Powerpoint Potentate! Presentation Priestess!

Powerpoint: a Microsoft presentation program that allows public speakers to put their audience to sleep within five minutes

Potentate: one who wields great power or sway

All sorts of Powerpoint horror stories circulate in the public speaking realm. [Here's a funny PPT presentation spoofing bad PPT presentations (is that laughter canned??? it's not THAT funny).] I’ve seen many poor presentations myself.

But certain topics really can’t be done well without illustration - especially when the subject is something visual: art, architecture, design, travel, to name a few. You can use Powerpoint to organize your “slide show”, which is what I did last night to talk about feng shui.

Pictures are worth a thousand words when you’re describing befores and afters, the five elements, yin and yang, color, the bagua map.  The challenge is not bullet-pointitis, but locating the right pictures to project, building a narrative around them. And for me it was figuring out how to talk to the audience instead of the screen while managing the remote control and laser pointer.

Thank god my son was home for the week. I don’t watch TV and have never learned how to manage a remote control (though many women who DO watch TV can’t manage the remote either.

I feel like my skill as a public speaker has just taken a big leap with this new tool. I promise not to overuse it. Which shouldn’t be too hard because it’s still a pain in the butt to haul a laptop, projector and screen.

Procrastination #2: the Powerpoint Presentation

Procrastination: putting off intentionally something that should be done,
from the Latin, pro (forward) and crastinus (of tomorrow)

I am giving a talk tonight at Toastmasters, a dry run if you will, of a much longer presentation on feng shui I’m doing next week.  I can talk on this topic, no problem. I know my stuff.

So why oh why have I put off preparations until just last night (not that I’ve not been thinking about it, obsessing, even)?  It’s because I’ll be working with my new projector and Powerpoint for the first time.

I am actually an accomplished geek so I’ve been surprised at my reluctance to put this presentation together.  I figured out the PPt stuff easily - made a bunch of attractive simple slides last night.

What has held me back is fear of new territory - simultaneous talking and technology.  I’m one of those people who has to turn off the car radio when navigating unfamiliar roads - I may even be someone who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.  But since I don’t chew gum, I haven’t tested this possibility.

I am writing this post when I should be loading the presentation onto my laptop, hooking up the projector and seeing what happens….  structured procrastination, as Ken Perry would say.

Pimping my practice (of feng shui)

In late May I wrote an article about feng shui for the local newspaper which they liked so much they asked if I’d write one a month for their home & garden section.  This was great news because that first piece drove a really big turnout for my class at a home furnishings boutique in town.  I was hoping it would generate demand for folks to come to my class at Clark College later this year, lead readers to my website, which in turn would lead to more paying clients.

Easy come, easy go.

Just after I submitted my article for July, I get an email from the section editor telling me they’ve made another round of cuts at the paper - staff and content both - and the home & garden section has been greatly reduced and absorbed as a part of the features department under a different editor in the newsroom.

I have a call into her as I write, trying to convince her that feng shui is the perfect discipline for times of economic hardship, because most fixes cost little or nothing.  We’ll see.

Pellucid panes

Pellucid: admitting the maximum amount of light; transparent, translucent

It’s been HOT and sunny here for several days. The sun has been rare in the Pacific Northwest in recent months, so I hadn’t noticed how filthy my windows were.

I was blind, but now I see. Sort of. Pellucid they ain’t.

Feng shui doesn’t like dirty windows.

“Somebody has GOT to wash those windows,” I said to my staff, standing very close by.

“Yes, boss,” I replied, saluting smartly. “As soon as you pay me for fifty years of back wages.”

Packrat predilections

Packrat: a small rodent (genus Neotoma) that collects in its nest a great variety of small objects. An eccentric collector of miscellaneous objects.

Predilection: a preference, often formed as the result of personal disposition rather than from objective knowledge.

I’m working on an article for the local paper on clearing clutter, and as always when I have to gather my thoughts on some self-improvement topic I come face to face with my own short-comings.

Compared to many folks I’ve worked with my house is in order. But order is one thing; conscious is another. Much of what I have has accumulated willy-nilly over the years. Yes, I brought it into the house, but if I actually use 20% of it - or am even AWARE of it - I’d be impressed.

Take books, for example.

I buy a book. I read it (or not!) and put it on the shelf. Will I ever finish reading it or refer to it again?? Probably not. But it’s tidy and lines up nicely with all the other books on the shelf, so why move it? Occasionally I get a warm fuzzy feeling looking up at an old favorite, but that’s about the extent of my interaction with it for YEARS.

We all have our predilections for certain kinds of stuff. But one man’s collection is another man’s clutter. To someone who hates tschotchkes, a collection of ceramic roosters or angels is not just clutter, it’s a visual assault.

