Creating Energy

This morning I spent about 2 hours creating energy. I did this by taking on and completely a whole schwack of unfinished tasks that were causing chaos and clutter in my life. Laundry got folded and put away, papers got tidied (and recycled as necessary), voicemails and emails got returned, newspapers (and those incessent flyers) got blue-binned, and all those books I have scattered around my home got shelved.

By investing the time into completing unfinished tasks, I get energized. Sounds kind of funny, doesn't it? Usually people tell me how exhausted they get just thinking about tackling all those unfinished bits of work. The truth of the matter is, it's those unfinished tasks that drain us of our energy.

I have an exercise that I learned a few years ago that helps me reduce the amount of energy suckers in my life. I make up a list of "things to complete" as the first step. Then I tackle the list. As someone who gets a secret thrill from crossing things off lists (kind of my own way of giving me a gold star), I always add a couple of items that might only take a couple of minutes to complete. Sometimes I even write down a couple of things I just completed! Check, check, check! Yup, it feels good! 

The list is usually longer that I have time to finish, but I get enough accomplished (and checked off) that I am inspired to start a new list that I can tackle in the coming weeks.  (No, the irony of an incomplete list isn't lost on me, and I admit to struggling with how long to make my list, but that is another story for another day...) If you struggle with lack of energy and time to take on something important in your life you should give the list a try. You might at first be dismayed at how long your list is but I promise you'll be amazed at the amount of energy you have when it'd done to spend on fun stuff.