Last month, Organizers Northwest participated in an awesome vision board-making class from local Portland artist and habit coach,
Tammy Bennet. There we learned that creating a vision for what you want, and then keeping it front of mind, can play a huge role in accomplishing that vision.
Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly), one of the resounding similarities among the vision boards being created around the room was the repetition of a single word...
BALANCE.
In this distraction-oriented, social media obsessed world, full of alarms, notifications, pings, dings and reminders, how do we manage to find balance amidst all of that NOISE?
As organizers, we have noticed that when our clients achieve a feeling of balance in their lives, they see their productivity skyrocket, their relationships strengthen and their general happiness increase. So how to achieve it?
Here is some food for thought.
If you were to break your leg, you would hope that no one will say: "Just brush it off, it's all in your head." You would be expected to take the time you need to recover and rehabilitate from the trauma that your body went through. Your friends and family would support you through that process.
And yet, when we are emotionally unsettled or overwhelmed, we tend to overlook those feelings and continue to focus on "the grind", completely neglecting ourselves in the process.
The problem with this method is that we are always busy - but not necessarily productive. And at some point, we will reach a point of burnout.
I encourage everyone to take ten minutes a day and review your emotional temperature. How are you feeling? What is working well today and what do you need more support with? Ten minutes doesn't sound like a lot, but it can make a huge difference towards achieving a feeling of purpose, productivity and balance.
10 minutes/day = 70 minutes a week!
70 minutes/week = 1 ½ weeks a year of emotional health!
And if checking your emotional temperature doesn't resonate with you, choose something else that you have been wanting to do but struggle to make time for. Cleaning off your desk at the end of the day, stretching, meditating - even organizing a single drawer are great things to do to support your mental health, give yourself a break and focus on yourself.
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