The tschtochke collector, however, might have been appalled by my former kitchen. Because I love to cook, my crammed cupboards and drawers weren’t clutter to me; they were my “working materials. ” When I moved a few years ago I was embarrassed to discover canned goods, spices, tools, and tableware that hadn’t been touched in a decade (or longer).

Clutter. I admit it now.

This morning I filled two boxes to the brim with books I will never read again. I’ll take them to Powell’s next week and what they can’t use I’ll give to the library.

What I want to end up with is a collection of books, each one of which I’ve consciously chosen to keep because I love it, need it and/or use it.

My clothes closet is next. ACK! Help me Jesus. (Just kidding)

Planning - a prerequisite for profit

Plan: a detailed scheme, program or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective.

Prerequisite: required as a prior condition to something

Profit: the positive return on a business enterprise after expenses have been paid

I have been doing feng shui and color consultations as a sideline since 2002 and it recently dawned on me to put some effort into marketing my services. I’m good at what I do but have never made an effort to promote what I do beyond a smallish sphere.

This morning I had coffee with a guy who had seen an article I’d written for the local paper and figured we should meet because he does organizing. I wouldn’t know how good he is at this, but he did share that he’d gotten a lot of help from the gal at the Small Business Development Center in town - a FREE service of Washington State University. (Who knew???) He suggested I call her.

First I looked up the SBDC on the web and right there they list the 15 essential steps to creating a solid business plan.

Business plan???? I’m an Artist.

Perhaps I should consider my business a bit more seriously, ya think?

the Pull of Place

While I love getting away, seeing new sights, meeting new people, I am firmly anchored at home. Home is where my heart is. Home is where I center and rejuvenate myself.

Since my ex and I separated six years ago, my home has been a 3,000 square foot house on a one-third acre lot framed by trees and nestled into a gentle slope overlooking a lake. In feng shui, this fortuitous placement is called “the belly of the dragon.”

Even though I’m just a couple of miles from downtown, and pretty close to my neighbors, it’s quiet and private. Out of every window I see something lovely.

This is the most wonderful home I’ve ever had - and people who visit are immediately enchanted by it as well. Not because it’s grand - because it is anything but (built from a plan-book in 1972). But it’s cozy, colorful and quirky.

So why did a single woman of modest means buy a house this big?

Three reasons: it was cheap (needed a lot of work), the setting was fabulous, and it was the only house I could find within my budget that had a dining room big enough for my grandmother’s dining table, and a living room large enough for my mother’s Steinway baby grand (which I’m keeping for my still-peripatetic son, 24).

The fourth reason: ohmigod the yard! All the previous owners were skillful gardeners who left behind shrubs, native plants, sheets of color from spring bulbs, rock walls, five prolific blueberry bushes, a grape arbor and an asparagus bed! A chestnut tree on the southwest corner to keep the house cool in the summer, and a couple of towering black walnut trees in my neighbor’s yard that framed my view to the northwest.

I refinanced and plowed a lot of money into remodeling. And more into simplifying the yard. If the economy and housing market hadn’t plunged, the investment might have been wise. But now the moths in my purse are looking hungry.

Walking around the yard this spring, I’m seeing not just beauty but bondage. The yard work is unending. And it’s more work than a single woman of my age wants to do.

I need to make some serious changes. My options as I see it: find a new mate (someone who loves to garden or has enough money to pay a gardener); write a best-seller and become rich enough myself to afford the gardener or; down-size.

At the moment the first two options are in the realm of fiction. That leaves me with down-sizing.

It’s so easy to be blithe about down-sizing when it’s my feng shui clients’ stuff. But the shoe is now on MY foot and it hurts. Yesterday I sat in the yard and wept just thinking about letting go of this place.

It took me months to find my home - and now I’ll be fighting the growing horde of down-sizers who are also seeking a smaller, charming home within walking distance to shops and public transportation.

I hope I can maintain some shred of equanimity during this process. For sure I’ll be a better consultant after I’ve done it myself.

Pajama Pastimes

Pajamas: a loose-fitting garment, consisting of trousers and jacket, for sleeping or lounging.
Pastime: an activity that occupies one’s time pleasantly

No no. This isn’t that kind of blog, even though porn is a P-word.

A pajama pastime is when you get up in the morning, look out the window at the cold windy drizzle, consider your pulled pectoral muscle and decide you will NOT go to exercise class, and in fact you will not go anywhere. You’ll just putz around in pajamas all day.

That’s what I did yesterday and it was paradise.

I’m not a sloth, however. I spent most of the day at my desk plowing through papers, tossing, filing, re-organizing and re-labeling (with my precious P-Touch - see post two below).

