Unclutter Your Life - Day 1

Day 1 of Uncluttering Your Life in One Week involves uncluttering three areas:

1. Your wardrobe
2. Your office
3. Your reception station

Wardrobe

The basic process to purge wardrobe clutter is simple - start at the top of the pile of clothes and sort them into three groups: items to keep, items to purge, and items requiring extra attention, like repairs. The tricky part is deciding which items belong in which group. Erin suggests a few main guidelines

1. Only keep items that fit you now. Like many women, my weight fluctuates. Well, really, over the course of the PhD, it's just gone up. Erin would advocate getting rid of all the clothes that don't fit me at the moment, but I just can't bring myself to do this. I have so many lovely things that I still hope will fit me again one day. I generally try to buy clothes that are stylish but not too fashionable - I don't like to buy things that will only last one season. So many of the clothes I have that are too small at the moment will potentially still look ok (and not too out of style) if I can lose a bit of weight. That might be a vain hope, but I did manage to lose some weight after I submitted my PhD thesis last year. I put some back on over Christmas, but if I can get back to my healthy eating and exercise routine, there's a good chance I'll fit into these clothes again. So I've made myself a deal - I'll toss anything that I don't fit into by the end of the year, and I've tried to keep only the nicest of the too-small clothes.
   
2. Purge seasonally. I'm putting off my purging until the end of the year, due to the weight-loss possibility, but if I get to the end of summer and find that I haven't worn an item, it will have to go. The same thing will apply to winter (but not until 2011). So uncluttering my wardrobe will be an ongoing process.
3. Consider your personal style/uniform. An example of a "uniform" would be Steve Jobs with his black turtlenecks and jeans, but I haven't yet figured out how to apply this to myself. The problem is that most people would have a number of roles, and perhaps need a different uniform for each - suits for the office; track pants for doing the housework; casual gear for weekends; nice dresses for weddings and other special occasions; exercise clothes for going to the gym... I think this will be taken care of by the "purge seasonally" requirement - it will just take a bit longer.

I've been through my wardrobe at home and ended up with a bag of clothes to donate to the op-shop and another to take to a charity bin for rags. I still need to work on all the clothes that are lingering at my parents' place - things that don't fit but I'm hoping will some day. If I stick to my plan, these will definitely all be gone by the end of the year - either taking their place in my regular wardrobe or being uncluttered out of my (and my parents') life.

Office

According to Erin, " In a competitive marketplace. a clean, organized, well-decorated office might be the key to keeping your job, earning a raise, retaining a client, or being promoted, irrespective of the quality of work you actually do" [44]. I don't have a job at the moment (not a full-time paid job, anyway) so I don't really need to worry about the perception people will have of me from my office. However, I do know that having a tidy and organised workspace is extremely conducive to productivity, and conversely, I feel I cannot do any real work if my work area and my thoughts are in a mess. Monday's job is only to deal with the physical space of the office - the filing problems are taken care of on Tuesday.

The most obvious thing, of course, is the desk. I've had an Ikea desk that's just a basic rectangle with a pull-out side panel. I didn't work at home for my PhD, so it's not until recently that I've found it's not really the best set up for me. I much preferred the corner workstation I had at uni. We also needed to buy a new desk for Matt, since the keyboard shelf from his computer workstation mysteriously vanished during our move. So, we took the plunge and bought a new desk from Officeworks and another Billy bookcase from Ikea to store all the books and papers from my PhD (until today they were sitting in two large piles in the corner). I now have a corner desk with a raised shelf for my laptop and extra shelves underneath for storage (handy for things like the external hard drive). According to the principles of uncluttering, I only have things on my desk that I use regularly, and just two decorative objects - a photo of Matt and the paperweight the university gave me as a gift when I submitted my PhD (not sure why I want that one on my desk...) I have a few books that I refer to often, and an in-tray. Erin's obviously into the whole Getting Things Done system, because she says that the inbox should be processed a few times a day, and action taken on each item the first time it's touched, and the inbox should be emptied at the end of the day - no exceptions. I'm leaving this step for next week...

