The thing with time and the way it flies the hell by is that I’m finally getting around to posting something now that’s about a month late.

But life is cyclical. And stuff comes back around, so it’s actually weirdly relevant again.

Let’s scooby doo time machine back to a month ago.

Remember when I told you how I was going to give my home office a pedicure? Well, I wrote up some notes from the super awesome Office Spa Day thing and had planned to share some of my process and insights with you.

If you missed it, the idea is that you spend two hours giving your home office some TLC so it loves you back and so your work can be more enjoyable (well, less stressful). By phone. It’s totally the future.

But, as I discovered, it’s also a great way to work on various stucknesses in your personal relationship with things like time, space, order and creativity. Big stuff.

The whole thing is facilitated by Jennifer Hofmann, seriously one of my favorite people in the entire world … so at this point, giving my office a spa day is officially my new favorite business ritual. There.

The first part of the spa (30 minutes?) is about figuring out where you are and what you want to work on. You know, to become clear on what the issues are and plan a course of action.

The second part (80 minutes?) is spent working on your own with whatever course of action you committed to — aka doing the thing. (Jen also gave out her private number in case we had a freak-out moment. Extra points for sweetness.)

Then you call back in (guilt-free accountability time) and spend the last twenty minutes checking in and figuring out where you’re going to go from there.

What it was like.

The first part: realizations!

During the first part we also did a cool little (non-cheesy) exercise about finding clarity and setting an intention. There were three understandings that came up for me.

The first thing I noticed was resentment. The stupid laundry situation. I know, what?

Yeah. So I’m a big believer in hanging clothes to dry. Which, when you live in Portland, happens indoors. And there’s really only one place that clothes can be hung to dry and that’s in my office.

And staring at hanging laundry is hell on my concentration.

The cool thing: as soon as the resentment surfaced, so did a possible solution: Could I do laundry Fridays so it can dry Saturdays when I’m not working? Yes!

The second thing was an image: What’s missing for me in Portland as a new transplant are roots and grounding.

This realization instantly triggered a memory of the poster I received as a gift from a Berliner artist this summer. It’s a painting of a tree and it says, “Für Dich blüht ein Baum“. For you blooms a tree! Perfect. And I know just where to put it.

The third thing was a word. Actually, I just experienced a deeper knowledge of something I was already well aware of — I value freedom in a big, crazy way.

Freedom. *sigh*

For me, feeling free is associated with order (among other things) and specifically order in my online life. For me to be mobile and able to work anywhere, I need my laptop desktop to be at least as organized — if not more — than my actual office space.

There were two specific problem areas:

1. The email outbox (draft city)
2. The “everything” file (that place on my computer where I put stuff that’s waiting to get filed, oy).

The second part: getting stuff done!

Most people have piles lying around the house or office that drive them crazy. For me, it was these two virtual computer piles. It felt urgent, so I knew this was going to be the thing to (nonviolently) tackle first. I didn’t set a specific goal — it was more like “Let’s see how much we can move through” in the allotted time.

The idea was: start with the outbox and move on to the “everything file”. The filter was: Can I turn this correspondence/interaction/idea into something that can become a blog post? And if not, dump it.

Well. What I actually got done? Three times more than I’d estimated.

Dealing with the outbox actually took only ten minutes. Be astounded with me for a minute here. I’d been hating on it for months and it took ten freaking minutes. Outrageous.

The next step was the “everything” file, which had 31 items in it.

It turned out that a bunch of things in here were PDFs I’d downloaded or products I’d bought and hadn’t made time to read / listen to / process. So I created a new home for them, and decided to devote an hour of “study time” each Sunday to this sort material.

Everything else either got added to a list of blog post ideas or got trashed. Awesomeness.

This part only took half an hour. I had completely overestimated how complicated it was. The funny part? I often have half an hour but always figured these digital plies were way too big for that kind of time frame — never even started.

The big realization: I’d avoided opening the folder because of a (false) assumption that each thing would be complicated and annoying. Hardly any were.

In fact, it’s amazing how much I could have ninja-pruned away if I’d just opened the folder to see what was there.

Then I moved on to my blog-in-the-works folder. Got rid of twenty items. AND (bonus!) found a completely finished post from a while back that I thought I’d lost. Rock on.

The third part: moving forward!

When it was time to call back and check-in, I was buzzing. And there were really only eight more items left to deal with, all of which I felt confident I could zap away.

It was pretty crazy how far my expectations were surpassed. But the main thing I felt was spaciousness. As in, even though there are still other parts of my office and business that need clearing up, those can wait because I just got some breathing space. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.

The main take-aways for me:

1. Looking at everything — everything! — through the lens of “Can I use this for a blog post? And if not, can I just throw it away?”

2. Challenging the assumptions: “Is it that complicated or am I just assuming?”

Main point for everyone else: Jen is a freaking genius, but really, the combination of accountability and focused time is so incredibly powerful that Jen’s being a freaking genius is kind of just a bonus.

Next one’s tomorrow …

A month goes by really, really, really fast. Next one is this Wednesday. Like, tomorrow. Jen’s Office Spa. Worth it worth it worth it. There might not even be spots left for this month, but go anyway and see if you can still get in.

I know you’re wondering why you should bother to pay for an office spa when you could just take two hours off and organize. Because I wondered too. Aside from the fact that no, I won’t actually do that, the facilitation and the accountability and the awesome power of Jen transform the whole thing into something really sweet and comforting. Trust me on this.

Maybe I’ll see you there tomorrow and if not — next month. Bring all your awful stuck. Jen can take it.

Oh, and best testimonial ever: