​Minimalism, downsizing, and detachment are modern buzzwords, but they have an important place in our homes and businesses. And as we spend time homebound in the coronavirus pandemic, we treasure the peace provided by clean, orderly, uncluttered environments.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
Mission Viejo resident Jenny Cochrane notes that the motto of St. Benedict was “to pray is to work, to work is to pray,” and adds that “spring cleaning is a great time to pray!”

Each time we clean, we examine each thing in our house. We have the opportunity to treasure it or to lovingly relinquish it, as organizing expert and best-selling author Marie Kondo recommends. We can use this pause to reflect and be grateful for our loved ones, our homes, and our careers.

​In addition, as we clean out our closets and our homes, we can practice detachment from ‘things’ and promote our generosity to others. In speaking of detachment, St. Therese of Lisieux says, “There is no joy equal to that which is shared by the truly poor in spirit.”

Simplicity and Minimalism for Success
Simplicity, and the idea of owning less, is a key part of both good housekeeping and happiness, agrees North Carolina resident Marla Cilley, known affectionately to millions worldwide as the FLYLady.

“We all have too much stuff,” Cilley says. “I believe that clutter is the tool of the Evil One to separate us from our families. So many of us suffer from ‘can’t-have-anyone-over’ syndrome, because we have too much stuff – stuff on every flat surface and in every closet, under every bed and stuffed into every drawer.”

Cilley, whose FLYLady regimens are described on her website, flylady.net, bases her housekeeping system on baby steps that encourage families to clean ‘zones’ of their homes daily, thus avoiding huge spring and fall cleaning marathons.

FLYLady comes from the acronym for Finally Loving Yourself, Cilley explains. “What I realized was that I was beating myself up all the time. I was my own worst enemy,” she recalls. “When someone misses a day of housekeeping, I tell them to just jump right back in the next day. Don’t beat yourself up because you didn’t do things perfectly.”

Our homes function well and are welcoming when we create habitual patterns to handle the menial parts of life so that our tasks make our living space and our day more orderly. Summer provides us a breathing period in which to take a step back and ask where things have accumulated and what needs a little refreshing.

Still, Cilley notes, the first chapter in her best-selling book, “Sink Reflections,” [Amazon, $17] claims that those who follow her FLYLady system “will never have to spring-clean again.” By tackling each home zone in a systematic fashion, there’s no need to take all the furniture out of our homes and wash everything down as we bring each item in, which is what she remembers her mother doing when Cilley was a little girl.
 
“Mother would be yelling and screaming,” she recalls. “It wasn’t a fun thing to do. I’ve come up with ways to ensure you never have to put your children through that. Our daily routines become a ritual.”
 
Taming the Chaos of Clutter
 Prior to developing her system, Cilley says, “you couldn’t walk in our house. It was chaos. I decided my New Year’s resolution in 1999 was to get organized,” something that was difficult since both she and her husband were packrats.
 
“In our Southern tradition, we had the saying, ‘whatever you do on New Year’s Day you’ll do every day for the rest of the year,’” she explains. “I tried to figure out why I was never organized. I discovered that I’d never made organizing or cleaning a habit.”

As readers know, Cilley started with her kitchen sink. “It took two hours of chiseling to get it clean, but when I was finished it shone like a new penny.” Shining one’s sink thus became a key feature of her FLYLady system. “I created an avalanche of clean: My cabinets got cleaned, my oven was clean. And when your kitchen is clean you don’t mind getting in there and cooking. Keeping things organized has a snowball effect.”

When we clean and organize, we often tackle the jobs as quickly as possible. But these humbling activities are a service to our families and an important way we show that we love them. Perhaps most important for our work and our sanity, organizing, streamlining, and minimalism can free our workplaces and our minds of clutter – allowing us to focus on our top priorities for success.

What are you and your family doing this summer?

Without camps to keep the kids busy and vacations to plan, summertime 2020 may seem dismal. Still, thinking creatively about incorporating spirituality, self-improvement, and service into your family’s life could provide teaching moments along with family togetherness.

My ideas are based loosely on Scripture teachings on the seven Corporal Works of Mercy. I’m sure you can think of many others.

Feed the Hungry

• Research, identify and contribute financially to organizations that serve the hungry.
• Try not to purchase more food than you are able to eat. If you notice that you end up throwing groceries away each week, purchasing less groceries would eliminate waste.
• Organize your kitchen – Keep supplies up to date, throw away expired food and donate extras to the needy.
• Plan your meals a week at a time to conserve food and calories. Keep a list of the foods in your freezer and date them.
  
  

Give Drink to the Thirsty

• Donate to help build wells for water for those in need.
• Make an effort not to waste water.

Shelter the Homeless

• Consider volunteering or financially supporting food banks, such as Catholic Charities’ Cantlay Center.
• Donate time or money to organizations such as Habitat for Humanity that build homes for those who need shelter.
• Donate warm blankets to homeless shelters.

Visit the Sick

• Give blood.
• Spend time volunteering at a nursing home.
• Offer to assist caregivers of chronically sick family members.
• Next time you make a meal that can be easily frozen, make a double batch and give it to a family who has a sick loved one.
• Plan for sickness – Fill out your health care directive and give copies to your partner and family.

Visit the Prisoners

• Consider supporting the Diocese of Orange’s Restorative Justice and Detention Ministry.
• Donate to charities that give Christmas presents to children whose parents are in prison.

Bury the Dead

• Send a sympathy card to someone who has recently lost a loved one. 
• Spend time planning your own funeral.
• Visit the graves of your friends and relatives.
• Plan for your passing – Write a will, purchase your plot, inform your family of your wishes.

Give Alms to the Poor

• Skip the morning latte and put that money toward a good cause.
• Help the suffering: Make sure you continue to donate to the needy during this period of isolation.
• Find a charity that is meaningful to you and volunteer your time or donate. 

Other Ways to Incorporate Mercy

• Reach out to the lonely – Call, text, or email a friend every day.
• Nurture family ties – Have a good conversation with a family member.
• Love your enemies – Forgive someone who has hurt you.
• Organize your finances – Reconcile your bank accounts, make payments on time, make sure your next of kin knows where your money is.

​Spirituality

• Praise God – Sustain daily prayer life.
• Read Scripture – Get in touch with the word of God.
• Love your family – Plan and execute family meals, including family members via livestreaming on Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype or FaceTime if necessary.
• Love your enemies – Forgive someone who has hurt you.

Conservation and Stewardship

• Be good to animals – Play with your dog or cat or adopt a pet.
• Get in touch with nature – Take a walk in the sunshine.
• Take care of the Earth – Improve your recycling efforts.
• Atone for your sins – Make a spiritual or in-person confession.
• Clothe the naked – Donate used, clean clothing to a charity like Goodwill Industries.
• Develop your skills – Hone a practical skill such as cooking or baking.
• Cleanliness is next to godliness – Develop good housekeeping habits.
• Minimalism brings us closer to God – Pare down your possessions.
• Conserve resources – Use less gas, don’t turn on the air conditioner, drive less.
• Conserve food – Eat less.
• Get your vitamins – Eat healthier foods and take vitamins.
• Make the world more beautiful – Improve your front yard.
• Take care of your home – Paint it inside and out, wash the walls, power-spray the walkways.

Self-Improvement

• Expand your horizons – Read an article or book chapter every day.
• Improve your mind – Tackle something complicated every day.
• Get in touch with your feelings – Create and sustain a journaling habit.
• Do a workout every day.
• Be happy – Cultivate a positive frame of mind.
• Look inward – Practice prayer, meditation, and mindfulness.

​All these ideas will make you happier, make your kids feel like they have a purpose in their life and help you to think with a higher goal in mind. Give it a try…

We are each coping with the COVID-19 pandemic in our own ways – cleaning, baking, binge-watching Netflix – anything to relieve the isolation, boredom, and loneliness.

Technology keeps us working and in touch with one another professionally; I’ve never participated in so many Zoom and Google Hangouts meetings in such a short time.

Still, perhaps never before has it been so important to take advantage of online resources to creatively deal with our isolation.

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​Here are some of the ways I’ve been spending my time; I relish this period as a kind of breather from the brisk pace of my formerly ‘normal’ life.

1. There’s no time like today to reach out to old friends, visit shut-in neighbors, call colleagues, and become a better listener. I’ve made it a point to contact a friend each day just to check in, and to call my mother every night. In some ways, I’m closer to others than ever emotionally even though I can’t physically hug or kiss them.

2. We also have the opportunity to work on ourselves. Journaling, meditation and mindfulness, prayer and contemplation can soothe and nurture us. Although the churches are closed, I’ve been using this time to read spiritual books, attend livestreaming Mass, and journaling every afternoon in my online diary. It’s funny how a crisis brings us to God.

3. Mastering new skills offers us a sense of accomplishment and produces something positive. I’m taking a video course in calligraphy, I’ve learned how to make cooking extracts from scratch, I baked my first loaves of bread, and made my first-ever cheesecake.

