Second Week Of The 13×4 Is Causing Random Urges and Fantasies…
In case you haven’t read my last two articles in this series, let me explain that the 13×4 is a personal effectiveness process originally invented by Ben Franklin back in 1728. I’ve been using my own customized version of the 13×4 system since the first week of 2012 and am sharing my observations about how it’s literally changing my life and my outlook.
In the last installment, Planning On Autopilot Increased My Productivity Exponentially, I talked about the gateway or center focus of my personal 13×4 system for 2012, which is Planning. And even though it was the focus of the first week, it has also been the undercurrent theme for the last 13 weeks. I ended up planning like crazy over those 13 weeks even though I had moved on to other focus areas one at a time and it was no longer in my conscious mind.
Four Domains
If you look at my 13×4 Wheel™, you’ll see that it’s divided into four quadrants or what we call “domains.” You don’t have to pick four domains like I have because the beauty of working with one central focus surrounded by 12 other focus areas is that you can have three domains… or even two if you’d like. And they can be whatever major areas of your life or general overview topics that you want. I chose mine – Mind, Body/Physical, Spirit and Community – based off what Tom uses with only slight variations.
I chose to start with the Body/Physical domain after I was finished with the first week of Planning.
Focus Area #2
F-ocus: Declutter
A-ttitude: What is my approach to this focus area – what do I/we want it to be?
I want less stuff in my physical working and living spaces. It’s not necessarily about being more organized, though that would be nice too. Most of us want that, I suppose. In fact, Ben Franklin himself said in his autobiography that he never quite mastered this one… he called it “order.” I am less stressed when I have more open physical space around me. I think of declutter as having room to breathe and feeling less crowded mentally as well. I suspect that declutter will lead to more creativity.
S-tory: What is a story that illustrates the power of having this focus in my life?
The way I process paperwork at my desk tends to go like this: if it’s in front of me where I can see it, I will work on it; if I don’t need to work on it, it ends up in a stack behind me because I’m super busy. I’m not big into filing, which can really create a big clutter problem. And being super busy means that I have a bunch of stacks in front of me, beside me and behind me. I’m surrounded!
Okay, for one week, the 2nd week of 2012, I successfully decluttered and removed almost all of the stacks in my office. Yay! That was liberating.
During week 9, I had the random urge to declutter again, but this time it was my closet. More about that later because that was influenced by the focus area of that week in subtle and interesting way…
Now that it’s back to the beginning of the 13 focus areas this week, I’m actually craving next week’s focus of Declutter to cycle around again. I keep looking around at the various rooms in my house and fantasizing about what I’d like to get rid of – not that I will actually get rid of it all, which is why it’s a fantasy, but I’m absolutely going to clear out some stuff next week!
T-ool: What is a tool I/we can use to maintain this focus area?
Very simple. I added a 30 minute appointment on my calendar everyday during which time I either filed paper or shredded paper. Since it was only 30 minutes, and it was only for one week, I had no challenge adhering to it at all.
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Angela Loëb helps people rediscover and use their gifts so they bring who they are to what they do in life. http://angelaloeb.com
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