On a Saturday afternoon, you decide to finally clean up the stacks of notebooks, journals, and piles of paper on your bookcase. The ones you put there “just for now until I can get to them”.

When you put it there you knew it was good stuff that you wanted to keep.

You sit on the floor and start to flip through a half-used journal. As you read your own handwriting, you remember that time on the calendar, the prayers that you whispered at that point in the journey, the insights that were revealed and scribbled, the books that you read and quoted, the Bible verses you swore you were going to refer to, the action steps you determined you were going to take. You poured your heart out in most of that journal, but there are quite a few blank pages at the end. You feel yourself tearing up, you are not sure why- but, back to work, you are here to clean the bookcase.

Another journal, a partially used spiral notebook, some random sheets of paper, and a few sticky notes. Some of the wisdom here you have actually followed up on. But most of it you have not.

You straighten up the stack, maybe dust the shelves, possibly put it all in a pretty IKEA box, label it “To Look Through” and place it neatly back on the shelf. Well, you “cleaned” the bookcase.

Maybe you’re not lazy, maybe you’re an Idealist

The Oxford dictionary defines idealistic as “…unrealistically aiming for perfection”. I’m thinking it goes a bit deeper than that. Idealists have a hunger to learn, plan, to strategize. You read a great quote by the author of the book you are reading or the person you are following and you hear yourself exhaling the words, “oh, that’s really good!” You highlight it, pin it, write it down. And soon, forget about it.

There is a certain deception and safety in being an idealist. We get all of the good stuff and feel like we are in motion- moving forward with our new knowledge, but we are giving ourselves a false sense of “motion” without real “action”. Motion feels productive but it eliminates the possibility (and the fear that goes with it) of failure.

Maybe you’re not lazy, maybe you like Shiny

So, let’s say that you are fearless. You are just busy, busy, busy and you will get back to your great notes when you have the time. You are SO busy that you don’t have time to slow down and make a plan to put that knowledge into action. You will get to it “soon”, but you have got to do this first. You multitask listening to a Podcast as you are on your way to somewhere important, and EVERYONE is talking about Jane Famous’s new book. You order it on your Kindle at a red light and it’s SO good! There is something to highlight on EVERY page!

You don’t need more knowledge or information, you need to apply what you already have.

Maybe you’re not lazy, maybe you’re Disorganized

Here’s a thought. Clutter (physical, emotional, spiritual) is not good or bad. Clutter, what I define as an unmade decision (thank you, Jo Saxton), drains your physical, emotional, and spiritual energy until you feel incapacitated. It looks like this:

Why am I so tired and drained all of the time? Why can’t I focus? What’s my purpose?

What can I do differently?

I want you to think about your stuff. Be aware of who you are and how you are wired. Look through it- you took the time to write it down or save it somewhere. What do you want to do with it? Save it for future use, put it into action, post it to share with others, or write a book?

Coming up!

The solution to save AND retrieve what you want when you want it:

• Ideas
• Inspiration
• Quotes
• And more…