A minimalist office

What does a minimalist office look like? The easy answer is, whatever you want it to look like. The harder part is what practical form does it take on?

A desk, right? Sure. Does it have to be big or small? Well, if you have a big desk, but not much use for a big desk, then that won’t work. And the other way around, too. It has to be functional for your needs.

What about storage? Books? If you have books, you need a place to store them, right? Shelves work. Shelving units or shelves mounted on the walls.

Ultimately, I could walk through everything in an office, but really, you have to determine what you need and what priority that has in your life. Will you need a pen to write with? Probably so. But do you really need 50 pens? You can probably get rid of a few of those, right?

Minimalism doesn’t mean spartan and bare. Unless you want it to. As I look at minimalism, it’s about practicality, function and purpose. Start with what the purpose of your office is, then the purpose of the stuff in your office will follow suit. Don’t just ask the question once. Come back to it again and again. Your purposes may change, and then your needs will change with the purpose!

What do you have too much of?

Interesting question to ponder, isn’t it? For my daughters, it’s probably Barbie stuff or stuffed animals. For me, it’s probably sheet music. For my wife, I’d say it’s shoes....but she’d disagree! :-) The reality is that we all have too much of something. Sure, we can justify and explain why, but if you really ask yourself the hard question of “do I NEED it”, the answer is probably no.

Growing up, I used to have too many baseball cards. I collected them from when I was about 5 until I was a sophomore in college. I then decided to throw them out. Just threw them out. Didn’t miss them at all. Then, it was CDs. I sold some and gave the rest away to cull my collection down to ones that truly have meaning for me. As for the sheet music, I have gone through some and pared down, but I definitely need to spend time over the summer going through my music and purging some more.

So how do you determine whether you have too much of something? Ask yourself if you need it. Pack it up and put it in the garage for a month and see if you can do without it. Or just go cold turkey and get rid of it. Or, better yet, choose a few of the things that have value to you and get rid of the rest. Then you have a manageable collection of things that has meaning to you. With my CDs, I kept the ones that I had autographed and ones by friends and bands that I really liked. And do you know how much I have listened to CDs? Maybe about 10 hours in total over the past year. So, it’s time to cull again. Why? Because I have everything digitally. And that’s the other thing. It’s always an ongoing process.

Growing up, I loved my grandparents’ nutcracker collection. So, when I got out on my own, I bought a couple of nutcrackers and had them out at Christmas. Of course, more and more and more were purchased for me. It got to over 25 nutcrackers. I decided to get rid of some and get down to 9. And that’s manageable. Now they’re out all the time, not just a massive pile of them at Christmas. Was it hard to get rid of them? Not really. I thought it would be, but it really wasn’t.

So, ask yourself those tough questions. Pack up a few of those things and see if you miss them. Or comment with what you’ve done with the things you’ve had too much of.

Discipline and focus

Yesterday I came across a post on Facebook which really hit me. It was “Clutter is no just physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.” There’s a lot to unpack, but I’m going to deal with what hit me out of that quote.

I’m awesome at something. I do really great at it. It’s a talent that I have.....but I don’t want to be that way anymore. What am I awesome at? Being focused, successful and disciplined for a short period of time. And then I fall completely off the wagon. Whether that’s exercise, practicing music, composing music, being organized and cleaning up regularly, blogging, and more....I’m awesome at being focused and doing great for short, maybe 2-4 week spurts....and then for whatever reason, I quit. I stop.

So how does it change? That’s the struggle. Of course the easy answer is, “suck it up buttercup”. But that only goes so far.  So what changes? What is different? I wish I could say there is a magic bullet that if you do this one thing, everything falls into place. Ain’t gonna happen. What it is going to take is a plan, focus and consistency.

So how do I exercise more? Well, back on about Ash Wednesday (February 14th) I quit walking. Why? I chose sleeping in. This morning, that changed. I got up and took the dog for a walk, even though it was cold (for Texas) and it’s going to be a long day. That’s even more reason for me to do it.

How do I practice more? I calendar it. And I stick to that calendar. This is one of the hardest ones because throughout my week, my schedule isn’t always “regular”. There may be meetings that come up, funerals to practice for (that’s happened the last 2 weeks after Easter) and more. So it’s a matter of doing my best and when I’m practicing, focusing on using that time as well as I can.

How do I compose more? That’s easy. Just do it. Actually, the laptop I’ve used to compose is a few years old and it’s run slowly....which, of course, works great when you’re fantastic at making excuses. Of course I made excuses to not do anything because of schedule, computer being slow, and really, honestly, what the answer is, I was scared. Composing music puts you out there. You’ll get plenty of rejections, non responses or tepid encouragements. I’ve gotten plenty of all of them. But I feel called to be a composer, so the only way I can call myself a composer is......to do it.

How do I get and stay organized and keep the house clean. Funny, right? Well, yesterday was my oldest’s 9th birthday. We got the house (and her room) cleaned. So, keeping up shouldn’t be too hard. It’s about doing a few things each night after the girls go to bed. Of course, moving (as we’re hoping to) will lead to even more of a focus and attention to organization, what needs to stay or go, etc.

And finally, blogging.....how do I do it regularly? Just like doing things before bed, I sit down and write out posts. Whether that’s going to be daily or a few days a week, that remains to be seen. But in a previous blog incarnation, I planned out the month coming up and topics to write about. That helped to keep me focused. With this blog, I haven’t. I’ve basically been spitballing, throwing things against the wall, and been unplanned.....and yet you still read it. So thanks for that! I know that I’m capable of giving you better ideas and information than I have in the past, and I look forward to doing it.

How about how? Where do you struggle with discipline and focus? What habits are you wanting to adjust, change or drop completely? Comment with those habits!

Are you a superhero?

In talking about expectations of self, as I did in yesterday’s post, one of the things we struggle with is that we expect far too much of ourselves and when it doesn’t go perfectly or as flawlessly as we think it should, we quit. I think it’s a superhero complex. We feel we can do everything, fix everything and everyone and still have time to make dinner. News flash: it isn’t going to happen.

I’m a church musician. One of the things that I’ve found in comparing my two very busy seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter is that Advent/Christmas is neatly wrapped up in a 4 week period, with two really big, busy days of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For Lent/Easter, it’s a 6 week period with a really big, busy week of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. Sure, December for everyone else is busy, and that compounds the hectic nature of the season. But I’ve regularly found that by the time Easter Sunday afternoon rolls around, I’m exhausted. It’s a good exhausted, but I’m worn out. And so today is the recovery. Sure, I could dive back in to the organizing and cleaning that I’ve wanted to do and needed to do. I could check things off my list. But today, my goal is to find the kitchen table, do dishes and laundry, find the kitchen counter and do yard work. That’s a good amount to do, but my girls are off of school today, so I wouldn’t be able to be a whirling dervish of work anyway.

So, to the question I posed in the title of this post. Are you a superhero? If you answered “I’m Batman”, nicely done. None of us are. So why do we expect ourselves to be? Give yourself a bit (or a bunch) of grace. Keep plugging away, little by little. Set your goals and your plans for the day to be achievable, but give yourself a reward. Maybe it’s watching an episode or 2 (not 20) of your favorite show. Maybe it’s going for a walk. Whatever it is, give yourself that reward for knocking out things on your to-do list. And keep plugging away. While you’re not a superhero, you’re still very capable of plenty of amazing and awesome things.