Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope that your week has gone well and you have a lovely weekend planned. It has been a busy week here, but I’m looking forward to some relaxing this weekend as well as participating in Welcome Day on Saturday to welcome admitted students to our campus. Today, however, I want to talk a bit about spring cleaning, since it is spring. I happen to enjoy cleaning up in spring, but today I want to talk a bit about taking the time to spring clean your mind.
Just as people begin to lace up their running shoes and dust off their hiking boots in spring to jump start exercise routines and shake out rugs and tidy up the house in spring, I think spring is a great time to also take stock of cleaning our minds. By this, I mean thinking about what habits, self-talk, and attitudes are hurting us that we need to clean out and what habits and attitudes we would like to cultivate to help ourselves and others. I know I have habits and attitudes that help me while others hinder my ability to be the best person that I want to be. And spring, with its lovely flowers and longer days seems like an ideal time, seasonally, to take stock and commit to a bit of brain cleaning.
One of things that I personally want to take advantage of is harnessing creative thinking, both at work and outside of work. I enjoyed Lifehacker’s article on how to cultivate a creative thinking habit. It is nice to know that we don’t have to be “born creative geniuses” but instead can practice being creative and go from there. I’ve found writing more and making time for more reading outside of the library and archives world has definitely increased my creative thinking. It also helps that my husband majored in creative writing and always helps me ponder how things in life could end up in a story or what we could do that would be interesting or surprising. It makes life more interesting, too.
One of the habits that I really need to break is worrying about things. Worrying doesn’t help, creates stress, and all this other stuff, which I tell myself every time I start worrying and doesn’t help all the time. So I’m making the conscious effort to spring clean my worry, not that it will all go away, and enjoy and try to spread calm. This second article from Lifehacker is a good read if you want to cultivate some good brain habits: how being humble, kind, and calm will make your life easier. And really, who doesn’t want an easier life?
I hope you have a wonderful weekend, dear readers, filled with as much cleaning, relaxation, and good times as you would like. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!