Ten years later, I am still convincing people to have a life and if they don’t have one, we talk about how to get one. It’s advice that I sometimes have to remind myself about. It’s easy for any of us to get caught up in work and decompress by watching hours of TV or strolling through Facebook while ignoring the activities we really want to do.

One of my doctors has been exploring his photography interest for the past couple of years, and he has been submitting his photographs to juried shows. Photography is more than a hobby for him. It’s a passion and is as much of a calling as medicine is to him.

Having a hobby is healthy and helps you reduce stress and increase your happiness. Like the saying goes, all work and no play makes us dull, lifeless, and stressed out. Your spark is missing.

So light your fire. Make time for your passion, your interests. Have a life. Get a life.

If you need some help, several websites offer great tips and advice to help nudge your resolutions along. Visit The First 30 Days blog at: http://www.first30days.com/blog/main/2009/11/11-11-the-four-pillars/. Different experts offer advice on everything from health and exercise to debt reduction and dating. Each section has daily tips as well. These are doable movements forward toward your goals. Each day, a different expert writes the blog post.

Zenhabits.com is another website that has a variety of information for those seeking to change their lives. His daily blog is always inspiring and helpful.

FranklinCovey.com offers help for those who want to create a mission statement and goals. It doesn’t matter if you want a mission statement for yourself or your business. A couple of other helpful sites are mygoals.com and the federal government.  

Here’s to a productive and Happy New Year!

I forgot the question, but I remember the answer. During the Organizing Outside the Box panel in Boston, Donna Smallin, one of the panelists, told the crowd, “Do it scared.”

The answer was simple yet jarring. For years, Nike’s motto “Just do it” has been programmed in our psyche. So simple, so easy. Just do it, and life will be grand. Ah, yes, but humans are a messy lot. We are filled to the brim with emotions, doubts, insecurities, and fear, and these become roadblocks to our success, causing us to drag our feet.

By “doing it scared,” we can overcome our own fears and procrastination and tap into our personal power to succeed. So what are we so scared of?

In addition to the “traditional” fear of failure and fear of success, we weigh ourselves down with busyness, namely soul-sucking relationships and projects. How can we possibly do something else when we’re busy with these albatrosses hanging around necks? We can’t move on because we’re too busy dealing with soul-suckers. That makes us to too busy to realize our dreams, too busy to grow our businesses, and too busy to face what scares us or what could energize us.

By setting our own houses in order, we feel renewed, lighter, and re-energized to push the negative feelings aside and just do it.

If you want to re-energize your work and life, it’s important to ask yourself what you’re tolerating, says life coach Laura Berman Fortgang, author of Living Your Best Life, and Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction.

Fortgang suggests making a list of everything from work and home that you’re tolerating, and this could be clutter, unfinished projects, situations at work or home, other people’s behavior, or frustrations you have. Then use the list to decide what to keep in your life and what areas you need to clean up.

“We need to clean up our messes, whether it’s clutter, emotional or something else,” she said. “Our mess blocks energy and clarity. So if you clean up your mess, you get your energy and clarity back.”

Brian Tracy in his book Time Power advises prioritizing your personal life and stresses the need to practice “personal triage” in your life.

“There are potential uses of your time, activities, and money that represent the possibilities of the future,” he writes. “These are areas where you need to invest more of yourself and your time if you want to maximize everything that is possible for you in those areas.”

Eliminate time traps and downsize, minimize or eliminate activities you no longer want to spend time on, Tracy writes. In that same vein, Dr. Edward Hallowell suggests eliminating what he calls “leeches” – those “people or projects that waste your time and attention.” His new book,  CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked and Ready to Snap!, addresses how modern life can really slow us down.

During a recent presentation at M.D. Anderson, Hallowell says we spend so much time being busy that we believe we’re being productive, and as a result, we don’t spend enough time thinking and doing work with meaning.

“The great irony in this world that has been flattened is that more people than ever have the opportunity to develop their minds in extraordinary ways, but they squander the chance by keeping busy rather than going deep,” he said.

On the other hand, Hallowell recommends cultivating your “lilies” – the people and projects you are engaged and connected with. Lilies “make you feel fulfilled and satisfied, glad to be alive and doing what you’re doing,” he said. “Give yourself permission to make the most of the short time you have on this planet.”

As the cliché goes, there’s nothing to fear but fear itself, and busyness serves as a great hideout. It’s easy to justify to yourself about all the things you can’t do because you’re just so darn busy. We’ve heard the same excuses from clients, but we may not always listen to our own advice.

