else is preventing us from seeing our worlds clearly? here are my thoughts.
1. clutter. it’s a visual distraction that keeps us from seeing things. not only can we not find stuff, but it boggs down our minds. if you’ve ever walked into your house and saw a mess after a long day, you’d know what i mean. it’s exhausting just to think about it. in design, clutter takes away from the main message. check out this hilarious 4 minute video about the redesign of the stop sign.
eliminating the clutter will help you refocus (on more important things, or the important message, etc), energize, save time, and in the end, get more done with less energy output. here are some great ideas from my favorite blog on how to declutter quickly (and painlessly).
2. technology. distraction is big on my interest list these days; how distraction is causing a decrease in deep, critical thinking and attention. for me, technology is one major cause of my continuous partial attention. somewhere along the line, technology went from supplimenting my knowledge and processes to rewiring how i think. it all became clear to methe other day while i was waiting at a traffic light. i saw a girl waiting for the walk sign so she could cross the street. she hit the button repeatidly, saw the sign wasn’t going to change yet, and grabbed her cell out of her back pocket and delved into the world she had in there. what happened to not being engaged every second of the day? or better yet, actually being engaged with our physical surroundings, the moment, or our own thoughts?
3. the speed of life. i dont think i need to speak to this one too much as i’m sure we’re all feeling this one more often than not. when’s the last time you took a moment to stop and take deep breath? i mean the kind you can feel in your feet. the kind that makes you immediately want to take a nap, or the kind that suddenly lifts the cloud hovering over (or in) your head. do that now. breathing is important. breathing (and slowing down) can lower your blood pressure, relieve stress, help you maximize your workout, and clear your mind (when you focus on your breathing, all other thoughts will fade away).
so now that your clutter is gone, you aren’t at the beck and call of your technology and the worlds within, and you’ve consciously taken a moment to slow down and pay attention- do you feel like you can suddenly see? for me, not yet, but i can see the light down there somewhere. :-)
what are your thoughts on “seeing” clearly?
Loved this post! I’ve worried about everything on your list, which illustrates just how much stress I find life to be.
Clutter – I’m not so bad at work, because I clear things off fairly regularly, but at home things are terrible. Well, they’re better since my kids are too old to play with toys, but I can’t stand to look in my boys’ room. It’s ground zero. Then there’s all the mail, all the papers lying around… Ugh.
Technology – I feel I need to know more about it in order to be a contemporary librarian. I worry our positions will go the way of the dinosaur if we don’t keep up. I’m not afraid of computers at all, but I don’t even know what I need to know. That would be the first step. Where do I find that out?
Speed of life – Oh, man. I could go on forever about this! A lot of this is related to how much information is readily accessible now, and how many interests I have. I’m also finishing graduate school, work part-time, have a family, maintain a blog and review books. Is there time to have a life? Growing up there was always spare time. Where did it go?
Thanks Lisa! I’m glad you enjoyed this.
in my last place i had a room that sounds like your boy’s room. it was supposed to be my home office but was really the dumping ground for everything i didn’t want to look at. the door was frequently shut. in fact, it was so bad, the day i moved out of that apartment, i left the door shut and dealt with it later before the lease was up. the reason that room was so bad was because i didn’t handle the papers that crossed my hands while they were in my hands. the mail pile from the day would turn into the mail pile from the month. the “to reads” and the coupons and all the other paper clutter that’s so easily accumulated wasn’t dealt with. my humble advice is to make a plan for what to do with the new stuff (ie- only touch it once. decide immediately what to do with it and do it- recycle, file, etc) and take 20 mins (set a timer) every day for a few days and just take a pile in your dump room and deal with whatever you touch for 20 mins. have easy boxes too- for recycle, trash, etc. and get yourself a little box with files to file things; you can re-file them into your bigger system later, but if you’re like me, your new system will be that one little box and everything else will find it’s way to the recycling.
as for the technology- i find out about new things through playing, reading, tweeting, and asking. i’d start with those; specifically asking. are there any cool tech people you admire in your life? talk to them. otherwise, just read about the things you’re interested in and see how new tech might apply to different things you’re working on. think both inside and outside the box, if you will.
there’s always time for life. we just have to start saying “no” more and pruning back the things we don’t have time for anymore. Merlin Mann said, “You eventually learn that true priorities are like arms; if you think you have more than a couple, you’re either lying or crazy.” and i wholeheartedly believe that. What are your REAL priorities? not the things you’re “supposed” to do, but the things YOU want to do? Make time for those things and get rid of the rest. and read The power of less (http://thepowerofless.com/) by the author of the zen habits blog. i suggest the audio version to listen to on the way to work. it will change your life. seriously.
:-)