4. Getting outside in the sunshine and fresh air benefits our bodies, minds, and spirits. Enjoying a simple walk through the neighborhood is good for the soul. Every afternoon I fix my husband and I a cup of half-caffeinated espresso and we sit on our shady patio playing with the dog. I treasure those moments of rest and togetherness, as well as the beauty of spring all around us.

5. Exercising indoors and outdoors strengthens our bodies and relieves our minds of anxiety. If I didn’t have my hourlong walk every afternoon I think by now the novel coronavirus sheltering-in-place would have driven me crazy.

6. Sleeping as well and as much as possible provides a much-needed break from our worries and gives our bodies the rest and recovery they need. If you’re like me, sleep is difficult and shorter because of anxiety. In my case, a temporary sleeping aid helps, as does yoga and slow stretching before bed.

7. Minimalism and downsizing may be buzzwords, but they have an important place in orderly homes. Using this time to reorganize our pantries, cull through the clothing in our closets that no longer fits and throwing out extraneous clutter can free our sightlines and make our homes more restful. I’ve found that reorganizing my pantry and kitchen cabinets has given me a fresh new perspective on life.

8. Spring cleaning is a chance to be grateful for our homes and our possessions, and to make every room sparkling and inviting. I don’t know when my home has been cleaner. Probably not since we moved into our house 24 years ago!

9. Harnessing technology to maintain family ties is vital to togetherness and an antidote for isolation. We are doing a Google Hangout Cocktail Hour with family members every Sunday evening. My mother, who lives in a retirement community that’s locked down, eats her dinner as my two sons – one married and living locally, the other single and living in the Bay Area – and our daughter, who is studying at UC Davis but temporarily home with us, join my husband and I in updating each other as we sip our beverage of choice.

10. AARP warns seniors like me to keep challenging ourselves intellectually. I take this to heart and try to read or watch something that challenges me to think more deeply about a complex issue. Sometimes that means just reading the daily newspaper or watching a YouTube video.

I’ve in some ways enjoyed this period of aloneness. I have been reading more good books and have discovered a few podcasts on subjects I enjoy, and I’ve curtailed all the busywork that cluttered my days. I run fewer errands and spend more time, obviously, at home.

Every night after dinner my daughter and I settle in for an episode of “The Great British Baking Show,” which we find entertains and relaxes us. These new habits, many of them enjoyable and positive, are sustaining me in what I like to call my Period of Captivity. I hope this time has been productive and positive for you in many of the same ways.

If there’s a single time-waster in most organizations, it’s the oft-dreaded meeting.

Brainstorming sessions with a few people, a command performance by the CEO, power plays and endless speeches by people who like listening to their own voices – meetings can be a colossal waste of both time and money. Not to mention demoralizing, boring, and frustrating.

Truthfully, meetings top the list of the thing I miss the least about working in a busy office full of creative people. I miss collaborating with brilliant art directors, artistic photographers, and talented graphic artists – but I don’t miss meetings.

According to Atlassian, the developer of Trello and other business applications:

• 47 percent of employees think that meetings are the No. 1 time-waster. 
• 45 percent feel overwhelmed by the number of meetings they attend.
• 91 percent admit to daydreaming during meetings.
• 73 percent said they do other work; and
• 39 percent of people say they sleep during meetings.

At the same time, meetings are a necessity. In fact, you could say that meetings are the lifeblood of any organization – decisions are made, important communications are disseminated, responsibilities are delegated.

Develop the Proper Agenda
Keeping several key things in mind when designing and executing a meeting can help make it more efficient and less time-consuming, and may even make it a pleasant, productive experience for everyone involved.

Forbes contributor Phil Lewis, in February’s story, “Nine Questions That Will Get Your Meetings Working Harder For You,” recommends paying extra attention to designing a hyper-focused agenda that delineates meeting objectives, decision points and criteria, discussion flow with time allotted for each element, and the means of measuring the meeting’s success.

These days my meetings are limited to project-related, focused discussions with clients about their objectives, deadlines, and budgets. Without exception they are pleasant and productive thanks to my clients’ attention to detail and commitment to the value of time.

Advance Planning Pays
It pays handsomely to plan beforehand for potential problems and roadblocks, Lewis notes. “The old saying that there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going is as true of organizational process as it is of anything else in life,” Lewis writes. “Any meeting worth having will likely contain unanticipated twists and turns.

