How to enhance your space with Feng Shui

A clear and calm mind can be strongly influenced by our living space. If you are wanting to work on yourself, release things, or invite a sense of freedom into your life, read the article below on feng shui in the home. You may find that even small changes can make a big difference to your day -to-day life.

What is feng shui?

Feng shui is the Chinese practice that focuses on balancing and harmonising the energies in your home, office, and life to reflect your emotional self. Aligning the energy of your environment with your own is easier than you think, take it step by step and it is believed that this will unlock the flow of energy to help you lead a more balanced life.

The feng shui elements

Create balance and vibrancy in your life by consciously channelling the energies of the five feng shui elements.

1. Water

2. Metal

3. Fire

4. Wood

5. Earth

Bagau

Bagau (also called ba-gua or pakua) is the feng shui energy map, it helps you identify areas in your home and how they are connected to specific areas of your life, but also is a guide on the appropriate shapes and colours for each room. The Chinese translation is “8 areas” which it is believed amount to one’s health and happiness.

The eight areas of the feng shui bagau are:

• Health & Family

• Wealth & Abundance

• Fame & Reputation

• Love & Marriage

• Creativity & Children

• Helpful People & Blessings

• Career & Path in Life

• Spiritual Growth & Cultivation

The rules of feng shui for home placement

• Slopes can create negative chi, so avoid homes on a slope of 45 degrees or more.

• Avoid building near power stations as they generate energy and can create energy chaos resulting in negative chi.

• A home with views over a cemetery is considered bad energy as a cemetery is a place of death.

• Don't buy or build a home close to a junk-dumping site as the clutter can have a negative effect on chi.

• The layout of the street in relationship to your home can either carry positive or negative chi to you.

How to use feng shui in your home

When it comes to your home the “feng shui trinity” – your bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen – has the utmost importance for your health and wellbeing.

1. The entry to your home should be inviting and clear of clutter. Feng shui experts concur that your whole house should be clutter-free and contain only the essentials. This will help declutter your mind and allow you to focus.

2. Keep the garden well maintained and tidy.

3. Create “chi” in your backyard by using curves – straight lines are rarely present in nature.

4. Put away coats and shoes in your entry hallway so that energy can circulate.

5. Airflow is key to creating positive energy in the home. Open your windows often and use an air purifier to keep your home fresh.

6. Bring wealth into your home by placing a plant and a light either side of the front door.

7. For uplifting positive energy, place a mirror above a table with fresh flowers.

8. Choose your art carefully, as images carry strong energy. Choose images that are happy and beautiful. Avoid using images that feature lonely or solo people or items.

9. Keep your space clear of clutter. It will keep the energy in your home light and harmonious.

10. Allow as much natural light into your home as possible. During the day use candles and lamps to illuminate dark spaces which represent areas of neglect in certain aspects of your life.

11. Create clutter-free benchtops. Like most other spaces, clutter is a no-go in the kitchen. Use simple storage solutions to help save space so you will have larger workspaces to utilise.

12. Herb gardens add a sense of calm and beauty to a kitchen.

13. It is bad feng shui to have the bathroom and kitchen doors facing each other. When two doors are opposite each other it is said that the energies flow faster in and out – the same goes for your front and back door.

14. Your sofa, coffee table, and entertainment units should not be disproportionally large in your living room. All of the furniture should work in harmony. When it comes to the arrangement there is no right or wrong answer, but your sofa should be pushed up against a wall.

15. A mix of shapes in your living room is important. Opt for a circular coffee table with a rectangular lounge and add in other round, oval and square items to help balance out the room.

16. To encourage the flow of wealth, place a lamp in the corner of your room diagonally opposite the room’s entry.

17. In public (yang) spaces, bring energy to the room through the calculated use of colour. Deep blue and eggplant are energising colours and red is invigorating.

18. To optimise energy in the dining room place a large mirror reflecting the table as it is said to bring good fortune and abundance. Although make sure you hang it high enough so guests aren’t looking at themselves.

19. Don’t let your dining table become a place of neglect as they often become the household “dumping ground.” Clear the clutter and create an appealing environment you don’t forget about.

20. People don’t like sitting with their backs to open doorways and windows, position your dining table so people have their back to a wall. This will help them feel safe and comfortable.

21. You should always keep something on the dining table – fruit is a great choice. Apples help develop friendship, pears attract positive energy, peaches represent good health, and oranges symbolise richness and prosperity.

22. Crystals are a huge part of feng shui which is why chandeliers make a great addition. The reflective metals in the chandeliers will help the space feel calmer.

