How Will You Celebrate Earth Hour?

World Wildlife Fund is inspired to raise awareness about climate change for the earth and its inhabitants. And they’ve found a powerful way to involve each and every one of us. It’s called Earth Hour. On Saturday, March 28^th 8:30 local time, the world will be shutting off the lights, TV, computer and any other non-essential gadgets and appliances that we usually have plugged into the grid. For one hour we can all power down electronically and power up consciously.

“What’s the big deal”, you might ask. The World Wildlife Fund acknowledges that Earth Hour is not going to save the planet. It’s a symbolic event to raise awareness. Participating in last year’s Earth Hour had a lot of impact for me. As I went around my home with kids in tow, turning off and unplugging to prepare for an hour without power, our family became more aware of how far our reliance on electricity really goes. We, like so many others, have the privilege of being able to access electricity at the flick of a switch, and that can lead to taking something so powerful for granted. So, the big deal about Earth Hour is really about how making a small change can have a big impact on our awareness.

One hour. That’s pretty small. The amazing thing is that one hour multiplied by 10 million (that’s how many people in Canada alone participated last year) easily turns into something pretty big.

So what is one to do with an hour in the dark?

Good question! Our candle lit hour was spent listening to the observations of a seven year old. There was no need to plan a thing. Her comments about electricity and questions about the sounds of the house (now audible without the background noise of the TV) made for a memorable and enlightening experience. Of course there are lots of ways to spend the hour like:

• taking a soak and splash during a candle lit bath
• organizing a jam session – singing acapella or with acoustic accompaniment
• hosting a pot luck party in the dark with foods that require no heating
• enjoying the silence and stillness and just being – what a nice change of pace
  
  

As the hour drew to a close, I remember feeling a bit sad. The hour in the dark brought us together around that single candle. We re-focused, we relaxed, we laughed. Did it take a world wide initiative to remind us that powering down could be such a good idea? Guess so. One simple little act with an immeasurable impact.

Enjoy your Earth Hour in whatever way you choose to celebrate it.

Adventures in De-cluttering – Leaping Over Old Electronics?

The de-cluttering journey begins, and I’m really glad I started with something that's easy to release. Cell phones with dead batteries, old computer towers and out-dated audio equipment was not so hard to part with after I found ways to recycle and re-purpose my trash.

When you consider how often we upgrade our technological devices, it’s mind-boggling to think about how much space they could take up in the landfill. The plastics and batteries also contain some nasty chemicals that we really don’t want leaching into our soil and water. Thankfully, manufacturers and consumers are taking more action to reuse and recycle electronic trash rather than simply tossing it in the garbage. Reducing would be another good practice to get into. That involves buying products that are not considered “disposable”, because cheap comes with a high price when we consider the waste it creates.

My search for places to share and recycle electronic goods lead me to lots of interesting sources. There are non-profit groups making use of second-hand equipment; government programs for recycling and sustainability; and retailers receiving the old, worn out stuff they once sold in it’s shiny, new state. To find out more check out:

• My Eco Ville - an on-line destination for local recycling and sustainability information. Just type in your province or state and the links to local resources (public and private sector) appear before your eyes.
  
  
• Freecycle - a great site for giving your electronic stuff away. Go to their site to find a group in your community. After you’ve joined, you can post pretty much anything to give away. And the best part is your treasures will be picked up right at your door!
  
  
• Call2Recycle is a link to recycling retailers in your area. Type in your zip/postal code and they’ll even tell you the distance between you and the stores.
  
  
• And finally, a great “how to” article for leads on everything from wiping your computer memory clean to finding out which retailers recycle which products.
  

A word of caution must accompany this adventure. Be prepared to:

• try, try again – I posted my old printer on freecycle. No one wanted it. Then I found the Lexmark Recycling Program (insert your brand of printer along with “recycling program” into Google to find out more about your printer options) but learned that recycling involved mailing it out of the country at my expense. I chalked it up to a sign of the times. We’re doing much better at recycling but we’re not perfect yet.
  
  
• learn and teach simultaneously – Before hauling my bag of no-longer-working goods to the local recycling sources, I decided to phone them up and make sure they were still participating in the program. Turns out that a fair number of retail employees don’t know about their company’s recycling programs. My simple little query of “does your store have a cell phone (or other gadget) recycling service” was often met by a long pause followed by being transferred to people in different departments who might just have the answer. The cool thing was that each employee seemed really interested and wanted to find out more information for me. So get used to being a bit of a public service announcement when you make your calls.

