From Order to Disorder--The Way of the World

My one year-old nephew was visiting last week. While his mom took a call, I played with him in our living room, and I noticed something that seems pretty common with boys.

They are destructive!

If I stacked the blocks, he knocked them down.
If I lined up the cars all in a row, he scattered them.
If I put the plush toys in the crate, he fished them out and threw them on the floor.

By the end of the day, my living room looked like a war zone.

The scientific term is entropy— a gradual decline into disorder.

Interestingly, entropy is also known as the amount of energy unavailable for doing useful work.

It’s not just little boys who gravitate to a state of entropy.

We do it, too.

The bills pile up, the countertop connects clutter, the closet needs purging, and yet entropy trumps energy more often than I want to admit.

I get in my own way of doing useful work.

When I was in college, I thought my life was really complicated.
All those papers!
Exams!
Sorority meetings!
Roommate drama!

Then I got married, and learning how to do life with my soul mate made life even more complicated.

Then we had kids, and as you might have guessed—I discovered the real meaning of complicated. The family dynamic shifted each time we brought home a new baby. Our marriage, jobs, kids, and other obligations all fought for our attention, and like that stack of blocks in my living room, we didn’t always do a great job of keeping it all together.

As we get older, life doesn’t get easier. It just gets more complicated (and weirdly, also more expensive).

But also as I’ve gotten older I crave useful work. I need it.

But how do I make sure the energy for doing that work is available to me?

I’m a big fan of the THREE R’s—rituals, rhythms, and rest.
In fact, I’ve written about those three things here, here, here, and here.

But today I want to talk about something else….

And I know it seems counter-intuitive to add something to an already busy schedule in order to create more order in your life, but remember—we want to increase the energy available for doing useful work, and the the best way to do that is to do something that actually makes us feel energized.

Here’s How:

Get lost in a subject completely outside your scope of knowledge.

I’m reading a book called Buzz that’s all about bees, interesting to me because bees are responsible for nearly 1/3 of the foodstuffs we eat, and also for more than 350 of the 1,000 medical prescriptions cited in the 12th century Book of Medicines. I have no idea how I might apply what I’m learning about bees to future work, but a deep-dive into a subject in which I know so little is sure to spark creative output.

Schedule time to revitalize by doing something you’ve never done before.

Last week, I experienced a sound bath. Never heard of it? Let me explain—it was new to me, too! Essentially, a sound bath is a meditation class that guides you into a deep meditative state while surrounding you in ambient sound played by instructors who use instruments such as bowls, gongs, and cymbals. For a whole hour, I laid on my yoga mat in a warm room and just let the sound “wash” over me. It was glorious.

Meet with someone who inspires you, not because you need anything from them but because you love their company.

I used to be a part of a cohort of small business owners, but when I ended my business last year, I knew it was time to move on. For five years those women functioned as a lifeline for me, and I miss them! Today, I’m making a pact with myself to schedule a lunch with one or two of them. I love learning from people who are different from me in every way—stage of life, type of work, hobbies, or worldview.

Entropy will always play a role in our lives. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, creativity is often born from chaos.

Albert Einstein’s Desk on the day he died.

See what I mean?

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Don't Throw Out Your Christmas Cards...YET!

Eight months ago, we moved into a new house. A lot of people don’t have our new address, so this year’s Christmas card haul was decidedly more sparse than in years past. However, I have noticed that many cards were forwarded from our old address, and these days the post office isn’t as efficient as it used to be. That means WE’RE STILL GETTING CARDS!

And I love them so much.

The Christmas card exchange is one of my favorite holiday traditions. It’s right up there with decorating the tree and opening presents, but it’s also the one that’s most easily discarded. After all, Christmas cards take a ton of time. You’ve got to gather the entire family, set up the perfect picture (everyone smiling!), choose a card, and address the envelopes.

Plus, it’s expensive!

Ironically, the very first Christmas card was sent to directly combat this very issue. In 1843 Sir Henry Cole commissioned a custom card to take care of all the pesky correspondence piling up on his desk over the holiday season. Back in those days, it was considered very rude not to reply to correspondence, so he had this card made and then he sent it out to all his friends through the efficient, newly-formed penny post.

That little card sparked a tradition that would carry on well into the next two centuries.

Nowadays, a lot of people have eschewed the Christmas card in favor of an even more efficient way of communicating with friends—social media.

But I will always be partial to the humble Christmas card.

When I receive one in the mail, especially one that’s been hand-addressed or that includes a scribbled note from the sender, I know I’ve been remembered. It’s a small kindness, but an important one, especially during this season of masked encounters and social distancing.

