The love of variety is both my blessing and my curse. On the one hand, variety is what keeps me going; I’ve always loved exploring the new stuff, going for change, and seeing what’s next. The other side of variety is that having too many things going at the same time ensures that I get very little accomplished. The lack of forward movement is often very frustrating for me. My entire life has cycled between the motivation of variety and the distraction of variety.
A few weeks ago my sewing instructor was about to help me pin a tricky section on the tailored coat I’m making. I handed her my magnetic pin cushion and she reached in to grab some pins to start the process. While trying to fish out the sewing pins among the safety pins, needles, longer quilting pins, and whatever else was stuck there, she stated “You’ve got too many different things in your pin pot.” I didn’t reply, but handed her a few sewing pins I managed to extract from the mix. She got the pinning done and I sat down to sew.
While sewing I kept thinking about the instructor’s statement and how applicable it is to my entire life. Too many different things in my pin pot. Hmmm. I could see how I might actually have too much going on in my life, and my disorganized pin pot was the telltale sign.
Since that day I’ve been examining where I’ve let too much variety or excess creep into my life and am steadily paring back to the number of activities and possessions that are more aligned with my motivational level of variety. I made a list of what’s on my plate (social calendar, ongoing commitments, projects, etc) and started assessing what was important to me right now, and letting the rest go. I also donated some extra furniture and am reorganizing my house and upgrading a bit. I definitely see some forward movement now, and that feels great. Oh, and I also cleaned up my pin pot.
This is more evidence that how we do one thing is how we do everything. Maybe there’s a sewing/knitting/wardrobe-related metaphor that will change your life!
My spiffed-up pin pot!
Oh, I can relate! I have a similar “pin pot” (although I’m certain I’ve never called it that). It tends to collect things–being magnetized and all. Much nicer to have one thing there so you don’t have to poke yourself wading through them.
Love your analogy to life. It’s true.
Another analogy from an Organizer’s perspective: Everything should have its place.
I was checking out the Art Biz Blog when I stumbled upon yours. I just wanted to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed reading your posts! Thanks for the inspiration to clean up my own “life pin pot!”