I have a real fondness for this verse of the Tao Te Ching. When I remember to follow it, my projects seem to flow along with amazing ease. 

One of my favorite authors/celebrity personalities today is organizational guru Peter Walsh.  You may have seen this amazing man on TLC's Clean Sweep, or perhaps during one of his many guest appearances on The Oprah Winfrey show. Peter Walsh is an organizational dynamo.  He can enter a cluttered house that looks painfully like a war zone, and within a matter of days produce a home that is lovely, functional and clutter free. Walsh's entire organizational philosophy is based on the concept of keeping things small & simple. And he adheres to this concept unfailingly, time and time again.

Of course, we don't all have a Peter Walsh (or his team of professional declutterers) to help us purge our junk!  But, his philosophy & the basic steps he follows on Clean Sweep can be applied to our homes as well.  The actions are the same.  True, our homes may take somewhat longer than a few days to complete, but the results will be the same if we continue to follow Walsh's proven method, step-by-step, one small task at a time. (If you're thinking about purging your own clutter but have not idea where to begin, I encourage you to pick up a copy of It's All Too Much, by Peter Walsh.)

I followed Walsh's approach when I tackled my own spring cleaning this year.  Actually, I'm not sure you can call it spring cleaning, since deep-cleaning my home was my New Year's Resolution and I actually did begin the job on January 1^st!

I started with the basement. (Yes, I can be very brave at times.) My basement is the room in my home that tends to collect the most clutter. Believe me, if I had even entertained the notion of tackling that entire lower level in one cleaning session, I'm certain I would have thrown up my hands in surrender, turned around and jogged right back up those stairs!  Instead, I decided to divide the entire space into separate, more manageable zones - the laundry room, the household storage area, the TV/Nintendo area, the holiday storage area, and the cedar closet.  Then I separated each area into smaller chunks, and I jumped right into decluttering - shelf by shelf, box by box -- one small segment at a time. I set a time limit of 10-20 minutes each day to work on 'operation basement,' as that was truly all the time I had to spare since I had to keep up with my other responsibilities, and let's face it -- who wants to spend all day cleaning a messy basement anyway? As you can imagine, at the 10-20 minute per day rate the basement was not completed in a day or even in a week.  Five weeks later, however, I had managed to retain my sanity, and the entire basement looked terrific! I had accomplished my first major decluttering project. And what a sense of accomplishment I felt! 

But enough about clutter! Keeping things small and simple can apply to any areas of life. Here's another suggestion we recently shared within the Living a Peaceful Life group. Try it if you feel so inclined (or create your own version of this challenge) and see if you don't notice some positive changes in your life.

*You promised yourself you'd take better care of yourself in 2008 by burning some calories exercising. But, good intentions aside, you just can't motivate yourself to take that 30-minute brisk walk you'd planned to take every morning. Now, in the spirit of keeping thing small and simple, try breaking the goal down. Can you start with a 10-minute walk in the morning? After you've accomplished that objective for a week or two, maybe you can add a 10-minute lunchtime walk to your day. In another week or so, you might decide to end your day with another 10-minute walk around the neighborhood or on the treadmill.  And there you have it! Mission accomplished! 

As you work toward your goal, keep track of the tasks you accomplish along the way - and don't forget to reward yourself. (After decluttering my basement cedar closet. which involved recycling lots of old clothing, I bought myself a gorgeous silk scarf as a well-deserved reward.) By focusing on small, incremental steps, we can celebrate victories along the way. And that sense of accomplishment is very important to our morale as we strive to achieve any goal.
 
The Taoist message is simple - by focusing on the small and simple we can paradoxically produce big results! 

Nancy Pritchard is the Facilitator for the monthly Tao Study Group, 'Living a Peaceful Life' at The Healing Way. The group meets the first Thursday of each month from 7 - 8 pm. For the date of their next meeting see the online calendar of events.

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© 2008, Nancy Pritchard