By the end of the year, many of us are a little worn out from chasing those KPIs and big professional goals. Add a busy holiday season, and we’re setting ourselves up for a lackluster start to the new year, despite a wish list of big goals.
Enter Shira Gill, professional organizer and author or LifeStyled: Your Guide to a More Organized & Intentional Life who is here to help us streamline our way to life satisfaction.
Known first as an authority who helped people curate their belongings through her first book Minimalista: Your Step-by-Step Guide to a Better Home, Wardrobe and Life, Gill now goes deeper to help us be more intentional about all areas of life, beyond closets and cupboards to include big areas like health, careers and finance.
In LifeStyled, she serves up guidance on how to bring editing, organizing and intention to all areas of life. And even though many will use the book for everyday “regular” life, there are many nuggets that apply directly to business professionals.
Start With Clarity
Gill advocates that any good life edit begins with clarifying what you want. Her guidance for a pathway forward begins with thought-provoking questions:
- What are you neglecting that you care about deeply?
- What new results do you want to create?
- What do you want more of or less of?
These prompts can help identify not only how you can reconfigure your work and career, but what you might do with a clear focus, perhaps spend time in the garden or explore a new part of your city, or maybe finally start your business or go for that international assignment.
“When you have a big compelling yes, it’s easier to say no to things,” said Gill. Thus, a thoughtful start to what you want and don’t want will set you up for a strong finish further down the road.
Reframe The Idea Of Minimalism
People often mistakenly think of minimalism as deprivation, and Gill wants people to rethink that idea.
“I equate minimalism with freedom, as opposed to most people who think of minimalism as scarcity and deprivation,” she said. This idea needs to be rethought, she says, adding that “the less you have, the less you have to manage,” freeing you up for new and exciting things.
From a visual standpoint, imagine the uplifting feeling that comes from purging all those documents on your desktop screen, removing unused apps from your phone, or, better yet, sunsetting those assignments that no longer move the business forward. But Gill starts even deeper, with an examination of what we want from life in and out of work, and what might be in the way of that clear vision.
Know That Friction Is Everywhere
“Friction is present in basically everything we do. We’re all tired and overwhelmed and at capacity and so anytime we want to do something new or different, even if it’s positive, our brain is going to tell us we don’t have time for that,” she explains. Understanding that friction is everywhere can help you identify how to smooth it out for better results.
“The brain avoids dangerous or difficult, so I try to trick my brain by making it micro, simple and fun,” she said. One way to do this is to break overwhelming projects into steps until there are items you can do immediately without further research or other activities to put things in place. As an example, Gill wanted to integrate more movement and began with a 15-minute morning walk that evolved into 45 minutes of daily cardio.
From a career standpoint, you might want to take a couple minutes each morning to connect with someone from your network you haven’t talked with in the past six months. Make a list at the beginning of the week and send each person a text while you boot up your computer.
Generate Quick Wins
Gill advocates for what she calls 15-minute wins, those quick bursts that can generate a feeling of success through speedy progress. The 15-minute win technique is a game-changer for overwhelmed professionals. Gill developed this approach while struggling to write a keynote speech, breaking down intimidating tasks into manageable 15-minute increments. Business professionals could:
Communicate Your Vision
Gill’s exercises make a terrific team project for colleagues to identify what can be streamlined, what’s being neglected and what can go altogether. Each week the team can set a collective intention about what needs to happen that week and how colleagues can support each other.
- Communicate directly about what is going well and what can be better.
- Regularly set a collective intention how you want to work together.
- Strategize about how to reduce friction to make work smoother.
Automate Where You Can
Gill uses the real-world example of wanting to spend more time with friends in the midst of an overscheduled life, and a creative solution to remove the friction of organizing get-togethers by automating. They introduced a weekly dinner that made it all simple. They rotated houses, the ones who didn’t host brought take out, wine and chocolate. This solution requires no decision about when and where, and no cooking. Simple.
Here’s how automation can work for teams:
- Host a working session where team members share professional goals and identify ways to generate team support. Schedule quarterly check-ins to discuss progress.
- Once a month hold the regular team meeting at a coffee shop, and the topic is idea generation rather than everyday business.
- Take turns interviewing each other about hobbies and work goals, then create a five-minute share at each regular meeting.
The Bottom Line: Tackle The Identity Shift
The biggest hurdle, says Gill, is the mindset shift that creates the idea of being a person who behaves in certain ways, as opposed a person who uses willpower to crush a checklist.
By embracing a minimalist mindset focused on values and true priorities, you can cultivate a laser focus, eliminate the non-essential and reach professional goals more quickly and with less friction.