A File Cabinet for your Brain

Someone asked on Twitter today if it was possible to unclutter your mind. I totally think it is.

You have to be able to truly believe in the Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.Amen.

Now, all of you who love me, know that I am not big on religion so we are going to stay away from that part of it and focus on the Organization part of this prayer.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; This is the biggest part of having an uncluttered mind. I have acheived that. It used to bug the crud out of my friend Susan that I never worried about anything. She would constantly be stressed out about shit that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Why stress over something that isn't going to change no matter what you do, you have no control over it so let it go.

Courage to change the things I can; This too is huge, if you can change something, then do it. No hmmmmm and hawwwwww about it, take the Nike way and Just Do It. You can analyze stuff from here til next Sunday and nothing gets done. Look at it once, figure it out and do it. Don't be afraid of what others will think or say or do, worry only about you.

And the wisdom to know the difference; Whew, this is the kicker. This is what it all really boils down to. Can you stop the rain from falling? no, so make a plan to have a picnic inside instead. Can you choose to go to a place that will make you and others happy as opposed to one that won't? Then do that. But you have to be able to figure out, what is within your power and what is not.

Living one day at a time; This is hard because especially in the troubled times we are in now, everyone is trying to look ahead to better days. But really there is nothing you can do right this minute to make one day 5 years from now any different than it would have been had you not done something.

Enjoying one moment at a time; Stop and smell the roses. That is as simple as it gets. Somewhere down the road you don't want to say, I wish I had, I shoulda, wow, why didn't I.

Accepting hardships as a pathway to peace; Ever heard of "no pain no gain"? My mom once told me that God will never give you more than he thinks you can handle. There have been MANY times where I totally thought God was crazy for thinking I could handle all this shit, but I have made it through some pretty tough times and I am certain there will be more to come. The important part is what did you learn from those times, what can you do differently next time? There are so many anaologies that go with this; The light at the end of the tunnel; The end justifies the means.

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; To me this is simply "Shit happens". It goes back to the beginning of this post about there are things you have no control over, so just go with the flow and accept the world around you as it is.

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; Again, it is a reiteration that things are going to happen call it faith call it fate, call it His Will. But you and I can not make it rain or shine. You and I can only control ourselves and sometimes even that is questionable.

That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next; Let's stick to the first part of this sentence. That's really all anyone wants out of life isn't it? To be happy?

So take a minute (or 10) and summize the thoughts that are whirling around in your head. How many of those are things you can actually control or do something about? Put them in a file in your brain or stick a post it on em to deal with when the time is right. How many are things that are totally out of your control? Throw them right in the rubbish bin. Compartmentalize your thoughts like you do your files. Open the right file at the right time and put it away when you are done.

Trust me, you will be calmer and your blood pressure will go down.

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Filing System

My sister, who’s office appears to be in a constant state of “jumble”, actually has an impressively organized filing system. It involves color and placement and probably if you are taking over someone else’s filing system it would take a bit of time to initiate. But the time would be well spent as it will save precious time and frustration down the road when it really comes down to the nitty gritty.

As a Grants Administrator for a major University she has many different programs to keep track of at any given time. And the same faculty member may be involved in many different grants. So having all files with the same color is pointless because you would have to open each file to find out if it is the one you want or you would have everything in one file under the name and then sub files inside creating a huge mess.

Her system eliminates the need for that. Each color delineates a type of grant be it Federal, state, private or whatever. Then comes the fun part - placement. To the far left means applied, middle is in progress and far right is complete (or something like that, as I said it is her system, not mine). That way it is easy to just reach in a pull what you need and even easier to glance at it and know what type of grant and what stage it is in without even opening it.

She is lucky enough that she is the only one handling her files. If you are not so lucky and have more than one person involved, print out a legend and tape it to the front of the filing cabinet.