Reception Station

This is basically the entry point to the home, and should include the following:

• Somewhere to remove and store muddy and wet shoes
• Somewhere to hang jackets/coats and store hats, gloves and scarves during winter
• An area to sort through mail, with a shredder to immediately shred things like pre-approved credit card offers
• A trash can
• A place to put coins
• An inbox
• A designated space for a backpack, purse or briefcase
• A space for keys
• A space for charging cell phones and other electronic devices

We just simply don't have anywhere we could possibly fit all these things together. I can see how it would be handy - it would stop me from dropping the mail on the table, my handbag on the floor, my cardigan on the bed, my phone remaining uncharged in the handbag, etc - but I just don't know how to do it. And I don't really see why it's necessary to have a second shredder - why not walk to the study and shred the papers there? Perhaps if your house is really big this might be difficult, and then you might have room for all this. I think what I'm going to try to do instead is to develop routines. Mail goes to the inbox in the study. The handbag goes to the shelf in the wardrobe, after the wallet is cleared of receipts, the phone is checked for charge and any other clutter is cleared out. The keys stay in the door, or in the bowl on the bookshelf near the kitchen. The jacket gets hung up in the closet, or over the back of the chair in the bedroom if it needs airing. Rubbish goes in the bin in the kitchen and shoes are left outside the front door. Done. Now, if only I can keep to this routine...

Tasks for tomorrow

• Bathroom
• Files
• Routines for household chores
  

Unclutter Your Life in One Week

I'm on an organisational spree at the moment. The new year always seems like a great time to get my life in order and to change my habits so that disorder does not return. I've never been good at keeping New Year's Resolutions (but who is, really?) so this is not a resolution - just a desire for change.

And even more than desire, a plan for change. I enjoy reading "life hack" blogs, as part of my ongoing journey towards organisation and better time management. I don't remember why/when I first started reading, but one of my regular haunts is Unclutterer.com. It's a combination of the age-old mantra "A place for everything and everything in its place" and the newer (or perhaps just renewed) emphasis on minimalism (also seen on blogs such as Zen Habits). The editor-in-chief of the blog, Erin Rooney Doland, has recently published a book called Unclutter Your Life in One Week, which provides a week-long game plan for removing clutter from home, office and life. It seemed like a good way to start getting myself organised for the new year (the second step will be David Allen's Getting Things Done - incidentally, Allen wrote the foreword for Unclutter Your Life).

A review I read of Unclutter Your Life on another of my favourite life-hack blogs, The Simple Dollar, provides a glowing recommendation. Trent describes it as " This is the single best book I’ve ever read on organizing your life." However, he does acknowledge that accomplishing all of the ideas in the book in one week is impossible. The value comes in the detailed advice as well as the progressive steps Erin outlines. Even if it can't be done in one week, following all these steps should lead to a less cluttered (and therefore, according to Erin, more "remarkable") life.

I've read through the whole book, and now I just have to try to apply the advice and the steps outlined. Each day has three tasks: one at home in the morning; one at work during the day; and another at home in the evening. I'm going to try to complete the whole process in one week, but I have cheated a little - I started, somewhat half-heartedly, last week. From my overview reading, there are two main frustrating things I've noticed:

1. To begin with, Erin has a rather odd view of work-life balance. For work life to be in perfect balance with personal life, a person should be at work the exact same amount of time as they have free time. Obviously, no one really wants to be at work 84 hours a week. So, Erin advocates "work-life symbiosis", which is "what you achieve when all aspects of your life exist together harmoniously" [7]. I would have thought that this is what most people mean by "work-life balance." But that's really just a small point.
2. The fact that it is impossible to complete this process thoroughly in one week is a little frustrating, given that the title is Unclutter Your Life in One Week. The problem is that the processes outlined would take far more time than allowed. For example, the task for Monday morning before work is to unclutter your wardrobe. As this involves getting all the items of clothing in one place for sorting, first "Wash everything in your dirty clothes hamper and pick up any items that maybe at the dry cleaner" [20]. While all the clothes are out of the wardrobe, this is a good time to "repaint, repair, dust, hang hooks, replace rods, or change your wardrobe storage in any way" [22]. How can that possibly be done Monday morning before work? Perhaps the seven days are not meant to be taken literally as seven twenty-four hour days, but instead refer to periods of time, or ages - convenient marking points for outlining a process. A literary device or metaphor. Hmm. Where have I seen that before?!

