Creating an abundant life, Part III




 

 

Last week, I defined flow as being so consumed by your creative work that you lose track of the outside world. Time ceases to exist. It’s a fantastic place to be. But how do you achieve flow?

Step one? Get rid of distractions. Clutter is a major distraction for me. Not only physical, but digital and “attitudinal” clutter. Who knew I had collected so much clutter. 32,669 unread emails? YIKES!

Until I cleaned my desk, the computer desktop and emails, I never realized how much clutter surrounded me. Nor did I realize how much it put a damper on my creativity.

Eleanor Brown said, “Clutter is not just the physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships, and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.” She’s right.

Of all the clutter I had to clean up, attitudinal clutter was the hardest. It’s hard to let go of all those old beliefs that we’re not good enough, that creativity is playing. That we are too old to be playing. All attitudes that we need to erase from our psyches. How much clutter is in your life? Do you let the clutter of other people’s demands pull you down and keep you from creating? Let’s take a minute and think about distractions. How many times a day do you make sure you haven’t missed a message? Or jump onto Facebook to see what’s up? Sure, it only takes a minute to check your emails and respond—if you only have one email. I average 65-70 emails a day in one account and well over a thousand a day in my spam account. A minute per email times 65 or 70? That’s more than an hour a day. Not to mention the interruption to your thought process before that itch to check your emails became overpowering.

So often we allow the noise of the world to distract us from our inner world. How can we cut the distractions? We need time each day to focus on our creativity. How can we make that time each day sacred? How can we become all about action and less about distraction?

Lock your cellphone in a drawer. Leave it at home. I remember surviving in the world before these electronic leashes kept us tied to a world of distractions. We survived just fine.

Put a sign on your door saying unless it involves massive quantities of blood, fire, flooding or impending death—do not disturb. Lock the door. Shut out the outside world and focus on the world you are creating.

I want you to promise to take 15 minutes a day, every day, and create something. Focus and create something for yourself.

GLENDA THOMPSON, a columnist for the Pleasanton Express and is currently writing a series on finding your hidden talents. Glenda resides in Charlotte where she is hard at work on the second novel in a series about Texas Rangers with dark secrets. Her first novel, Broken Toys, is now available on Amazon.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *