Additional tips against clutter

In my last post, I wrote about different kinds of clutter and how to get rid of them.

Today it's time for a little reminder...

How is that list coming along?

Did you do 2 things from one list?

If not, please read below tips to spur you on:

1. ALL items in your house should be USEFUL and BEAUTIFUL.
   “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful.”
   -William Morris
   
   
   
2. ALL items in your house should have a PLACE.
   If the don't have one, create one. If you can't create one, toss it.
   
   
3. Ask yourself: what is my MOTIVATION for keeping this?
   
   • Guilt (it costs so much; it's from my dead grandmother)?
   • Fear (if I fail in my business, I will be glad to have kept this)
   • The image it gives (if I have this, people will think I'm successful)
   • Souvenir (it's from when I was a little girl)
     
   Don't link your items to past or future things. Especially not if they are draining your energy. You want to get rid of negativity. Trust your feelings, your instinct when you pick it up. If you don't feel good about it, throw it out.
   
   
4. Baby steps:
   Stick to the plan of doing a few things per week. Otherwise you get overwhelmed and will just stop the whole process.
   
   
5. Create a system:
   Avoid having to think about making appointments. Next time you're at the garage/hairdresser/dentist etc schedule your next appointment(s). That way they are in the calendar and you can stop thinking about them.
   
   
6. Get committed:
   Put aside the time to do this.
   Get your partner involved.
   
   
7. Intention:
   And this should probably be up on the top of this article...
   It all starts with your intention. What is it that you WANT? Write it down, clearly.
   Everything you do should be in line with your intention:
   
   • your actions (is this in line with my goal? if not, why am I doing it? Do I have to do it?)
     
   • your language (no more 'I kind of, sort of, maybe want to do this')
   • your space (is a messy living/working space in line with the successful business woman you intend to be?)
   • your people (are you surrounded by supporters or energy draining whiners?)
   
   

Read more...

Get rid of clutter and success will follow

What do the following items have in common?

1. A loose button on your shirt that you have meant to mend for weeks.
2. Your grandma's old china that you never use but keep anyway.
3. An old grudge against an old friend.
4. Unworn clothes in your wardrobe.
5. Gifts you received but don't really like.
6. Fear of failure in your future business
7. The oil change your car is in desperate need of.
8. The rented DVDs you need to return.
9. The filing you need to do.

They are all clutter.

Clutter doesn't have to be a physical object (like the candle holder you got for your birthday that fits neither next to the television nor with the colors of your living room).

Clutter can also take the form of a thank you note that you have meant to write but didn't, a dentist's appointment you know you should make but keep 'forgetting'.


Whether it's the physical or incomplete clutter, they both drain your energy: every time you see them and they bother you, every time you think about them being unfinished.

My coach told me that you get up in the morning with 100 units of energy.

This is the energy you need to focus on your life, your intention, your passion, your happiness, the things you want to achieve.

Every time you come across some clutter, some units are taken away from you.

You are leaking energy towards either past events (the grudge your holding against your old friend), or imagined future events (fear of failing in your future business)

And these leaks keep you from focusing on what's important in the present: your goals, your intention, your future business, your healthy teeth, your car not breaking down.

How to get rid of clutter?

The above list of clutter didn't arrive on your doorstep this morning. You have been piling them up over the last months or even years (remember those old books and photos from university? when was the last time you look at them?).

And it is impossible to get rid of them all in a day. You need to proceed in small steps:

1. Make a list: You can't fix what you can't name.
   (A4 landscape, make three columns)
   For the physical clutter, it is easiest to go around your house and write down what bothers you. Divide the list into each room of the house.
   Don't start with the basement.
   Take the least cluttered room, the bedroom for example (write down in first column):
   • Dirty socks on the floor
   • Coat hangers on the dresser
   • Clothes on the chair
   • Shirt with missing button
   • Old, ugly wallpaper
   • I hate the color and pattern of the bed sheets
   • That statue doesn't fit there
   • Kids toys under our bed
   Then move to the next room.
   Don't pick things up. Don't start clearing things away. Don't start being overwhelmed.
   Just write them down.
    
2. Make another list:
   (A4 landscape, make three columns)
   For the incomplete (or unfinished) clutter, create another list. Empty your brain (first column):
   
   • Make dentist appointment
   • Write thank you note
   • Make service appointment for the oil change
   • Clear grudge with old friend
   Don't look for solutions, just write them down as they come up.
   
3. Understand the purpose:
   These two list you have created are not TO DO Lists.
   They are there to:
   
   • make you aware that these items drain your energy
   • make you start repairing those energy leaks
   • give your brain a break (it's on the list, I don't have to continuously think about them)
     
4. Create actions: you can't fix it if you don't know how
   
   • Take two items of one of the two lists (pick those that are easily doable/fixable) and circle them.
   • In the second column, write down how you can fix this problem - you can write down multiple solutions:
   • find a place for the statue
   • give to my cleaning lady (ask her first! you don't want to make your clutter hers!)
   • bring to the Salvation Army
   • In the third column, write down a completion date.
   • Do these two items this week.
     
5. Don't over-unclutter:
   Next week, pick another 2 or 3 items off one of the two lists, add a solution, and do them during the week.
   
   
6. Feel victory:
   As you start accomplishing more and more of these actions, notice the difference.
   
   
7. Welcome success:
   As you start literally cleaning up your life and space, you are getting rid of leaks that drain your energy. This energy can now be used to create the life you intended for. You are able to focus and success will naturally follow.
   
   
8. Future leaks:
   Although you will create new habits which prevent most energy drains, it is normal that over time, small leaks creep in. Now you have the tools to identify and fix them.
   If something is not going so well in the future, ask yourself which energy drain might be the cause of it. Maybe you didn't exercise enough, lag behind in your filing or haven't had a massage in a year. Put it on the leak list and fix it this week!

Read more...

“Clutter causes stress, and clutter is one of the main barriers of productivity.” -- Charisse Ward

One of the first lessons in Christine Kane's Uplevel Your Life program is about decluttering.

Clutter can come in all forms and shapes and situations.

It can be the button of your white blouse that you haven't had the time to sew back on, or any object in your house that doesn't really have a place of it's own.

It can also be unfinished paperwork, clothes that are too small but just waiting for you to loose that belly, shoes you don't wear anymore 'but cost a fortune', gifts you received and hate but don't dare to get rid of just in case the giver swings by and demands to see it.

It can be the loose screw of the bathroom mirror that keeps you bending your head when you put on your makeup.

It can also be the demanding friend who eats up your energy ranting on about how difficult her life is but who doesn't notice when you feel down.

'Energy flows where attention goes' was the mantra that opened my eyes.

I come from a very modest family where dad was the breadwinner and mom stayed at home to raise the kids.

Things could have been really difficult and dull. But we were lucky that dad, who comes from a family of 14 kids, is very ingenious, inventive and, well, to say the least, stingy.

He used to have a room in the basement filled with, for lack of a descriptif word, stuff. Alls kinds of stuff. From 10 TV sets (in case the set of a member of the very large family broke down), over a used WWII2 motorcycle and washing machines (a woman's gotta wash...), to all kinds of screws and bolts to fix things.

My mother got fed up with it as it was also the laundry room and 'stuff' and clean laundry did not go well together.

So he built a workshop in the garden. Not just any workshop, but a huge, in your face building that could have looked neat, were it not for the recuperated slates, windows etc that just made us call it his shed (nowadays, the grandchildren refer to it as 'the atelier' - brainwashed they are :-).

He continues to horde everything he thinks he might need one day. Since flatscreens hit the market, he has gotten rid of his wide selection of tube televisions thus making room for...more stuff.

We have learned to live with this. It was actually quite practical when I was younger and living on my own. I never had to buy anything and Dad came to fix everything.

He continued to act that way when I moved in with my now husband and for a while I didn't get what seemed like a fight for territorial rights... :-)

Now we know that we cannot talk to my Dad about something until we have bought or arranged for it, or else he will swing by with his trailer to present us with the hardly used, 'as good as new' version of what we are looking for.

So I guess you could say that the word clutter did not exist in our family dictionary :-)

Which made it hard for me to get it added in my own. Especially the realisation that clutter is not just the mess on your desk but everything that eats up your energy.

I am a much happier and healthier person now. And I have learned to 'deal with my Dad' in the process. He can still drive me up the wall with his behaviour, but I just don't go along with it anymore.

What is your relationship to clutter? Has it changed in the last years? Why and how?

Read more...