If one is a paper person, as I am, this task should be done at least once a year. Usually I take a couple of days after Christmas for this project, but last year I was in California visiting my kids, and the year before that my kids were all here.

Of course someone who has the orderly mind and desk of David Allen would always be on top of things. HIS desk only has one piece of paper on it… the one he’s working with. I find this inconceivable.

SInce I trained as a feng shui consultant seven years ago, I know how cluttered my thinking gets if my desktop is cluttered, so I do get it cleared about once a month. Unfortunately the system breaks down in two places - more comes in than I have time to process, and my file system gets too full or out of date for current material to find a home.

By the time I went to bed last night my file drawers were conscious and current. I felt like a new woman. Today I can tackle what’s actually important…

Plenitude: its dark underbelly

Plenitude: abundance, copiousness; the condition of being full, complete. From Latin: plenus = full.

Whenever you’re feeling cranky, mingy and stingy, like you just don’t have ENOUGH (enough whatever - money, love, time), the pop psychology wisdom is to open your heart to the gifts you already have and to feel gratitude for the bounty in your life.

And I do that. I feel grateful for the abundance in my life most of the time.
I am satisfied and want not.

However.

Right now I’m clear that plenitude is not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be.

In fact, I’ve got too much of a good thing. Too much of MANY good things. Too big a house. Too big a (beautiful) garden. Too many books. Too many interests. Too many commitments. (You can never have too many friends.) My life is plenus to the max.

If I were still married* and had a partner with whom to share the physical space and the physical chores, that would help. But I’d still have the rest of it - with the addition of the company and requirements of my partner - resulting in a net wash.

I was reading a book on feng shui recently in which the author suggested that if you wanted something new in your life (new career, partner, social circle, home) you have to go beyond ordinary clutter clearing. You have to create a VACUUM. Only when there’s a nice hole will something rush in to fill it.

I feel certain that if I got rid of half my stuff and found a place half this size with little or no yard, other opportunities would appear. And if I’d complete my divorce and stop being friends with my ex, a new romance might appear…

But all these things are WORK. It’s so much easier to complain about plenitude.

*True confession: I’ve been legally separated from DH since 2002, living happily apart all this time, but we’re still not divorced - we were each busy and it didn’t seem pressing to finalize it. I now see the foolishness of my ways.

Priorities - #2

Priority: a preferential rating- especially one that allocates rights to something in limited supply; something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives

Yesterday, in my paralyzed position of pain due to my pulled pectoral muscle (how’s that for a plethora of powerful P-words) I was forced to be a watcher instead of a doer.

I watched a video of the dying professor who looks so good, Randy Pausch, give one of his “last lectures” on time management at University of Virginia. He is a man who has the unenviable perspective of knowing that his days are numbered. (I know, I know. All our days are numbered, but we think our death will be decades or eons from now.)

Time is the most precious gift we have, he says. We must remember this. Over and over and over. Once a moment has passed, it’s gone forever.

I didn’t listen to the whole lecture, so I don’t know if he touches upon the Eckhart Tolle (Buddhist, Taoist, etc etc) mantra of being present to THIS moment instead of clinging to the past or fretting about the future.

But he did talk about setting priorities. What’s important? Why am I doing this? Does this matter? Is it on purpose?

I don’t know about you, but I find it pathetically easy to get lost in trivial pursuits. Reading stories in the news that are unimportant and have no bearing on my life. Rambling thru internet searches that are fascinating and purposeless. Phone calls that chit-chat on an on about nothing in particular. Meetings for the sake of meeting.

The other issue is that I complicate my life with more than an underfunded single woman past middle age can handle on her own:

• A 3,000 sq ft home that needs cleaning, organizing, beautifying and occasional fixing
• A 1/3 acre yard/garden that needs weeding, trimming, feeding, watering, re-organizing and occasional fixing.
• A mind that is hungry for new learning and new experiences – and therefore continuously thinks up new projects to sink into.
• A soul that is hungry for music, dance, beauty, connection, color, flowers, love.
• Friends and family I love dearly – some of whom can only be visited by airplane.

I can’t do everything to my high standards. I probably can’t even do half of everything to my standards. Where do I cut back? What is my highest priority? What is the highest and best use of my time?

Since I’ve been a feng shui consultant I’ve become especially sensitive to clutter in my own home and have gotten rid of a lot of it. But what is left is still always talking to me: use me, put me away, fix me, spend time with me.

If I want to focus on priorities I need to majorly downsize. Or find a partner with whom to share the bounty and the work… It’s time to make downsizing a Project - a goal with specific steps.