“This points to another inconvenient truth: you can be efficient with everything but people, who are prone to be full of surprising challenges and objections,” he adds. “A failure to anticipate this – and a desire to keep the conversational wheels turning at all costs when challenges arise – is a major source of inefficiency in meetings all over the world.”

​To be sure, laying the foundation for a successful meeting starts well ahead of the actual event. Thinking ahead to what might happen takes just a few minutes, but is time well spent. Perhaps most important, each participant should be well aware of their responsibilities during the meeting and arrive prepared to participate fully.

Consider the Format
Moving back one step, Lewis recommends carefully considering the type of meeting that will be most effective for your objectives, noting that a budget discussion requires a different environment than a sales presentation. I’d add that for creatives, small-group brainstorming sessions can be most efficient – and can provide the motivation participants require to get excited about the projects they’re collaborating on.

“The problem most organizations face is that in effect they plan for only one mode: The Meeting, an ill-defined blob of conversational ennui where no-one is clear about how they are required to behave,” Lewis explains. “This is a huge productivity killer.’

He recommends planning the agenda based on the scope and type of involvement required from participants, the goals and objectives, and the time required, among other key issues.

Invite the Right People
Carefully analyzing who should attend a meeting – and eliminating the individuals who rarely if ever make meaningful contributions – frees people up to be more productive elsewhere while adding the greatest value to the meeting itself.

One-on-one pre-meeting conferences can pinpoint the ways participants can contribute effectively to the event. Sometimes a moment of conversation can prompt positive anticipation of a collaborative meeting and unearth important issues to be addressed.

​Analyze and Refine the Approach
An important point Lewis makes is that most organizations ignore the characteristics of various types of meetings. “They can be positive or negative; creative or destructive; fluid or static; vital or deadening; collaborative or antagonistic; caring or devil-may-care; didactic or democratic,” he writes.

Efficient leaders can ask their teams candidly to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of their meetings in real time, to invite debate on how and why to make necessary changes, and thus liberate participants to do their best work. Open communication about housekeeping issues could be a game-changer for your organization’s least-favorite pastime and make meetings pleasant and productive for all.

The best boss I ever had was a complete surprise.

I saw her coming and shook my head in disbelief: The woman temporarily appointed to fill in as our acting supervisor had a complete lack of experience in our area.

It turns out, though, that managing a division of creatives – writers, designers, artists, and editors – doesn’t require a visionary creator. Instead, our new leader was armed with strong organizational, leadership, and communications skills that made us the organization’s most productive, streamlined, and successful division.

Her secret? She respected our abilities, listened to our needs, empowered us with the budgets and resources we required – and then got out of the way so we could do our best work.

In my long career in journalism, public relations, and higher education, it’s the female supervisors who stand out. Interestingly, new research backs up my experience.

While women currently hold just 5.8 percent of CEOs positions at S&P 500 companies, according to Catalyst, females may actually be better suited to lead in almost every area, according to new findings from the BI Norwegian Business School.

In their research, Professors Øyvind L. Martinsen and Lars Glasø found that women scored higher than men in four of the five major leadership-centric categories.

“Businesses must always seek to attract customers and clients and to increase productivity and profits. Our results indicate that women naturally rank higher in general than men on ability to innovate and lead with clarity and impact,” explains Martinsen. “These findings pose a legitimate question about the construction of management hierarchy and the current dispensation of women in these roles.”

My experience suggests that women are strong, successful leaders due to several factors.
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They are good listeners. They listen with their whole bodies; their ears hear our words while their eyes discern the tilt of our heads and their brains decipher our tone. They get the message loud and clear.

They anticipate the needs of their team. Rather than react, female managers scan the horizon for the resources team members need now and for the future.

They compile metrics, details, and statistics and effectively synthesize volumes of data into cohesive reports. Not only are women strong writers, they are detail-oriented and, at the same time, able to accurately determine the right way to formulate information for particular audiences.

They are concerned with the health of their team members. In addition to encouraging employees to live healthy lifestyles, they stop, look, and listen to ensure their high performers are mentally and emotionally healthy as well.

They play well with others, and they aren’t afraid to work solo. Women leaders value teamwork and promote individual performance at the same time. The two styles are viewed as complementary, not competing, interests.

They value free time, leisure pursuits, and family life. Female bosses encourage employees to use vacation time, personal days, and off-the-clock hours to pursue happiness. They know happy workers are productive workers.

They’re efficient and they aren’t hung up on the sound of their own voice. Meetings follow an agenda, start on time, and remain focused on the issues at hand. Things get done, goals are accomplished, everyone goes back to their desks knowing exactly what’s expected of them.