23. When it comes to the bedroom layout, place your bed against a solid wall where you can view your main door.

24. Importantly, avoid placing mirrors opposite the bed, as arguments will be amplified.

25. Try and avoid having electricals running behind your bed, look for a battery-operated alarm clock – keeping your phone out of your bedroom is a non-negotiable!

26. If you have a painting above your bed, hang it high and choose something that will elevate your mood. Think calm colours and soft shapes.

27. Keep all bedroom doors closed at night, including wardrobe doors.

28. Avoid clutter and storage under the bed, as you'll absorb the energy whilst sleeping.

29. Clear your bedroom of the TV, computer or exercise equipment. These items introduce the energy of work and stress into a space that should be relaxing and harmonious.

30. Make your space warm and inviting with soft and cosy textures. Add symmetry with table lamps and matching bedside tables to create a bookended effect, then your bed will feel like a room within a room.

31. Don’t use red in your room – it is very yang and can affect your quality of sleep, or ability to actually get to sleep.

32. Don’t place plants in your bedroom unless it’s a large space, and keep them as far away from the bed as possible.

33. Keep your bathroom clean. We’re not saying you need to squeegee your bathroom from top to bottom each day, but keeping it clutter-free will help. Select the bare necessities, look for earth-friendly products and keep it orderly and neat.

34. When it comes to bathrooms, the colour white and other light colours are great choices as they are fresh and body-friendly. The colour white also helps cut through confusion, slowness and delays which helps purify and cleanse. Avoid the colours blue and black (water element colours) and images of water as these will strengthen the energy you want to control.

35. To avoid draining wealth energy in the bathroom, keep toilet lids down and keep the door shut. Plants can help improve the feng shui.

36. Always position your desk or working spaces with a view rather than a solid wall. This hinders creativity.

37. Improve the quality of air in the home or office by introducing plants, foliage, and flora. Plants will improve concentration and increase positive energy, concentration, and innovative thinking while reducing stress.

38. Crystals will break electrical waves transmitted by computers, software, phones, and technical devices. Neutralise negative energy by positioning them next to water throughout the office or the home.

39. Colour plays an important role when it comes to feng shui: gold promotes prosperity, silver represents security, and red is for wealth. Attract desired outcomes by introducing suitable colours into your space.  

40. Retain the essence of abundance by placing a small water fountain near the main entry door.’

Author: Lottie Dalziel
Original source: https://www.bhg.com.au/how-to-feng-shui

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Tidying your to-do list for mental clarity

Marie Kondo is well known for her life changing methods of tidying and reducing the amount of clutter we have. Whilst decluttering tangible items can have a significant impact on our well-being and modd, so to can decluttering intangible items, such as a to-do list. The article below walks you through the process of managing your to-do list, following the Marie Kondo method. From this, we can hopefully live with more metal clarity and less weight on our minds. Check it out!

Your to-do list should spark joy, not dread.

Your to-do list is an extension of your mind. It’s the spare room where you keep tomorrow’s work tucked away so you can focus on what’s in front of you today.

But just like a spare room, if you don’t regularly tidy up your list, things get cluttered. Instead of being a reliable source of to-dos, it becomes a task in itself to sort through the mess and figure out what to work on next. A tidy task list does more than just improve productivity — it benefits your mental clarity, decision-making, and even your mood.

Taking a cue from Marie Kondo’s excellent The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, you can declutter your task list in the same way she tidies physical belongings: by establishing a few simple, organisational habits.

1. Before you start, visualise your destination

How can you know which tasks are worth doing if you don’t know where you want to go? How will you find the motivation to keep your to-do list clutter-free if you don’t know why you’re decluttering in the first place?

Before touching any clutter, Marie first asks her clients to envision the life they want to achieve by tidying up.

Think in concrete terms so that you can vividly picture what it would be like to live in a clutter-free space.

Or in our case, a clutter-free to-do list. Before you even start looking at your tasks, write down what having a neatly organised and prioritised to-do list would mean for your life. Maybe you want to run a successful business, get in shape, be more present with your family, have closer relationships with friends, or lead a more adventurous life.

Find a medium that lets you truly envision the details. You can describe it in words, mind map it, draw it out, create a Pinterest board, collect Youtube videos, or brainstorm in whatever form suits you.

But don’t stop there. “to prevent rebound you need to move ahead properly, step by step, as you launch into this once-in-a-lifetime event,” Marie says. “Your next step is to identify why you want to live like that.”

