The Power of Pull Beats the Pressure of Push

Inbox Update

Pull beats push any time. Attraction beats coercion. I’m experiencing that at continuously deeper levels as my Lean2Life Reorganizational Journey continues.

One of the best Lean moves I have made was setting Outlook to send emails to spam until I whitelist them. I check spam regularly, and set up rules for my subscriptions and newsletters to go to my “subscriptions” folder. I clear the rest of my non-spam to go to my Inbox.

How’s that working for me? GREAT!!! Better than I imagined! Why did I wait so long to do this?! It is so much easier to move a few non-spams from my junk folder than to delete all the spam I was getting from my inbox. 

The Lean reason this works so well is that my inbox now only has what I have pulled into it. The emails that have been pushed on to me are in a separate folder for my review when I choose to look.  

I started this process with an empty inbox and only invite what I want in there. I am the master of my inbox now, not the other way around. 

Starting with Empty

My friend Wendy emptied out her bedroom for painting. She had a great time resetting her room from scratch – starting with an empty room. 

The Liberty of Having the House to Myself

So this weekend, I had the liberty of having the house to myself. That meant I could be as loud, messy, goofy – you name it – as I wanted. I stayed home and dedicated the weekend to sorting myself and a main closet.

I started the closet sorting item by item. I got a little traction, but quickly realized I needed to take everything out. When I made the decision to sort that way, I felt my energy and enthusiasm increase, despite the fact that it was a very big job.

Within an hour, half the house looked like a bomb had exploded – but the target closet was bare.

I did make one trip to the store to buy modular storage drawers. Enroute, I wondered if what I really needed was another closet rod for a new level of hanging items. Bob had often suggested that I could have one installed if I wanted, but I was concerned about investing in something I might not like.

An Experiment

As I drove to the store, I noticed the clothes bar in the back of the car and wondered if I could experiment with that. I hung it from the upper rod with twine. I hung a few things on it. Then I hung a few more. I liked it. A lot. As I got deeper into the process, I expanded the clothes bar. Later, I expanded it a little more. I found what seems to be the perfect width. 

The modular storage containers went back to the store, but the trip wasn’t a waste. I found what I needed in my own backseat. 

Would I have added the bar if I hadn’t made the trip? I don’t know.

I do know that the power of pull beats the pressure of push any day. 

Bob and I both know that the more free we feel from external push, the more pull we find – and the less patience we have with push in our lives. It’s a liberating thing – and it works. 

PS – You know the divider line I have at the bottom of my posts? That’s in my images. I have to open three folders to get to it. Just now, I put a copy of it in the folder my web content manager opens to. A quick improvement to save myself a few steps. That’s Lean!

dark-purple-divider-line

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