::Thoughts:: Review, Remove, Reboot, Repeat

As I write this I'm sitting on the couch its 12:30am. I was trying to sleep but I had too many thoughts swirling around in my head…

I'm a hoarder. An information hoarder. I consume information. I consume too much information. I don't create as much as I want because I spend so much of my time consuming blog posts, email subscriptions, Pinterest, Facebook, self help books… you get the idea.
I have user accounts for heaps of platforms that I don't even use.
I subscribe to emails I don't read.
I have a bunch crazy information on my hard drive.
A jumble of digital documents that don't make sense to me let alone others.

I have become a 'me too'-er.
That's not the real me.

I spend way too much time on my phone.
I spend way too much time on the internet.
I spend way too much time not doing useful and productive things.
   The things I'm passionate about.
   The things dear to me.

I consume in other ways too, I have a lot of 'things'. I'm not at hoarding levels or anything. I just have a lot of 'stuff' in my life. I have a lot of wasted space in my studio, in my house. I envy those that are amazing organised and efficient and streamlined.

Consuming so much information is a good and bad thing. It means I know a little about a lot, but it also means I'm not doing the things I want to do. The things I need to do.

I'm going through a strange phase of my life right now.
I'm between jobs. I have been for over 6 months.
That is really hard for me to write.
I'm going through a bit of a 'block' in my life right now.
I feel like I'm on the verge of big change, but I'm too scared to change things; To purge things from my life that don't bring me joy.

I'm afraid. I don't know what I'm afraid of.
No, that's a lie;
I'm afraid of losing memories.
I'm afraid of regret.
I'm afraid of...failure.

I'm a thinker by nature. I start my sentences with "I think"… a lot.
It's probably why I'm an information hoarder.
I also read a lot because I have this weird idea that reading about something is the same is doing it.
It's not.
I plan. Plan, plan, plan.
But I don't take the next step.
Action!
Self discipline is not my strong point.
Excuses are easy.
Then I feel bad.
Then I'm a mess of disappointment.
Another broken promise to myself.

Don't take this as me being incredibly self-critical.
I'm reflecting.
Just getting thoughts out.
Maybe you can relate.
Maybe you can't.

I want to streamline my life.
I want similar things all in the same place.
I want to keep a promise to myself.
I want to only expose myself to people and messages that resonate with me.
I want to be present.

So steps forward. What do I need to do to get back to a place where I want to be?
NEED to do to get to a place where I'm content.

Review
Do I use it?
Is this useful to me?
Do I get anything out of it?
Does this add to the life I want?
Does this bring joy into my life?
Have I used/looked at this in the last year?
But what if I want to use it in future? - Get over yourself. Things are replaceable. Time, relationships and clarity are not.

Remove
If the answer is no to all - GET RID OF IT.

Reboot
Set some boundaries.
Establish some routines. At the very least a morning and evening routine.
Get some systems into place. Steps to follow.
Decide on my destination. GO! The journey will take care of itself.

I must journal in the evenings. Get it out on paper so I don't end up thinking it when I'm lying in bed.
Do planning on paper. No way to open a new browser window.

Use a timer. Track where my time goes.
Slow down. Who am I racing?
Speed up. Stop wasting time on things that have no tangible reward.

Repeat
Accept that this is not going to be a perfect process.
Understand that I will have to do this again.

There is not such thing as perfect balance, there is only juggling.

Hmmm. A bit of stream of thought for a Saturday night.
Very much a departure from my usual posts, but maybe that's a good thing. Shake things up a bit.

Can you relate? How do you overcome 'blocks' in your life? I'm interested to read what you write. Leave a comment.

Until next time.

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FOMO - Do you have info overload?

Edit: I wrote this post quite a while back but I wanted to share it anyway :)

Hello!

In the new year I've been about doing things that make me happy and taking the pressure off myself. Which I think is very important in this day and age. We already have so many pressures and deadlines in our lives already there is no need to add more on yourself unnecessarily. I do like blogging here, but I don't want to make it a chore!