All in all, this seems like it will be a very useful book, and if it can motivate me to unclutter and organise my life, I'm not going to complain that it takes longer than a week! But I'll reserve my final judgment for the end of the process.

2010: A Return to Blogging

A new year; time for a new start. It's about time I got back into the habit of blogging. After all, it's not just about procrastination. It's also a good way to ensure that I write regularly. If I'm going to be a writer (as all academic researchers are), then I need to write. Of course, I'll have my big writing projects - journal articles, trying to transform my thesis into a book - but I think it will be helpful to write smaller pieces more frequently, to ensure that my creative juices keep flowing. At least, that's my current rationalisation. But surely it's a more productive method of procrastination than Skweek!

I've been trying to develop a few ideas for blog entries. I've written a few over the years celebrating the birthdays of important people in the history of science and religion like Galileo and Samuel Clarke. I'd like to make a regular habit of that, though I've already missed one of the biggest ones. Hopefully I can pull something together on that super quick.

To ease my way back into blogging and writing more generally, and to motivate myself to actually complete this project, I'm also planning to write a little about my attempts to unclutter my life in one week and institute David Allen's "Getting Things Done" as a method of organisation.

So that's my plan. Only time will tell if it actually works out in practice!

A return to blogging

I was surprised to see that I haven't posted since April. I guess that means for the last 5 months of my thesis, I wasn't procrastinating as much.

Yes, that's right, the thesis is finally done. Well, submitted, anyway. I still have to wait for examiners' reports and the almost inevitable revisions. In the meantime I'm catching up on life, and I'm planning to restart this blog. I'll have to change the tagline though, since I'm no longer a procrastinating PhD student. Procrastinating, always; PhD student, just about done!

I have a dilemma, though. I'd like to write more about science and Christianity topics, as well as more general Christians in academia stuff, but I might also like to continue with the random snippets about my life. If I decide I want to put my name to the more academic posts, is it worth starting a new blog, and keeping this for the more mundane, personal stuff?

Thoughts, anyone?

1. Leaving on a Jet Plane

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE
John Denver -Cherry Lane Music Publishing Co., Inc. -ASCAP

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn
The taxi's waiting, he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could cry.

Chorus:
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go.
I'm leavin' on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go.

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back, I'll wear your wedding ring.

(Chorus)

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time let me kiss you
Then close your eyes, I'll be on my way.
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times, I won't have to say,

(Chorus)

2. The Cruel War

CRUEL WAR
Yarrow/Stookey © Neworld Media Music Publishers- ASCAP/Silver Dawn Music- ASCAP

The Cruel War is raging, Johnny has to fight
I want to be with him from morning to night.
I want to be with him, it grieves my heart so,
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

Tomorrow is Sunday, Monday is the day
that your Captain will call you and you must obey.
Your captain will call you it grieves my heart so,
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

I'll tie back my hair, men's clothing I'll put on,
I'll pass as your comrade, as we march along.
I'll pass as your comrade, no one will ever know.
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

Oh Johnny, oh Johnny, I fear you are unkind
I love you far better than all of mankind.
I love you far better than words can e're express
Won't you let me go with you?
Yes, my love, yes.

Yes, My Love, Yes.

3. Blowin' in the Wind

BLOWIN' IN THE WIND
Bob Dylan- Special Rider Music - SESAC

How many roads must a man walk down
Before they call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

4. If I Had A Hammer

IF I HAD A HAMMER
Seeger/Hayes- Ludlow Music Corp. - BMI

If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land

I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a bell,
I'd ring it in the morning,
I'd ring it in the evening,
All over this land

I'd ring out danger,
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a song,
I'd sing it in the morning,
I'd sing it in the evening,
All over this land

I'd sing out danger,
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

Well I got a hammer,
And I got a bell,
And I got a song to sing, all over this land.