Once you eliminate those leeches and start cultivating lilies, you are ready to take that flying leap. Do that thing that you’re excited but terrified to do: public speaking, hiring an assistant, or simply trying sushi. Get out there and just do it. And do it scared.

Take some of those magazines lying around. I know you have them. Flip through the magazines and cut out pictures and words that have meaning to you and your goal.  In addition to magazines, you can print out poems, words, phrases, and photos that inspire you.

Paste them on a piece of paper and hang it up prominently as a reminder. You can make separate inspirational collages for each goal, or make one to cover all of them. One friend of mine, who is an attraction coach, suggests you can also place those pictures in the pages of a journal.

Placement is key. If you go to the trouble of making an inspiration board, put it where you can see it. Slide the pages into a plastic sleeve to hang on a bathroom mirror or tack it up on the refrigerator. If you have a bulletin board or space above your desk, put it there. Like I said, put it where you can see it and be reminded of your goals. Pictures of Rick Springfield are optional.

The same applies to organizing. If you backslide and let the papers stack up and the emails go undeleted, it’s okay. If the laundry takes a couple of days longer to get done, it’s okay. If you leave dishes in the sink, it’s okay. Just take a deep breathe. Then start again. Grab a stack of papers and go through it. Just like that, and you’re back on the organizing train.

The important thing is to stop yourself from beating yourself up. If paper stacks up, it doesn’t mean you’re failure or a loser. You’re human. It’s more important to keep moving forward instead of focusing on the past. Instead of dwelling on the candy bar or how you left dishes in the sink, go forward. Think about the exercise you’re planning for the next day. Envision the clean dishes stacked in the cabinet.

Organization is not about perfection. It’s about living the life you want, completing the things you want to get done, and reaching the goals you want to attain. If you backslide a bit, keep your chin up. Congratulations! You’re normal.

It’s the time of the year that we start anew with a clean slate. Making resolutions is easy, but keeping them is the hard part. My gym is usually packed in January but back to normal by Valentine’s Day. So how do you make the changes you want to make in your life? Make SMART goals.

Sensible. Ask yourself what you’re going to do, why you’re doing it, and how you’re going to do it. Instead of saying I want to lose weight, get specific and say, “I want to lose 20 pounds.” If you want to save money, get specific with a certain amount.

Measurable. Goals should be measurable. Don’t say you want to lose weight. Be specific. How much weight do you want to lose? How much money do you want to save? How many days a week are you cooking at home? How many times a week are you going to do cardio and strength training?

Attainable. Are your goals realistic? Is this something you can accomplish? How can you stretch yourself to reach your goals? If you’re a couch potato and want to climb the Himalayas this year, you need to scale down your goal to becoming physically active first. If you set an unattainable goal, you’ll set yourself up for failure.

Reward. Usually SMART goals use the words relevant or realistic for this section. For our purposes, we’ll use Reward. What reward are you giving yourself for accomplishing your short-term and long-term goals? Some rewards that work for me are massages, pedicures, dark chocolate, or a lovely dinner. What motivates you?

Timely. Set short-term deadlines for yourself and put them on your calendar. How much money do you want to save or how much weight do you want to lose by the end of February?

By setting SMART goals, you will accomplish your resolutions. Make 2009 your year.

Let’s get started with some goal-setting. In May, I turned 40. After hyperventilating for 15 minutes and eating some chocolate, I did what I did when I turned 30 – I made a Master To-Do List for the next decade. My list includes places I want to travel to and things I want to do. A couple examples on my updated list: — travel to Ireland; spend more quality time with my nieces and nephews; start this blog (check!), and buy a house. Basically, it’s a list of my passions and dreams, and it gives me purpose. When I have one of those days when I wonder what the meaning of life is or want to eat my body weight in ice cream, I look at my list and remind myself of where I want to be.

With the list I had during my thirties, it was nice to check off my accomplishments each year. One of the biggest goals I accomplished during that time was finding my birth parents, something that has only enriched my life. I usually checked the list twice a year – around my birthday and New Year’s, and it’s easier to make life-altering decisions when you’ve already decided on your goals. By regularly checking your Master To-Do List, you can track your progress and make decisions about where to spend your time, money and energy.

So what would you put on your Master To-Do List? Where would you like to go? What do you want to do, learn, or buy? This is your chance to put those dreams on paper and make them come true.

Happy Organizing!