Feng Shui: The Seven Different Schools

I am sure that most people have heard someone talk about Feng Shui, but what is it? Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese system which refers to the study of the natural and the created environments. To accomplish a balance that will impact the energy of a room, one should know about the seven schools of Feng Shui

There are various versions of Feng Shui, each influenced by culture, geography, and religion. Here are the seven predominant schools of Feng Shui:

1. Compass School uses the eight trigrams of the I-Ching. These are known as Pa Kua. These are based on eight main directions of a compass. Each direction is associated with a specific chi. For instance, southern is vibrant energy.

2. Form School utilizes four symbolic animals to identify the landscape. The Form School, along with the Compass School, increases chi in and out of the home.

3. Black Hat Sect uses a fixed entry point to determine the area. This is similar to the Compass School philosophy, however it has differences. The Black Hat Sect also includes psychology, Buddhism and basic design principles.

4. Eight Mansion School, also known as the 8 House Feng Shui, is based on the number of individuals residing in the home. That number is used to bring harmony and balance to the home. People who use this system have lucky and unlucky numbers, with the west numbers being 2, 6, 7, and 8 and the east numbers being 1, 3, 4, and 9.

5. Nine Star Key School uses stars to help identify lucky and unlucky days. This school of thought uses complicated math formulas to pinpoint when a person will get married and the astrological sign of the future marriage partners. It will also tell the practitioner how to live based on his home.

6. Flying Star Philosophy is the most common form of Feng Shui. This is based on astrology and numerology. It is difficult to understand and learn, however it is based on mathematical principals and is used to determine a person’s fate.

7. Four Pillars, the final school of thought, is not very common. Based on astrology tied to the person’s date of birth right down to the minutes, this form of Feng Shui is also used to determine a person’s fate.

You cannot mention the seven schools of Feng Shui without talking about the five elements of Feng Shui. After determining which school of thought is best for an individual, it is important to understand the five elements of Feng Shui (Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood). Balance and harmony can be made in the home through using these elements. If used improperly, however, the energy can be lessened or even destroyed.

All of the five elements is also connected with a direction:

Earth — Southwest

Fire — South

Water — North

Metal — West

Wood — East

Beauty And Balance

In a Feng Shui home, every rooms should accomplish a balance of these elements; some items may be larger and heavier than others. A chair might score 3 times more than a pillow,due to its size difference.

When you learn the seven schools of Feng Shui and the Five Elements and it is properly used, Feng Shui will brings both beauty, balance and harmony to your home or office.

Next post--Feng Shui and Your Home

Until then, I will talk to you later!

Transforming Your Traditional Cookbook Digitally

Looking to part ways with those big and bulky cookbooks? Cookbooks are good to have because of those yummy recipes, but unfortunately, these books can clutter your entire space. There is good news: you can part ways with these clunky recipe books.

Just think about it, when you have a traditional cookbook, you will only utilize a handful of recipes. Here are some things you can do to transform your traditional cookbooks into digitized cookbooks:

You can scan the recipes in the cookbook that you want and file them electronically (or you can print them out and place into a beautiful binder). Another option is to search the Internet to find and to save recipes. You can find these tasty recipes by the categories of: Ingredients, Course, and/or Occasion. Like the traditional cookbooks, you can print the recipes you like and create a binder. A good place to look for online recipes are All Recipes and Live Better America (the one that I really like).

When filing your recipes digitally or in a binder, you want to separate your recipes into different categories such as poultry, beef, lamb, pork, vegetarian/vegan, soups, side dishes, breakfast, desserts, etc. If you are looking for an easier way to organize your recipes digitally, then there is software that will do that for you--and they are free! Here are a few free recipe organizing software:

OneTsp: This software is free to signup and it saves up to 150 different recipes. But if you want to save more than 150 recipes, you will have to upgrade to Pro Account. You can access your recipes from the computer or a mobile device. In addition, you can make that grocery shopping list.

Kitchen Monki: Kitchen Monki can organize and customize your recipes. Like the other recipe organizing softwares, you can navigate this software's database and add recipes to your collection.

It features a meal planner tool. A grocery shopping list can be made and sent to a mobile phone or other mobile devices with Mobile Monki.

We Gotta Eat: Like the others, We Gotta Eat is a free recipe organizing software. You can manage and organize your chosen recipes, storing every recipes you have and making them available at your convenience. In addition, you can also share these recipes with your friends or have a friend with these recipes. Rating, tagging and searching for recipes are also a part of this recipe organizer. We Gotta Eat allows you to bookmark recipes and browse member's recipes.

Whatever method you choose to organize and maintain your digital cookbooks, trust me, it will reduce the clutter in your kitchen and make life and cooking much simpler.

Next Posting--4-Part Feng Shui Series--Part 1: Seven Different Schools of Feng Shui

Until then--Talk to you later!

Cleaning Up Your Disk on Your Computer

Too much digital junk on your hard drive? If this is the case, then your hard drive is on overload and working overtime. As a result, your computer is more likely to crash and go into the "computer cemetery."