It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

5. Lemon Tree

LEMON TREE
Will Holt- Boulder Music Corp.-BMI

When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
"Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree."
"Don't put your faith in love, my boy", my father said to me,
"I fear you'll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree."

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

One day beneath the lemon tree, my love and I did lie
A girl so sweet that when she smiled the stars rose in the sky.
We passed that summer lost in love beneath the lemon tree
the music of her laughter hid my father's words from me:

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

One day she left without a word. She took away the sun.
And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done.
She'd left me for another, it's a common tale but true.
A sadder man but wiser now I sing these words to you:

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Image from Ian Britton on freefoto.com

The Very Best of The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary!

My lovely friend Donna bought me The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary for my birthday - my very first P, P & M CD! I've been listening to it tonight, and despite what some may say, Peter, Paul and Mary really do ROCK! Just for the sheer thrill of it, I've decided to count down my top 5 favourite songs from the CD - not my top 5 P, P & M songs of all time, just out of the ones on this album (a hard enough task in itself!) This is the list I had to choose from:

1. Early in the Morning
2. 500 Miles
3. Lemon Tree
4. If I Had A Hammer
5. Where Have all the Flowers Gone
6. Puff, The Magic Dragon
7. The Cruel War
8. This Land is Your Land
9. Blowin' in the Wind
10. Stewball
11. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
12. For Lovin' Me
13. For Baby (For Bobbie)
14. The Times They Are a Changin'
15. Early Mornin' Rain
16. Leaving on a Jet Plane
17. I Dig Rock and Roll Music
18. Too Much of Nothing
19. The Great Mandala (The Wheel of Life)
20. Day is Done
21. El Salvador
22. Wedding Song (There is Love)
23. Follow Me
24. Weave Me the Sunshine
25. Don't Laugh At Me
    

The Bible - LOLCat style!

Romans 8:28-39:

28 U no, teh Ceiling Cat, he always doin stuff for ur own gud, if yu luvs him.29 Teh Ceiling Cat nu us befor an calld us be liek Baby Jebus.30 Wat him nu befor, datz hoo him calld; an hoo he hollerd fer, demz himz gibbd warm milk; an demz he givd warm milk, dem himz fed annuder cheezbrgr, srsly. Dubba brgr wit cheez. No mayo, dats nawt Kosher. Srsly. Mustard ok. An rellis. Hold da pikl, I dunno wer das bin. Srsly.

31 WTF den, srsly? Iff Ceiling Catz r fite for us, den who gunna hav Catfight?32 Him naild hiz own kittn, Baby Jebus, to scratchn post, so we no hez gonna giv us mor cheezbrgz an warm milk, an stuff.33 U fink u kan say hoo iz gud enuf? Onlee Ceiling Cat kan does dat.34 An hoo gunna starta Catfight!? Jebus hadda dirtnap, an he livd agen, an iz teh right-paw mitten uv Ceiling Cat, dat d00d hoo maiks cheezebrgz an warm milk.35 Den hoo gunna steels da luv uf Baby Jebus? kan Catfight!, or azz bitin, or no kibble in bowl, or no fur, or dangur?36 Da skripchurs sez, "Fur youze we face deth all day long."37 Nope srsly, webe moar dan teh winnarz uv cauz we petted Himz fur.38 I noes dat nawt dirtnappin or dancin, nawt Invisible Anglez, nawt stuff nows or stuffs in mornin, nawt lektrisity,39 nawt up, nawt dwn, nawt uddr aminalz, kan taiks us away frm teh luv we has, teh warm milk uf Ceiling Cat an Baby Jebus, teh Christ, owr Lord.

Translation (ESV):

28And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written,

"For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."

37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Our first Christmas tree

I'm a bit sentimental when it comes to Christmas. I've always loved putting up the tree. Although in recent years I've appreciated the small fibre-optic tree my parents bought (pull it out of the box and plug it in!) I was so excited to buy our first tree. I had a marvellous time shopping for ornaments, and Matt and I had a lot of fun putting it up and decorating it. We had some funky garlands around the place too, but I forgot to take photos of those...

