Getting My Life in Order Project

Total Life Breakdown is pretty common when you look around: Bankruptcy, divorce, illness, death. It hits people of all ages and forces them to assess their situation and hopefully start rebuilding their lives.

That's where I am right now. Everything in my life is ready to start over, but I can't change every part of my life. So the question becomes, where do I start?

Several self-help books I've read suggest inventing one-, three-, and five-year plans to help chart a course for where you're going. Remember, it's a course, not a track. You can always tear up the course and chart a new one. The idea is that no ship goes anywhere without having at least a course to start out with.

Before I go writing out these courses, though, I need a little refresher on who I am and what's important to me. Inside my head those feelings are a swirling mass, but on paper they're a bit easier to get a handle on.

That's why I created a mindmap. Mindmaps are kind of like visual outlines, though without the hierarchy. They're called mindmaps because your ideas end up looking like an archipelago of islands connected by bridges. It's a great way to unravel a complex issue.

To create a mindmap, put your thesis--in my case, "What is out of order in my life?"--in the middle of a blank piece of paper. Surround that phrase with eight or so keywords associated with that thesis that come to your mind. For example, the first-level nodes on my mindmap are: Health, Spirit, Lovelife, Finances, Expression, Education, Career, Family, Worklife, and Household.

Circle each keyword and draw a connecting line back to your thesis. From each of those circles, write two or three associated keywords or phrases and likewise connect them.

What I like about mindmaps most is that you can jump around. When using an outline, I feel I'm too programmed to work from top to bottom. If you start with a big enough piece of paper (or you're in the practice of writing small), you can just keep making as many branching associations as you want.

Eventually something will appear--actionable tasks, surprising answers, something.