Commitments for the New Year

Well as the SMSes of New Year wishes settles down and we ponder the year that is now upon us, many think of what the year will bring and start to fill it with resolutions and activities for the future.  but as I read Fernando's Desk I was interested in his thoughts this New Year.

Anyway, I’m not writing any resolutions this year. Instead I’m enjoying the creative space that my December deletions have given me.

We do spend a lot of time planning for the future by setting goals rather than in looking back and dealing with the things that have gone before.

For the past few weeks, instead of trying to load up the future, I’ve been cleaning up the past. Mostly that’s involved lots of deletion, decluttering and disengagement.

Emails and writing drafts have been heavily hacked. I was carrying 112 draft blog posts and that has been cut to zero. I’ve properly sychronised my computers so the archives work, making it easier to maintain onbox zero. I’ve also gone through old writing projects and deleted a lit of stuff as well as archiving a lot more for future (unlikely) reference. For all you mac-heads, I’m making my documents folder reflect only current work!

The clean theme also goes around the house. I’m trying to better at how I assign storage spaces. Easy access fir commonly used things, deeper storage for less frequently used and getting rid of things that don’t get used. Through I’m starting to see storage space as an investment that always begs the question - is this worth investing myself into?

The stuff we keep always gets it’s hooks into us. Everything we buy carries a cost in terms of time, energy and attention.

Finally, I’ve been clarifying my commitments and disengaging from a lot of past images of who I was.

All this is tremendously liberating. In a way I don’t need to write goals for this blog right now, because the process is creating it’s own content. In the same way, where outdated agendas and ideas gas blocked my writing- the new space has given me freedom to dream differently and the ideas still come.

Maybe that’s the way to approach new year?

So what is it that I need to clear to create the space to be creative and productive this coming year.  How will the issues remaining from 08 impact 09?