Making gingerbread

And here are some photos of our first Christmas as a married couple. Making gingerbread is a long-running tradition of mine, and Matt had a fantastic time helping me decorate them. Mine are the more minimalist ones at the top here:

Aww...

My lovely sister-in-law is borrowing our camera for her trip to Cairns, so I finally got around to downloading our most recent photos (i.e. Christmas) to my computer. I shall inflict some upon you all now.

Here are some cute photos of Matt with our gorgeous niece Anastasia:





And here's a lovely one of my Auntie Luba with Anastasia:

Estranged

Old at heart but I'm only 28
And I'm much too young
To let love break my heart
Young at heart but it's getting much too late
To find ourselves so far apart...

Still talking to myself
and nobody's home

- Guns n' Roses, "Estranged"

Science and Religion, Epistemology and Discrimination

An interesting (but long - I only skimmed it) rehash of a debate between Alvin Plantinga (probably the most well-known Christian philosopher in the world) and Daniel Dennett (philosopher of mind and one of the "new atheists"). The commentator decided to remain anonymous, and wrote this about his decision:

I prefer to remain anonymous for various reasons, in particular because I am inclined towards Plantinga's position over Dennett's and were this to become well-known it could damage or destroy my career in analytic philosophy. This is something I prefer not to put my family through. I almost didn't publish these comments at all, but as far as I could tell, this would be the only public record of the discussion.

Friends, if you can identify me, I request that you keep my identity secret. I am sharing my thoughts as a service to the philosophical community and all those who have an interest in such debates. But I prefer not to suffer at the hands of my ardently secular colleagues. This is not to say that all secular analytic philosophers are this way; they most certainly are not. But enough of them are that I cannot risk being known publicly.

Interestingly, in the comments on the post, several people dismissed this as paranoia, while one person gave an example of something like this happening. One commenter wrote this:

I am a Christian, and I wrote my master's thesis at a secular university on Plantinga's epistemology. Half of my committee members were theists, half were not. Not once during my time as a graduate student did I ever feel that my career as a philosopher was threatened due to my theism or my sympathy with Plantinga. I have no idea why anyone would make this statement.

Fantastic argument, that. "It hasn't happened to me, therefore it doesn't happen to anyone." Reminds me of this comment from Emily Maguire's recent book on feminism, Princesses and Pornstars:

I’m sick of hearing people say that women aren’t oppressed because their husband does lots of housework or because their company pays women the same as men or because they’ve never personally been raped/groped/called a slut/been denied a basic human right.

Anyway, it is an issue I think about from time to time. Am I too open about my Christian beliefs? Will I be stereotyped as a believer, with the result that no one will take what I say seriously, because obviously I'm biased? This thought occurred to me a couple of years back when I was at a conference held in honour of John Hedley Brooke, one of the world's leading scholars on science and religion. He's notorious for never giving a straight answer about just what he believes, although rumour is that he's a Christian. He's written a lot about the relations between science and Christianity, in particular against the idea of conflict. His work is well respected, but if he was more open about what he believed, would he have been dismissed as an apologist or propagandist for Christianity? Not sure about this. Still thinking. Well, actually, thinking is on hold until after the thesis, but anyway...

Reason and Revelation

There is in scripture therefore no defect, but that any man what place or calling soever hee holde in the Church of God, may have thereby the light of his naturall understanding so perfected, that the one being relieved by the other, there can want no part of needfull instruction unto any good worke which God himselfe requireth, be it naturall or supernaturall, belonging simplie unto men as men, or unto men as they are united in whatsoever kinde of societie. It sufficeth therefore that nature and scripture doe serve in such full sort, that they both joyntly and not severallye eyther of them be so complete, that unto everlasting felicitie wee neede not the knowledge of any thing more then these two, may easily furnish our mindes with on all sides, and therefore they which adde traditions as a part of supernaturall necessarye truth, have not the truth, but are in error.

- Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity, 1593, 1.14.5.

Yikes, but that's a nasty passage to try to follow!

Pink chicky

Tee hee - this is fun!

Bunny!