Why do you want to get in shape? The answer might be “to have more energy and feel more confident.”  Why do you want to have more energy and feel more confident? Maybe the answer is “to be more fully yourself and stop worrying about what other people think of you.” Ask yourself “why” 3-5 times for every item in your vision. Marie explains the importance of this step to prevent a relapse into messiness:

As you continue to explore the reasons behind your ideal lifestyle, you will come to a simple realisation. The whole point in both discarding and keeping things is to be happy. It may seem obvious, but it is important to experience this realisation for yourself and let it sink into your heart. Before you start tidying, look at the lifestyle you aspire to and ask yourself, “Why do I want to tidy?”

Keep your “why” top-of-mind as you tidy and after by creating a task in your To-do list that represents your final vision. If you have an accompanying document or image, link to it from your task or attach it to your task comments. This is your True North that will help you determine whether a task is worth doing. If you’ve written out an all-encompassing vision, break it down into several goals for each area of your life, and create a task for each.

Use your final goal to keep your tasks aimed in the right direction.

You may want to give your task a recurring due date to review the vision you set out for yourself at the start of each day.

Once you’re clear on why you’re tidying, you’re ready to start tackling the hard decisions of what to keep on your to-do list and what to let go of.

2. Finish discarding first

Think of your task list like a physical space: when it’s crammed with random stuff, it becomes too hard to find the things that you actually need.

Right now, your to-do list may be stuffed with half-baked ideas, empty projects, and tasks you forgot to check off:

Discard first, organise second.

Following Marie’s system, it’s time to do a task inventory.

It’s not just Marie. David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, believes that organising our life is actually a search for mental space: GTD is “more of a space management system.”

Do a complete task inventory

When Marie Kondo arrives at a house to tidy it up, she begins by kneeling on the floor in the centre of the living room to show respect for all of its belongings. From there, she helps her client begin the journey, considering each and every item in turn.

Take the same approach (kneeling optional) and do a full inventory of all the tasks and projects in your To do list. Depending how cluttered your to-do list is, you may want to dedicate a full day or even a weekend to this endeavour. As Marie says, “Tidy a little bit each day and you’ll be tidying forever.”

Remember, this exercise isn’t just about decluttering your to-do list — it’s about cutting away the nonessential so that the only tasks you have left are the ones that bring you closer to the life you want to live. Marie’s famous standard is “does it spark joy?” If the answer is yes, keep it. If not, get rid of it.

For your to-do list, we recommend a slightly different criterion:

As you do your inventory, ask yourself: Does this task bring me closer to the life I want to live?

If the answer is yes, keep it. It not, delete it from your task list.

You’re going to run into tasks that you want to delete, but let’s face it, grunt work is necessary for any significant achievement. Try reframing the tasks that don’t excite you. While “run every day” may feel like a chore, “try to run a 10-minute mile today” may be a more specific and motivating challenge.

Re-frame tasks in ways that make you remember why you want to do them in the first place.

Even Marie concedes that there are items you have to keep even if they don’t spark joy — like important documents.  For work like taking out the trash or doing your taxes, create a separate project called “responsibilities” and pare it down to the things that, while they don’t bring you joy, you just have to do anyway.

This is a good exercise to check in on and see how much of your to-do list are things you get to do vs things you have to do.

Let things go

You may have a tough time letting go of long-standing tasks on your list. Maybe you always envisioned yourself finishing that home renovation project yourself. Or maybe you don’t want to let go of your novel that hasn’t made it past the first chapter (or page). It can feel like giving up on the version of yourself you wanted to be when you added that task or project in the first place.

Marie explains that even unfinished tasks served a purpose. You’ve clarified what you actually care about and why:

Not every person you meet in life will become a close friend or lover. Some you will find hard to get along with or impossible to like. But these people, too, teach you the precious lesson of who you do like, so that you will appreciate those.

Letting go of old tasks and projects teaches you how to create space for what’s important to you now. As you go through your old tasks, acknowledge that there was a purpose when you added it, but it’s no longer relevant to the life you’re striving for today.

Don’t be afraid to delete tasks that are no longer relevant to the life you want to live.

If you just can’t bring yourself to hit delete on a task and banish it from your life forever, you have the option to save it in a temporary project in to-do list. (Marie would strongly disapprove: “Storage is nothing but a cosmetic solution. You must begin by discarding!” But you should do what works best for you.)

If you’re intent on saving tasks, create a project named “Maybe later” and hide it from view by archiving it. You can always come back and unarchive it later.

