SPACE: How Cleaning Can Be Used As Kaizen For the Writing

by Trish on February 18, 2009

So yesterday one of my writing teachers said she rediscovered the art of kaizen while throwing out most of her stuff in order to remodel her house. For you who don’t know, kaizen is the “Japanese technique of achieving great and lasting success through small, steady steps.”

Of course, I LOVE these kinds of things. Even the most tiny bit of change or step forward can be used to accomplish greater things.

I immediately turned my heavy gaze onto the “slush pile” sitting on my office floor. I attacked it. Got through a big file box full of vision board stuff (pictures I tore out of magazines and such) and it felt great. I threw out most of it (I can always find more vision board supplies in the magazines I still have) and then figured out that I was not utilizing my space well. A friend is moving her family of six (almost seven; she’s expecting while she does this) children into a new home that her husband is fixing up for them. She has an incredible sense of style and simplicity and the amazing skill of utilizing everything she finds into something of beauty. I did not inherit that gift (I feel like I have to spend money, even if I buy everything on sale, to fix up my home), but I did remember a very beautiful wood project box that I bought (see!) years ago from Levenger that I had sent upstairs to hubby’s office. I had him haul it back down last night and it fit perfectly underneath a wood desk (Alyssa stores a lot of stuff under things, so I was channeling her expertise). Now, I have a great place to store multiple copies of magazines (for the vision board) or writing or reading projects. Plus it looks nice and hubby even mentioned how clean and uncluttered it looked. I’m learning!

Of course, this helps clear my mind to work on the writing and I got some great insights last night working through several lectures from the mythology course and another shorter course on improving sentences. I went to bed feeling quite accomplished all from little tasks. Kaizen!

A few ideas on implementing Kaizen into your daily writing life:

1. Don’t try to do it all in one day. Just do a small portion today and by small, I mean a paragraph, five minutes, one lecture, that sort of thing. Move one pile of papers and file them. Dust one bookshelf.

2. Give yourself tiny token rewards. If you dust that one bookshelf, you get to read what you want, you get to eat a cookie (I want a cookie!), or you get to finish a tv program you have been waiting for. I get the mail, paint my toenails, or look at shopping blogs.

3. Solve small problems. Need a clean surface to sort through the papers? Clear off a space. Throw out old chinese food containers, take empty dishes to the kitchen, anything to clear your space and thus your train of thought.

4. Look for the smaller spaces of time that beckon with delight. If you’re waiting in the car for your kids to finish basketball practice, read your favorite book rather than fret about dinner. If you’re making dinner and waiting for it to be done, instead of fussing about the rotting stuff in the veggie bin, throw it out and bleach the drawer. That small thing, instead of making you feel guilt, should give you joy. One less thing to worry about. Pretty soon you’ll be clearing out bigger and bigger blocks to your creativity.

5. Look for the good. No matter what kind of day you’ve been having, there is always something to smile about. You have money to pay your bills, you have heat, hot water, clothes to wear. Success doesn’t come when you’re always bellyaching about this or that or you just can’t ever be happy with what you’ve got.

All in all, kaizen is radically simple. Perhaps that’s what our overworked, overtaxed, overstimulated lives need right about now. No massive bailout, but a simple help forward. Try it. And have a good day.