I’ve been seeing a lot of posts recently about people trying to pare their “stuff” down to just 100 things. I first saw it over on Stuck in Stuff, and then again on Zen Habits (which also talked about The Rucksack Life, a blog I hadn’t yet heard of).

I’ve been considering paring down my “stuff” (I have way too much of it) to 100 things. My husband and I are on vacation for the next 11 days, and I’m considering getting a small dumpster to start getting rid of things. I have boxes in my attic that have moved with us twice now and never been unpacked (and we’ve lived in our current house for almost four years). I’m going to make three piles - dumpster, charity/friends, and storage for anything we’re not keeping in the house.

We’re planning on putting our house on the market sometime in the next 6-10 months (probably in the spring), and I know that I need to clean out all of our clutter to improve our chances of selling. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get rid of 75% of our stuff, put another 15% in storage (mostly personal, sentimental things), and keep only about 10% of our stuff in the house while selling. A huge benefit to this will be that moving is going to be that much easier and that much less stressful if we only have to move 1/4 of what we currently have into a new place. FYI: I plan on using Martha Stewart’s technique for moving, which should also make moving much less stressful (I absolutely love Martha!).

One thing that might surprise a lot of you is that we’re not really planning on downsizing when we move, and in fact will probably (hopefully) be getting into a significantly larger place. I have my eye on a beautiful historic home about 20 minutes from where I currently live that’s probably around 4,000 square feet (just a guess, it could be bigger). I’m thinking that while all that space is going to be great for entertaining, if I don’t make my life a bit more minimalistic, it’s just going to end up incredibly cluttered and hard to keep clean!

So, back on topic, I’m thinking about trying to get down to only 100 things during this vacation. But, it’s a bit complicated. Do I count my Moleskines as one thing or a bunch of things (I currently carry four with me and have three more at home that I use)? What about the legal pads I use for my creative writing (I just started a novel earlier this week and have written 14 pages so far!)? And my pens (I carry 7 in my bag and have a bunch of others around the house)? I’m definitely thinking that my books should only count as one thing, otherwise I’d easily exceed my 100 things by 200 or more things! Should I count furniture? Bedding? Is a set of sheets one thing or four (flat sheet, fitted sheet and two pillow cases)? I use two pillows and so does my husband, is that four things, two things, or one thing? Do each of my dogs count (I have two) and my cat? Or are they considered family members? And if they’re family, do each of them get 100 things? If they do, can I use that to cheat and say that all of the furniture counts as their things instead of mine (after all, they’re on the furniture at least as much as I am)? Do vehicles count? Tools?

It’s a lot to think about. I guess before I actually start getting rid of stuff I have to decide what’s going to be included. I’ll keep this updated, and would appreciate anyone’s opinions about what should or shouldn’t be included.

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Burnout effects everyone. I get close to burnout at least once a year (if not more often), and it can be difficult to prevent it from happening. But, I’ve got some strategies to share that tend to pull me out of the cycle pretty effectively.

Take a break.
Depending on how severe your burnout is getting, taking an afternoon or a day off can do wonders. The main catch is that you can’t do ANY work during that time off. That means put your laptop away, turn your phone off (or unplug it), and basically forget that you even have a job/business/etc.

Take a vacation.
This is a bit different than a day off, as what I’m talking about requires actually leaving your house or other place of business for at least a couple days.

Work in bursts.
Working in bursts helps to free up large portions of your day for things other than work. Make a to-do list at the beginning of your day and then work in short bursts with breaks in between until everything on your to-do list is done. This works especially well if you’re self-employed or telecommute. But even if you work in an office for someone else, you can adapt this to your work schedule (the key is to generally look like you’re busy…or you can always pretend to be on a conference call or in deep thought).

Bonus: When all else fails, do a forced burnout: just load up on coffee (iced mint mocha latte’s are my favorite), and work until you absolutely can’t work anymore, and then you’ll crash for a couple of days and be completely non-functional, but you’ll feel surprisingly better afterward.

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Ah, the zone. Everyone’s got one. It’s that place you go where you reach peak productivity and creativity. Where ideas just flow from your head, and you can accomplish insane amounts of work in next to no time. I’m one of those people who has a hard time getting into the zone, but once I’m there can stay in the zone for a week or better (problem is it only really naturally happens once every couple years or so). Seriously, I’ve written entire screenplays, with edits, in four days. But, I’ve been working on ways to “force” myself into the zone.

Here’s what I’ve found that (sometimes) works for me:

Just do something. It can be anything that’s remotely related to what you’re actually trying to do. Say you’re trying to write the next great American novel…start out by writing a short story, write what a day in the life of your main character is like, write about something related to your actual story, but not part of the actual story. If you still can’t get started, then read something similar (or not similar) instead. Sometimes the act of doing something will put you in the zone to actually do it; sometimes it doesn’t and you just end up with a lot of really, really bad writing (or whatever else it is you’re trying to do).

Don’t do anything. Just sit there and tell yourself that you’re not going to do anything until you’re in the zone. If you’re at work, just sit there and look like you’re thinking intently about something, and generally people will leave you alone for a little while at least.

Take a nap. Kinda related to “Don’t do anything”, but a little bit different. Just sleep for a bit. Sometimes this will get you into the right mood to get into the zone, but you generally have to follow it up with a second step by doing something else on this list.

Take a shower. Maybe this one just works for me, but I get these insanely good ideas in the shower. I really don’t know what it is about it. And I can usually expand on the ideas for an unlimited amount of time (or as long as I have hot water). The problem is that I don’t have any way to record the ideas, and I usually shower late at night right before bed, so I generally just jot things down when I get out of the shower and don’t attempt to stay in the zone. This is actually the way I came up with the idea for the title of this blog…it came to me in the shower. I think if I invested in a waterproof voice recorder I’d probably be able to expand on ideas a bit better and regain the enthusiasm later when I have access to my laptop.

Don’t sleep for two days. Sometimes sleep deprivation can give you a whole new outlook. While two days might be a bit extreme, try staying up until 3 am and then doing whatever it is you need to do. The summer after my sophomore year in high school, I decided to do the three required courses for my junior year so that I could skip right ahead to being a senior (I had already skipped sixth grade, so it meant graduating two years early). I would stay up late, sometimes until 3 or 4 in the morning and do my schoolwork then. I ended up with a 93 in English and a 98 in U.S. History. I would get into the zone at around midnight and work for three or four hours straight and then crash and go to bed. It worked great for me! It wouldn’t have worked if I had needed to get up in the morning, since usually I slept in until around 10 or 11.

Change your surroundings. Sometimes a change of venue is all you need. Go to a friend’s house to work, work in your backyard if you usually don’t, or drive to the ocean, a lake, or the mountains and work from there (seems you can find a wi-fi connection just about anywhere these days, so even if you need to stay connected, it’s still totally do-able).

Turn it into a competition. Call your arch-enemy (you do have one, don’t you?) and propose a competition. Challenge them to do whatever it is you’re trying to do, with something really awful (embarrassing is preferable) for the person that loses. Sometimes the fear of defeat (and public humiliation) is just the motivation you need.

Hope that this helps you to get in the zone. If anyone has additional ways they’d like to share, comment away!

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