3. Give every task a place

Ok, you’ve got the right tasks — now it’s time to sort and organise. Similar to Marie’s rule that every physical item should have its place, every task on your to-do list should have its project. Group your tasks together in ways that are intuitive to you.

For instance, if your goal is to get in shape, you could begin with the “fitness” category and create a project with that name. Find every task related to your goal and move those tasks to the project.

Think of each project as a “room” in the life you want to build.

Repeat this for every category until your to-do list is organised into projects. For tasks that don’t fit into any of the categories you’ve identified as important, ask yourself if it still belongs on your to-do list.

Keep your projects visible

At this point, it’s tempting to start creating a bunch of sub-projects that you can hide from view (like seasonal storage), but Marie advises her clients to keep everything visible all year round. Just as seeing every physical object you own keeps you from accumulating too much stuff, seeing every project you’ve committed to can be a helpful reminder to stay focused on what’s important and not let new tasks and projects clutter up your list.

Sequence your tasks

A great way to stay in the flow of a project is to finish one task and immediately move on to the next. Take the time to sequence your tasks in a logical order before you get to work.

Rearrange tasks by dragging the handlebar to the left of each task (Web, Mac, Windows) or tapping, holding, and dragging (iOS, Android) to the right place on the list. You can do the same thing daily while planning your Today view so that all your tasks due today are in the right order.

Drag and drop your tasks into an order that makes sense for you.

Add priorities

There are some tasks that are more essential to your goal than others. Set task priorities to keep track of which is which. Here’s an example of how to evaluate a task’s priority level:

P1 — Must finish.

P2 — Nice to have.

P3 — Finish if there is time available.

P4 — Unnecessary. These may have snuck in through your task inventory. Delete them now.

Use priority levels to automatically order tasks from most to least important.

Give each task a due date

Finally, set a date to complete each task. A handy tip is to make an estimate for how long a task will take to complete, and then double it. It’s be better to overestimate and finish early than to underestimate and finish late. Give each task a due date and schedule repeating tasks with a recurring due date.

Make sure your to-do list “sparks joy”

Aesthetics affect our mindset. When Marie does her inventory, she shows up dressed to the nines. She has carefully picked out every part of her appearance to suit the needs of the day. She takes the same approach to the space she’s reviewing:

“Imagine what it would be like to have a bookshelf filled only with books that you really love. Isn’t that image spellbinding? For someone who loves books, what greater happiness could there be?”

Give you to-do list a style that will to put you in a positive mindset whenever you check in. To borrow Marie’s signature phrase, make your digital task space “spark joy.” Here are a few tips:

• Write clear, specific, and motivating project and task titles. For example, instead of naming your task “go for a jog”, try “take a morning jog through the forest” or “explore a new running route today”

• Add text formatting and emojis to give them life: “take a morning jog through the forest”

• Use a colour theme that matches your style or mood

• Arrange your projects in an intuitive way

• Continually let go of the projects and tasks that don’t excite you

Your to-do list is ready for action.

4. Change your mindset, then your habits

You’ve revamped your task list to be cleaner, simpler, and more aligned with your goals. But don’t expect the work to be finished overnight.

At this point, Marie has noticed that many people, lose faith — “I’m just a messy person!” But that’s not the case. Being tidy is an acquired mindset, she says.

With your to-do list, this translates to asking that essential question for every new task coming into your list: Does it lead to your vision? If not, discard it on the spot. If the answer is yes, add it to the proper spot on your lists.

Of course, unhelpful tasks are bound to sneak in from time to time. Weed them out with a weekly review so you start each week with a clearly prioritised to-do list. Discard tasks that don’t bring you closer to your goals. Organise the spare tasks that have ended up in your inbox into the right projects. Have certain tasks or projects fallen out of line with your goal? Discard those, too.

Finally, check in on your big picture goals every few months. It’s natural for priorities to shift as you grow and learn more about what tasks and projects truly motivate you.

If your goals change, update your “life vision” task to document and do a mini-inventory to re-tidy your list. Over time, the goals that stand the test of time will be valuable to you, and now you’ll have the tools to achieve them in an organised way.

We spend a lot of time in digital spaces. Luckily, we can take a page from Marie Kondo’s ideas about physical space to keep our digital environment — and by extension, our minds and lives — tidy. It’s not just a productivity boost; in a world of constant interruptions and information overload, healthy organisational habits will help you stay balanced and carve out time for the things that bring you joy, all the while making progress towards what matters to you most.

Article author: Neil Vidyarthi
Article source: https://blog.doist.com/life-changing-magic-tidying-todoist/

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