Talking about adding unnecessary pressure to oneself. I logged onto my Google reader today and there were 1000+ items unread. OVER 1000 ITEMS! What?! That's a lot of blog posts I have to read. Well, I don't HAVE to read them, but I kind if feel the need  to. I had a think about it and have decided I have a massive case of FOMO when it comes to reading blogs these days. "What is FOMO?", I hear you ask. Well my dear, FOMO is the acronym for Fear Of Missing Out - FOMO.

[Source]

I love reading blogs, they give me insight into some of the most creative people's minds in all the world. But I'm a bit of a collector when it comes to adding RSS feeds to my blog reader. I keep adding blogs as my tastes change without doing a clean out of the blogs that no longer appeal to me or that I no longer find value in. I don't unsubscribe because, you know, just in case I miss out on something great. (Read as FOMO!)

Then there is the case of high volume RSS feeds. Unless you keep on top of them ALL the time  (in which case you must find value in the feed) they can get out of hand pretty quickly. I admit I have subscribed to a couple of these. :-( Because I might miss out on some great idea (that I will NEVER use!). This is how I get to the stage of having over one thousand items unread in my blog reader.

So over the next week or so I am going through my blog reader and cutting it down. I will only keep the blogs that I reference regularly. I spend a lot of time reading these blogs while on the train and sometimes at home and I totally want to make it worth my while.

It's funny I thought about this post this afternoon and as I was going through my blog reader I found this awesome post from CraftyPod on the topic of overindulging in online info and hoarding it for 'later'. Funny how that happens. You have an idea and you see that someone else has had a similar idea at a similar time. :)

Aaanyway... So how about you? Do you have a case of FOMO when it comes to online information? What about Facebook? Twitter? How do you handle the immense flow of information coming out of the interwebs?

Do something to make you feel more calm and less stressed.
V xoxo

My Motto for 2012 - Keep Calm and...

Hello there,

So, uh, long time no see eh. I've been on hiatus a little (or a lot). 
I have something I quickly want to share with you. My Mr and I went to Masters a couple of weekends ago. And I saw this canvas and instantly loved it.

This is my motto for 2012. I totally connected with it because this is something I would actually say to someone who needed to stop stuffing about and get their cuss together. The ladies in my office and I have a bit of a 'Keep Calm and... ' obsession at the moment. So it was very fitting. :)

[As a sidenote you can generate your own Keep Calm sign here. Have fun!]

Talking about a new year and motivations, inspirations and other intentions. I came across this great idea of a 2012 manifesto via craftgawker.

So how about you? What is your motto for 2012? Have you got any resolutions? Or would you rather call them intentions? Have you created a manifesto? Do you want to?
Leave me a comment :)

Do something to inspire yourself for the new year,
V xo

Felt like a change...

Hi there,

If you're looking at the blog website you'll notice that I've changed things about  a bit.
I don't know how to explain it except that I felt like a change. Hope you don't mind. :)

Do you ever get like that? Just feeling the need for a change?
Does it cause you to do crazy things like rearrange furniture only to put it back the way it was? Or get a haircut you instantly regret?

Just wondering.

Have a great day :)

Do we need to be more selfish with our time?

Do we need to be a bit more selfish and mindful of our time?

I was thinking about this on the way home from work today, because I was thinking about all the things that I wanted to do but I didn’t get to do on the weekend because I was busy doing other things that I felt I ‘had’ to do.

I don’t know about you, but on the weekend I lurve my sleep and when I have down time I lurve my down time. I’m the kind of soul that needs time to meander a little on the weekend; I need time to go with the flow.

Anyway, I was thinking about the weekend just gone and how I did things not really for myself, but because I probably should. Are you like that? Do you do things you’re not so keen about just because they are things that you probably ‘should’ do?

I also pondered the idea of how much time I have on the weekends. If you think about it you really only have about 32 hours (less if you love a good sleep in) in a weekend. That sounds like heaps right? Well it is heaps if you are hanging out in your house all day all weekend long. Do you do that often? I’d love to know. I haven’t done that in quite some time. I don’t think I do that often enough. Of that time you have to fit in house chores somewhere, unless you’re super organised and motivated to do that stuff during the week, which I’m not.

