It sounds simple, but it has a profound effect on my mind, heart and effectiveness! I’ve noticed that every project, cycle, activity, and event has a start, a middle and an end. Like a good book, before I open it, I make sure I have time to read it, considering the possibility that I might have another “book” to finish before I start another one.
I’m beginning this blog series at the end: closure. My motto these days is to stop starting and start finishing. I used to move on from a focus without bringing things to a close. And while I still haven’t mastered the art of completions, I am much more inclined to take what I do to closure before shifting focus. A simple example is: yesterday I sorted the wrapping drawer to a higher level of organization and put everything away before I started another task.
Christmas (and other seasonal holidays) can illuminate how much we’ve grown and where we still need to grow. This Christmas I enjoyed the pleasure of having my world less cluttered than ever before and was able to enliven the spirit with minimal frustration. And yet, there were still things I could have used that I discovered the day after Christmas, things I had to search for, things that took longer than they might have because I still have room to grow.
So part of closing out Christmas and preparing for a New Year is learning from what went well and what could have gone better, and creating tasks and checklists for next year. I’ll tell you how I’m doing this on a technical level in tomorrow’s post.