Perhaps I’m supportive of women leaders because I am one, or perhaps my experiences are borne out by other successful women.

Academic evidence suggests that in particular women who are high-performing and already successful tend to see their prospects improve under a woman’s leadership. 

Luca Flabbi, a professor of economics at Georgetown, believes that women are better than men at reading other women and assigning them to the jobs commensurate with their experience. Top female leaders, Flabbi notes, put women in more productive positions, and their performance goes up.

Now, I’m aware that I may be in the minority, because I’ve heard many of my colleagues say they prefer to work for male supervisors. Men are perceived to be stronger, fairer, and more decisive that women bosses.

At the same time, recent data suggests that in times of crisis, women leaders with their strong interpersonal skills are perceived to be more trustworthy compared to their male counterparts.

The trust developed by women leaders with strong interpersonal skills results in better crisis resolution in the case when outcomes are predictable, says a study published in the journal “Psychology of Women Quarterly.”

In addition, according to recent Harvard Business Review surveys, women are perceived by their managers — particularly their male managers — to be slightly more effective than men at every hierarchical level and in virtually every functional area of the organization.

In the Harvard survey, women were rated as excelling in taking initiative, acting with resilience, practicing self-development, driving for results, and displaying high integrity and honesty.

Because my expertise is communications, I highly value the effectiveness and persuasiveness of leaders who can be both insightful and succinct. The best communicators, in my experience, are usually women.
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My days of working for a male or female boss in a traditional 9-to-5 job are over. Instead, I work for a tough, demanding boss every day – me – and my boss never gives me a break. Thankfully, I don’t mind her unheard voice urging me on 24/7 to productivity, quality, and success.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who loved stories. She loved telling them, reading them, hearing them – she loved everything about them.

Luckily, her interest in stories and storytelling led to a long, happy career, first as a journalist and later as a public relations consultant.

Writing stories about people, places, products, research, and advances in business, education, and healthcare became her livelihood. And she had fun researching, writing, and producing them!

Good stories surprise us, writes former Pixar executive Shane Snow on Hubspot. “They have compelling characters. They make us think, make us feel. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that numbers and text on a slide with a bar graph don’t.”

In fact, Snow notes, research indicates that 78 percent of CMOs think content is the future of marketing and two thirds of marketers think branded content is superior to public relations, direct mail, and print advertising.

“As the majority of corporations start thinking of themselves as publishers, the defining characteristic among the successful ones will be the ability to not just spew content, but to craft compelling stories,” she adds. “Fact is, no one cares about your marketing goals. But everyone likes a good story.” The business people who can tell one will have increasing advantages in the marketplace.

Snow believes storytelling will be the biggest business skill of the next five years. “The fact is, people have evolved to be storytellers and to respond deeply and emotionally to storytelling,” he writes. “If brands want to be as successful online as they were in traditional media a few decades ago, they need to relearn the basics of storytelling.”

I’ve turned storytelling into the backbone of Cathi Douglas Communications, so I share Snow’s view that, beginning with a good hook, you must rivet the readers’ attention and get them to care immediately about the people and action you’re writing about.

Showing a change happening is critical, he notes. “When you craft a story, you need to show a character or characters changing. Do it right, and you'll engender a change in the audience, too.”

Connecting with readers on an emotional level requires the writer to use personal, shared experiences. Crafting a strong story structure comprised of a beginning, middle, and end will give you the necessary framework to involve conflict, challenge, accomplishments, and success, he writes.

Perhaps most important, you must be authentic in your story, writing, and message. Using data and research to bolster your points is critical.

The most memorable stories I’ve written include magazine features about foster kids enrolled in the groundbreaking Guardian Scholars Program at Cal State Fullerton and a profile of a woman with a fatal disease who fought valiantly but unsuccessfully against California’s death with dignity law.

In both cases, the people were compelling characters that you cared about. The message of each story prompted people to donate funds and support pro-life causes. 

I’ve written stories about recovering addicts with a second chance to chase their dreams thanks to programs offered by the Orange County Rescue Mission; young scholars from poverty-stricken areas who are successfully pursuing a college education thanks to the University of the Pacific’s Community Involvement Program; and doctors at Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital dedicated to helping young children fight life-threatening illnesses.
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In each story, stories about people and their challenges colorfully illustrated the success of programs designed to help them. Personal stories are more compelling by far than stories about things – and they have become a hallmark of my writing for clients in the higher education, nonprofit, and healthcare industries.