Are there people in your life whom you have not forgiven? Do you think you’d be happier if you could forgive them?

Nelson Mandela said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”

Would you like to read about a simple approach to forgiveness that has worked for many, who tried it? To find real peace and joy in our lives, we need to forgive those who have hurt us. I shared this timeline in a blog many years ago and if you truly want the freedom that comes with forgiveness, this approach could help. 

February 17:

I got an email from a woman who said her teacher (spiritual) asked the students to bring a clear plastic sack of potatoes to class, with each potato representing someone they hadn’t forgiven in life. In class they were asked to write the name of each person they had not forgiven on each potato. Some of the bags were quite heavy. 

They were asked to carry their bag with them everywhere, putting it beside their bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to their desk at work until they could forgive the people the potatoes represented.

The woman wrote, “The hassle of lugging my bag of unforgiven people around, made it clear, what a weight I was carrying spiritually, and how I had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, leaving it in embarrassing places.” 

Is there anything yuckier than a rotten potato? You know that saying, “one rotten apple spoils the barrel”? Well give me a rotten apple any day! One rotten potato smells way worse than a garage of rotten apples. One potato would affect the whole bag, but that usually doesn’t happen because of the smell! I don’t think I could let a whole bag of potatoes rot, because the stench of one is enough of a call to action. 

We want to get organized for several reasons. We think that if we get organized, we’ll save time, money and energy. That’s true. Disorganization causes us to spend time looking for our stuff, more money because we buy stuff we already have but can’t find and energy just being overwhelmed, discouraged, and angry with ourselves.

By establishing just a few simple habits, we can train ourselves out of many of our messes and save time, money and energy. Our brains were wired for establishing habits, and when we have a healthy brain, it takes about 21 days to establish a habit. So it’s logical we should take care of our brains first.

That’s why these are the 3 important habits to establish, because they’ll lead to health and a healthy body makes for a healthy brain and a healthy brain leads to well-being.

Just Another Day in a Basic Week Plan

                but a Very Valuable One...Planning Day

Do you have a certain day each week that you take care of items on this list?

• pay bills
• answer mail
• write thank you notes
• make appointments
• organize your office (filing paperwork etc.)
• do bookwork
• plan fun outings

How would you feel, if all those important elements of your life were organized on a weekly basis?

When it comes to finances, we don't always create happy consequences.

Have you made choices in your lifetime that caused not so happy consequences? We all have and that’s how we learn to be more careful as we grow up. (Second marriages, for example, are almost always better than the first ones, if we made a lousy choice the first time).

I recently took a much needed three-day vacation away from home with two girlfriends who are incredibly wise women. Both women are extremely private people. They both gave me license to quote them, but with no names so I don’t get to give them credit for some of their wisdom.

We were having lunch in a beautiful restaurant in Astoria, Oregon when the subject of self-improvement came up. I explained my theory of having fun with my inner child and they both loved the concept. I told about how far in debt I was after my sister retired and left me with a huge company debt. It was a little embarrassing to admit, because both these women are very wealthy and they were shocked at how immature my sister and I had been with our money.

Have you heard about the SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) 3x5 get organized system for your home and life?

For some reason, there has been a wonderful surge of SHEs coming back to using 3x5 cards, and most are Flybabies. One of the reasons is they know (because they tell us) that 3x5 cards are the best tangible way to give you direction, which is the only thing you lack. They also are an excellent tool for delegating.

This from a senior SHE who has come back to the cards:

We want to get organized for several reasons. We think that if we get organized, we’ll save time, money and energy. That’s true. Disorganization causes us to spend time looking for our stuff, more money because we buy stuff we already have but can’t find and energy just being overwhelmed, discouraged, and angry with ourselves.

By establishing just a few simple habits, we can train ourselves out of many of our messes and save time, money and energy. Our brains were wired for establishing habits, and when we have a healthy brain, it takes about 21 days to establish a habit. So I think it’s logical we should take care of our brains first.

That’s why I chose these 3 important habits to establish, because they’ll lead to health and a healthy body makes for a healthy brain and a healthy brain leads to well-being.

Most of us want to get organized for several reasons. We think that if we get organized, we’ll save time, money and energy. That’s true. Disorganization causes us to spend time looking for our stuff, more money because we buy stuff we already have but can’t find and energy just being overwhelmed, discouraged, and angry with ourselves.

By establishing just a few simple habits, we can train ourselves out of many of our messes and save time, money and energy. Our brains were wired for establishing habits, and when we have a healthy brain, it takes about 21 days to establish a habit. So I think it’s logical we should take care of our brains first.

That’s why I chose these 3 important habits to establish, because they’ll lead to health and a healthy body makes for a healthy brain and a healthy brain leads to well-being.

The only way to establish a habit is to put the action you want to become a habit into a routine. You’ll have to do the action enough times for it to become automatic. In order to do that, you have to focus on doing the action and not be distracted by other options. In other words, don’t give yourself the option of not doing the action you want to have become a habit. 

For example, if you want exercise to be part of your routine, then you have to stop giving yourself options out of exercise. Options abound. Until exercise is a habit, your options will always look better than exercise. But if you’ll stay focused on what it is you want it'll be easier to establish that new habit of exercising every day.  

Just Another Day in a Basic Week Plan

                but a Very Valuable One...Planning Day

Do you have a certain day each week that you take care of items on this list?

• pay bills
• answer mail
• write thank you notes
• make appointments
• organize your office (filing paperwork etc.)
• do bookwork
• plan fun outings

How would you feel, if all those important elements of your life were organized on a weekly basis?

When you are organized, you are on top of everything from the boring stuff you tend to put off to the fun of not missing out on events that are on certain dates. How many times have you missed out, because you didn’t plan it?

On my Planning Day, my husband and I coordinate calendars so we know about each other’s commitments, if they affect us. I spend from two to five hours on that list above. My Planning Day has developed into a very contemplative day.

For instance, when I pay my bills, I focus on how grateful I am to have the services and objects in my life that make it such a wonderful life. When I write my weeks’ worth of thank you notes, I think about each person I’m thanking and I visualize each one being happy and content. When I file paperwork, I am grateful for the organizing tools at our disposal that make it so easy to be organized. Being organized doesn’t cramp your spontaneity; it sets the stage for you to be even more creative.

When you claim a specific day of the week to plan, and then you stick to that regularly, you’ll begin to see that you can actually set aside tasks that fit into your weekly work schedule. In other words, you can have a pile of papers to file once a week if you’ll do it. You can add to a list of people to thank, if you’ll really do it once a week. It’s only when you don’t do what you’ve piled up for the week, that’ll you get into trouble.

21 Days to establish a habit

towels, and the change in seasons? Do you like the time when day turns to night, night turns to day, each different day of the week, the growth in goodness of your children and grandchildren, new stuff like cars, shoes, books and such? Don't you love a change of scenery, a vacation, and even “the change of life” has its very good qualities.