At the beginning of a 12 month, 12 week or 24 hour planning cycle, decide what is to be prioritized and make those tasks non-negotiable. Setting the decisions from the start clears out the clutter of hanging around ideas, thoughts and to-do’s at least until the given cycle is over.

Strategize your time and energy to achieve the goals you set out. A thing to remember is to be realistic about what you can accomplish in the amount of time you’ve given yourself, I believe this is a skill formed and refined with time and doing.

Less Is More

I’ve always believed in the ‘less is more’ motto and I’m really learning that enormous potential is held in those three little words.

Keeping too many choices available in what we’ll call your planning cycle or ‘production period’ creates scatter, clutter, can cause confusion, distraction and dissatisfaction.

Narrowing down the most important choices, or tasks, by priority for that period will give you clear mental space to move forward. Once you’ve decided what tasks are on your list, set the other ones aside until you have completed the current high priority tasks.

Priority First

Once you’ve decided which tasks hold top priority for the production period, complete them before moving on.  No adding tasks until current ones are complete and no skipping prioritized tasks.  Make it non-negotiable to change your mind, or switch tasks.  

If you hold to the integrity of your plan, you will begin to move forward in leaps and bounds, ticking off the tasks that stand between the current you and the future self that you’ve set out to be. Once your cycle is planned, keep to it.  

Case Study:  Starting to Meditate

Let’s return to the idea that we have a limited amount of decision making ability in a day.  How do we declutter our minds?  

Set a goal. Let’s say you’ve decided your future self is someone who meditates daily while your current self doesn’t meditate at all.  Make the decision to meditate 3x a week for 5 minutes a day for the next 12 weeks. Done – decision is made, now set the tasks to accomplish that goal.

Pick three days of the week to set your alarm to go off 10 minutes earlier, your alarm goes off and you get up.  The decision was already made, it’s non-negotiable that you’re getting up.

You’re not spending that very precious choice making energy deciding if you’re going to get up or not.  You are also not deciding the night before whether to watch one more show or read one more page or fold one more load of laundry.  You know you are getting up earlier to meditate so in your best interest you are going to bed earlier.  

You have decluttered that mental battle of choices already, pulling that future self of you, who meditates that much more into the now.

Declutter Your Space, Free Your Mind

Same thing goes with the physical clutter in your space. What we “see” passes through our mind. If we are constantly looking at and picking up physical clutter, we waste precious decision making energy on what to do with the object and where to put it.  

Have less things and have a home for everything. When things are out and need to be put away you know exactly what to do with them and don’t have think about it.  Even picking one day a week where you do laundry will save the mental energy of deciding whether to do laundry that day.

Organizing your home and work schedule will save you time and choice making energy for the more impactful decisions like ‘what are the habits my future self has and what are the next action steps I need to take to get there?’

Decide Once

Planning ahead keeps you on track by avoiding distractions and wasting time.  You know what your priorities are and when you’re doing them.  As other tasks or projects arise, you can see if they’ll easefully fit into the current cycle, if not then they can be put aside until you are planning the next cycle.    

For example, let’s say you’re planning your weekly schedule.  Sundays is your kitchen sadhana, Tuesdays you do all your  laundry, Wednesdays you work on your blog, and mondays, wednesdays, fridays you go to the pool.  It’s best to get even more specific with adding time to all these events.  That way when something comes up, you look at your calendar and see if it will easily fit.  If not, you look into the next week.  This can be done on a micro and macro level, daily and yearly calendars.  The same principles apply.

Start to Declutter Your Choices Today

Decluttering choices sets you on the path to automation which further declutters choices, putting you on a beautiful upward evolutionary spiral in the direction you are aiming to go.

Just as we automate our self care daily habits such as meditation, movement, and mealtimes in Body Thrive so the energy and time isn’t spent on deciding. Automate your housework and business routines to free up time and energy for you to evolve into the next version of yourself you’d like to be.

Share in the comments below your first priority to schedule into your week to free up your mental capacity. Sharing with the community will help get it done and keep you on track.

Plants are producers, they make their own food using energy and materials from their environment.  Humans are consumers, we cannot make our own food from within.

These life producers are here to nourish us in many ways. Take a look at what happens when you make a green smoothie or green juice to start your day. Hemoglobin, a protein found in our red blood cells, carries oxygen from our lungs to the cells of our body. Chlorophyll, a pigment found in plants, produces oxygen. Hemoglobin and chlorophyll are only one molecule away from each other. Hemoglobin is organized around iron while chlorophyll is organized around magnesium and because they are so similar when ingested, chlorophyll helps do the job of hemoglobin. Meaning, more plants equals more oxygen to our cells. You’re green smoothie or green juice in the morning is allowing you to bathe your cells in fresh, nourishing oxygen.

Plants live in sync with nature, they live by the laws of nature and respect the cycles of the seasons. We should not think we are so special to live outside of these laws of nature ourselves. Our plant friends are here to thrive and help us live in sync with the season and thrive too. Take a look at what the plants are offering us as they grow in sync with the seasons.

Plant Nourishment Through the Seasons

Spring Growth

Spring is the season of Kapha, it’s a time of new beginnings and nourishment as seeds are planted.  The seed and earth contain Kapha energy from the hibernation of winter which is heavy, moist, stable and grounded.

As the season progresses Pitta begins to fill the earth and air, the sun comes around stronger adding the qualities of light, hot, mobile and liquid giving the seed the transformative energy to take root and then to sprout.

The sprout holds massive energy, it’s dense with nutrients and new life energy.  Sprouts by weight are the most nutritious food you can eat. They hold 300x more nutrients than any other part of the plant. That is the dense and nurturing energy of Kapha.  

Summer Gifts

Summer is the season of Pitta, in the peak of summer qualities are hot, sharp, liquid and mobile. The sprout that started in a Kapha stage uses the energy of Pitta to move from the root up toward the sun, into the stalk and leaves which provide us with oxygen rich nutrients.

In mid summer when greens are their leafiest is the best time for us to take advantage of this gift of oxygen and chlorophyll that the plants offer. If the plant is fruit, vegetable or flower bearing this is it’s time to reach its full expression of Pitta; colourful and beautiful.  

Fall Balance

Fall is the season of Vata, bringing the elements of dry, light, cold and mobile into play.  At this time if the seed is a root vegetable the energy starts to move downwards back into the moist, heavy and dense earth producing our plant meals.  

Root vegetables thrive in the dirt so they hold those qualities of dense, heavy, moist and grounding. In this Vata time of year, taking in foods that hold the qualities of heavy, dense, moist and grounding will help us keep our heads, feet and (bowel movements) where (and when) they should be.  

Winter Restore

Come winter, activity in nature slows right down, almost to what seems to be a stop. This is nature’s cycle of rest and restore. To recharge for the energy of new life in spring.  Ideally up until late winter we are still eating the nourishing, dense, warm, heavy, moist and grounding foods that fall harvest brought to keep Vata energy in balance and grounded.  

Once late winter arrives we begin feel the energy of Kapha arise which brings on the qualities of heavy, moist, stable and nurturing. It’s time to start the cycle all over again.  If we follow the cycle of nature and eat what the plants are offering we will thrive in our bodies and minds like the effortless thriving of our ecosystem.

If you are ready to thrive in your body, then start by taking a look around you.  What season are you in?  What plants are readily producing food for you to eat?  The plants are trying to nourish you – are you listening?

Click here for an Ayurveda Fall Cleanse Stew