• trade junk for coupons – Even though it was tough to unload my worn out printer, the ink cartridges can be recycled and Office Depot will give an in-store credit for every cartridge. Works for me!
  
  And the best part of all? The guy I spoke with seemed to have a passion for recycling. My printer dilemma was solved when he said – as if talking me out of jumping off a cliff - “we’ll take it and figure out how to recycle it…just don’t throw it in the garbage!” I wonder if his recycling-hero-cape was blowing in the wind behind him as he rescued me and my broken down pile of plastic.

And so, I’m off to a good start. Recycling electronics cleared some physical space and made me laugh. And the trip through the house to unearth all the broken, worn out, no-longer-needed items didn’t take much time at all.

So what do you say? Will you give yourself a day or a week (or whatever feels like the right amount of time) to lighten your load of electronic clutter? Great! And then send me an email to keep me posted on your adventure.

Have fun and let it go!

Yours On Purpose,
Tara

What’s in the Way of Your Inspired Journey?

A reoccurring theme has been popping up lately and it’s getting too big to ignore. Whether it’s a matter of tripping over toys, losing that crucial phone number in the stack of paper or needing a helmet and safety harness to get over the boxes in the basement, the story’s the same. We got way to much stuff! And the worst part it is that the stuff is getting in the way of our happiness!

How the heck did we get here?

Okay, I’m not really going to take the time to answer that question because I’m pretty sure that’s not the path to happiness either. What I’m more interested in focusing on is how to deal with the clutter so that we can all make a little more space and time for meaning and purpose in everyday life.

As I sit here at my desk – which I will admit has a few too many papers on it, and look around the room that is in no way organized to its potential – I know I’m not alone in thinking that this whole clutter thing has become a serious issue. I know this because I recently did a survey of my email list and found out that some people didn’t have time to spend on inspired projects because their time and space was cluttered with other, less meaningful stuff. Then I had lunch with a friend (who I’ve always considered to be organized beyond belief) and found out that she too is overrun by every kind of clutter a family can create. My final straw occurred while standing in line at the grocery store, listening to the woman in front of me talk on her cell phone about the mess she had to go home to. As I overheard her confession of strategically hiding piles of papers under the coach just so she could feel some sense of peace and comfort in her living room, I was struck by just how far we all are going to deal with the material items we’ve surrounded ourselves with.

All this stuff is creating a road block between us and the experiences we long for in life. We’re living and working in spaces that are cluttered, and how are we supposed to feel inspired, creative and happy in that kind of environment? And the more we have, the more we have to take care of, so our time is spent cleaning, fixing, upgrading, storing and tripping over stuff.

We all need help!

Trouble is that the likelihood of us all getting a de-cluttering coach to come over and help us sort through our poor decisions is slim to none. And as nice as the rooms look at the end of each Clean Sweep episode, I’m guessing there’s a heck of a lot of physical and emotional work involved in going from chaos to clean and organized in the span of two days. If you’ve got a Peter Walsh to help you out, way to go! If not, what are you going to do to deal with what’s in the way of your inspired journey?

I think I may have a plan – well, actually an adventure. I’ve got stuff in my house I no longer need and it’s not adding to my happiness quotient. My life is full, so taking a weekend to unearth, toss, donate and reorganize it all is highly unlikely. And I’m not even going to do it room by room, because that tends to cause the clutter to find a new home somewhere else in the house. Here’s what my de-cluttering adventure looks like:

• de-clutter by category – old and unused electronics go first (it’s and easy place to start because I have no emotional attachment to a cordless phone with a dead battery)

• let go in eco-friendly ways – tossing the excessive contents of my house in the landfill is just not an option for me. I’m building in time to find out where I can share, sell and recycle what I no longer want.

• be gentle – it took me a while to get cluttered and it’s going to take me a little while to reverse that. I’m all about gentle and effective plans of action. This de-cluttering experiment is going to be added into an already full life, so drastic action is not the order of the day.

• make it fun – I’m planning to enlist the help of others and turn on the music. And it goes without saying that de-cluttering becomes a bit more divine while eating chocolate.

So, there you go. A de-cluttering adventure with a strategy coach along for the journey. Now all you have to do is join me for the adventure. I’ll share what I learn along the way and you can too!

I wonder what we’ll be doing a month from now when our collective loads are that much lighter?

Yours On Purpose,
Tara