If you want to limit the amount of unwanted files on your hard drive to free up disk space and assist your computer to run more efficiently, then Disk Cleanup is your answer. It gets rid of temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin and removes various system files and other items that you no longer want. However, in order to clean out your hard drive, it should be connected with your user account, at least on Windows 7.

The following are four (4) steps on how to clean up the hard drive on your disk:

1. Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button. In the search box, type Disk Cleanup. In the results list, click Disk Cleanup.

2. In the Drives list, choose the hard disk drive that you want to clean up. Click OK.

3. In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, on the Disk Cleanup tab, select the check boxes for the file types that you desire to delete. Click OK.

4. In the message that is displayed, click the Delete Files.

If you follow these baby steps in terms of cleaning up your hard drive, then you are on your way to having a more efficient and faster running computer and hard drive.


Next Post--Transforming Your Traditional Cookbooks Digitally

Until then

Talk to you later!

Confessions of An Ex-Digital File Hoarder

ATTENTION: What you are about to read contains cluttered files. Visual discretion is advised.

The following are the symptoms of a digital file hoarder:

*You have stored emails that are older than 5 1/2 years old.
*You collect information without thought about what to do with it or what was the purpose of you saving it.
*You are clogging your computer with some inaccurate likes, articles and digital clutter.
*You have multiple copies of data and photos in many different locations and folders.

Guilty as charged. I was guilty of everything that is listed above as the symptoms of a digital file hoarder. But before I go into my past digital hoarding life, let me explain what is digital hoarding. Digital hoarding is similar to the traditional hoarding that most of us hear about. The difference--it does not involve the "typical" junk; it includes junk from the digital world.

Prior to entering "Digital File Rehab," I was a true "digital pack rat," meaning that I kept digital junk everywhere, computer and Internet-wise.

As far as storing emails, I was notorious for saving emails, even if it was read, it stayed in my inbox for months, sometimes for a couple of years. I never took the time to organize or archive the good emails from the junky ones. It all stayed in one location--in other words, was not separated into individualized folders and sub-folders.

On collecting information and not knowing what to do with it afterwards: I was an avid Internet researcher--and still is--and when I found something that was interesting to read, but I did not have a lot of time to read the webpage in its entirety, I would save it, or bookmark it. I saved it "for the moment." After saving it, I would never return to read none of them. A habit was born--saving information with no purpose.Total Internet links I have gained: 60 different bookmarks; not to mention that some of the linkes were broken and the error code 404 appeared on many of them.

Having multiple copies of data and photos in many different places and folders in the computer: As with the Internet bookmarking, I had this great habit of saving information out of desperation, thinking that I was never going to find it again. As a result, I kept saving it wherever (and whenever) I could, just to have the security that I had these items, whether they were photos, or "at the moment" data, or even downloads.

It just became an obsession and also it became very overwhelming. As a result of having digital junk overload, it became a very huge problem. I had a very hard time keeping up with everything despite the fact it was on a computer and sometimes the removable storage, such as the USB Flash Drive.

It was way over my head. I needed some help. The solution: to enter the "Digital File Rehab." So I entered. In this wonderful place, I was taught how to live a clutter-free life--digital style.

These were some of their suggestions:

*Go through a major purge: Spend at least 45 minutes purging everything that you know of. (Works for me!)

*Organize one folder at a time: Begin with the largest folders and work your way down.

*Choose only the essential stuff and toss the rest: Go through all the stuff in the folder that you are targeting and weed out the bare essentials (the uber important files). Put them in a separate folder.

*Simplify before organizing: It is a good idea to compress files that you want to keep; this will reduce space.

*Develop a purging regimen: List purging reminders in your calender, mobile device, etc. To make purging your regular regimen, set reminders in your calendar program or drive. Each week or two, or every month are good intervals, depending on your targeted needs. But make it a regular thing, and you will be living the simple digital life from this point on.

I am proud to say that I am free from all of that digital clutter. Every day is a challenge. With following these suggestions, I am now digital clutter-free and able to help others with their digital clutter problem.


Next post--Cleaning Up Your Disk on the Computer

Managing Your Digital Files

This is a new year and it comes new challenges. One of these challenges may be de-cluttering your digital environment (yes, your digital area, such as your computer).

Experience with clients has taught me that often someone has more clutter on computer than in their home or office.The computer can be a source of great enjoyment and productivity if you organize files on it regularly. I realize that it does not take up any real space in your home or office, which is probably the reason that people just ignore it, but I found that it has a huge impact on my clients satisfaction and productivity.

Sure there are a ton of books on using the computer but I discovered that there is not a simple and straightforward explanation of keeping on top of where everything is on the computer. Here is the basics of what I show my clients:

Get into the habit of creating folders on your computer for a variety of  topics. Put everything relevant to each topic into the appropriate folder.

Create more folders within existing topic folders for sub-topics, such as creating a folder for Health. In this folder, you may have folders for subtopics as in Diet, Pharmaceuticals, and Natural Health, just to name a few.

Spend time on the process of organizing your digital files. Trust me, in the long haul, you will finally feel that you can organize files on your computer very well and feel better about finding what you need instead of digging through the digital clutter!

Next post...The Confession of an ex-Digital File Hoarder....

Stay Tuned!