That’s why we’re keeping our cards out all year. I’ve put a little basket filled with the cards on our kitchen table. Every night at dinner, we’ll choose a card, share a memory about the person who sent it, and pray for their family. Again, it’s a small thing, and most of the people will never even know anything about our new tradition, but I think the ritual will be good for my own heart.

Of course, it’s entirely possible I may be clinging to a lost tradition. Now that I think about it, I don’t think we received as many cards last year as we did the year before that and the year before that and the year before that….

My husband and I always joke about the “old-people” things we find ourselves doing—me, putting on readers before looking at the menu in a restaurant and him ordering a cup of coffee after the evening meal.

One of these Christmases I’m going to wake up and find out that everybody else is no longer sending Christmas cards, but instead transmitting their holiday greetings via hologram on drones that stop in front of our house on Christmas Eve.

If that ever happens, count me in!

But in the meantime, I’m going to be poring over this year’s cards. And who knows? I may even be inspired to send some additional correspondence of my own—in February, or June, or….

Be on the lookout. You might get a surprise this year in the mail!

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How Daily Rituals Lead to More Success

At precisely 9:00 PM every night, my dog, Hammy, begins his evening ritual—which includes pacing the floor, whining, and ultimately going out one last time. Either I walk him down the street or if it’s too cold, he walks himself. When he returns, he gets a treat, and waits for me to put his diaper on.

Hammy is an old dog.

And you know what they say about old dogs. You can’t teach them new tricks.

Which is fine by me because at least with Hammy I know what I’m getting. And if I don’t want to step in a puddle in the morning, Hammy better get that diaper on before bedtime.

The Hammy-Bedtime ritual might seem like it happened by accident (no pun intended), but when you have a dog (or a baby or a husband), you know that no dog, child, or man is a match for a woman with a plan.

These rituals are important for all of us.

They act as triggers, signaling our bodies to what’s next and putting us in the right frame of mind for whatever needs to be done.

Take my kids, for example.

When they were babies, we had our own evening ritual beginning with dinner, which we ate right at 5:00 PM. Family cleanup followed, then baths and storytime, and finally everyone was ready to be tucked in. I didn’t even have to be home. As long as the sitter followed the formula, everything went smoothly. Veer from the prescribed ritual, and everyone would pay for it later.

We say we want to be spontaneous and fun, and I’m all about a good time. Who doesn’t love a surprise date in the middle of the week or an unexpected call from a long-distance friend?

But our rituals are the habits that help us stay on track. Want more success? Embrace your rituals!

It’s not boring to have a plan. It’s smart adulting.

Once you have the rituals down, everything else becomes automatic.

I have very specific morning and evening rituals because the middle of my day is usually the “messy middle.” My kids go to a hybrid home school, and our schedule varies from day to day, but when they were little I had different rituals. My small children often woke up before dawn, and there was no down-time. Sometimes, I didn’t even know if I was going to get to shower. That was okay, though, because I could usually count on an afternoon nap between the hours of two and four. I filled those two hours with the rituals that were important to me.

Maybe your kids go to bed really early. If they’re in bed by 7:00, you might have 2-3 hours to take care of business in your own life. That might mean picking up toys and cleaning the kitchen, but if there’s a way to roll these chores into the rituals that include the entire family, then go for it. For example, I assigned everyone in my young family a job after dinner. Even little ones can take a plate to the sink or put toys in a basket.

And give yourself some grace: you probably won’t be able to check off all the things on your to-do list.

And that’s not the point anyway.

Lately, I’ve had to punt on a few things I would have liked to get done in deference to the one or two things I absolutely have to get done.

When you can automate the regular things you do, you are able to prioritize the things that will help you level-up your life.

Try this:

• In order to feel successful today, I need to_________________________.

• In order to feel successful this week, I need to______________________.

• In order to feel successful this month, I need to_____________________.

• I want this year to be filled with success, so I need to prioritize___________________.

Wondering what kind of rituals you should implement? I can’t tell you what you need to do, but I do know that rituals will give all your other actions greater depth and value.

• Prayer/meditation

• Exercise

• Journaling

• Drinking coffee/tea

• Connecting with friends in person or online

• Working on a passion project

Don’t all these things sound so simple?

That’s the point! They are simple, so simple in fact that you wonder why you haven’t incorporated them into your daily routine before now. We pray sometimes (like when someone asks us to) or we go to the gym sometimes (like when we don’t have anything else to do). What would it look like if instead you created a system and a plan for doing the little things that make all the big things possible?

Automate everything you can, and you’ll discover in yourself a high achiever who has more time for the things that matter to you and the people you love.

To your success!

Chantel

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