Yes it is fun having a weekend chockers full of great things to do, but very often I find myself on Sunday evening thinking, “Its Monday tomorrow? Really? Where did the weekend go?”

There are usually so many other things that I wanted to do for me. The sorts of things that I love to do and feed my soul. Do you ever feel that way?

Maybe I need to change my go-with-the-flow ways and have a game plan for the weekends. Maybe I need to start rethinking about whether I ‘need’ to go somewhere. Do I really need to go or do I feel guilty about not going for any apparent reason? Hmmm. I think I’m on to something here. Do you ever feel that way?

I think I need to start looking at where ‘my time’ goes. Look into a little more planning on the weekend. Not too much though. How about you?

Anyway, that’s my brain dump this week. It’s been a while since I had a rambling kinda post.

I hope I’ve given you something to think about. Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Until next time, do some pondering

V xoxo

Gratitude = Happiness

I was thinking about this the other day….. I am grateful for my life.

I have several friends who seem to have exciting, action-packed, dramatic lives and sometimes I envy them. Even though I sometimes think my life is boring and mundane, I have to count myself lucky for the things that I DO have. I would much rather a life without drama, with the things that make me happy. I think of myself as an optimist but like all people I have my ups and my downs. But overall I’m happy with my lot in life. Awhile ago there was a television show called Making Australia Happy. It followed several Australians who were on a journey to increase there happiness. I found it interesting because it made me reflect upon my own life and my level of happiness.

The show touched on three ways of making people happy; positive psychology, mindfulness and physical activity. An exercise the participants in the show had to do with positive psychology was to write a gratitude letter to someone who had been a positive influence in their life but they hadn’t thanked properly. I thought about this, but in a different way. I’m grateful for the people in my life and the way my life has panned out. This doesn’t mean that I don’t look at others with envy, but as they say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. So in a way I guess this is my way of writing a gratitude letter… posting about what I’m grateful for… the green on my side of the fence.

I’m grateful for my family. I live with my younger sister and my parents live overseas. I like living with my sister, I like chatting with her (when we can catch each other between work, hanging with bf’s and working on creative projects) about what she’s up to. We don’t have these chats too often, but I think that’s what makes them great. I talk to mum about once a week on the phone and sometimes have a quick talk with dad. We’re not the tightest knit family in the world, but we are very supportive of each other and that works for me. I like my independence and I think I would feel suffocated if I constantly saw my family all the time.

I’m grateful for my childhood, I spent my pre-teen years growing up in Vanuatu and I cherish the fact that I was able to have a pretty free and easy childhood. It makes me sad to think of how quickly some of my friends grew up and for that matter kids these days barely have a childhood. Peer pressure and consumerism, among other things, affect children so young nowadays.

My partner is pretty damn great, he makes me laugh and he’s supportive. So, I’m definitely grateful for him. We treat each other as equals and I love that about our relationship. We have similar goals and thoughts and yet have completely different tastes and ideas about some things. I think it’s our great combination of similarity and difference that make us gel so well, we push each other’s limits and that keeps everything interesting.

Friends are very important to me, I love how diverse and different my friends are. I’m grateful that I’m able to hang out with such fantastic people and enjoy their company. I love the open and free conversations we have about everything (I mean EVERYTHING!). I enjoy hearing the stories my friends have to tell and I really like seeing how creative my friends are.

This may sound like I’m up myself, but I’m pretty grateful for me. I think that as women we are the first to find flaws in ourselves. So, I think that sometimes we need to turn our thinking around and find things in ourselves that we are happy about. So here are mine. I find that I’m able to get along with a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and personalities. I love to make people laugh and I’m not afraid of making a fool of myself (especially for a laugh!). I’m an open and honest person, sometimes this gets me into trouble but I’d definitely rather be genuine than faking it. I’m often complemented about my skin, so I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful that I am the person I am and I am grateful for the events and factors that have made me who I am.
So these are some of the things that I’m grateful for.

What are five things you are grateful for? What are five things you like about yourself?
Let me know by leaving a comment below.