What is the one thing that just about everyone can agree on? They want more time!
And almost universally they want more energy to go with that time. We try all kinds of tactics to make both of those desires part of our reality. We over-plan and over-schedule ourselves. We multitask to the max. Then we dose ourselves with caffeine until we get so jittery we can no longer concentrate on even the simplest task. We read the latest and greatest time management books hoping we will find the perfect solution somewhere in the pages. We trick ourselves into believing that sleep is a luxury we can afford do without.
Guess what? There is an easier way to add minutes to your day and get an energy bump to boot.
Are you ready?
It’s so simple it’s going to blow your mind.
Get rid of stuff.
What’s that you say – Get rid of stuff?! But I love my stuff.
I can hear that sentiment being echoed loud and clear. But here’s the real deal, you do have stuff you love and that’s as it should be. However, you also have stuff you don’t love – stuff that doesn’t serve you well, adds no value to your life and doesn’t contribute to you reaching your goals. That’s the stuff you should get rid of. We call that stuff clutter.
Clutter can be big or clutter can be small. Clutter is anything that doesn’t support to us in some way. Clutter does nothing but take from us – it’s like letting a freeloading ‘friend’ settle in and take over. You wouldn’t do that though, right? But I am betting you are housing clutter.
Why am I being so forward and betting on something sight unseen? It’s because we acquire things in such a variety of ways that it’s virtually impossible to ask ourselves the important questions before we become the steward of each and every item. But, and this is an important but, we can ask yourself the big question most of the time.
So let’s get back to my suggestion to get rid of stuff. Why do I suggest it? Because, by its very nature, stuff demands our time and energy. It’s quite simple. Stuff takes up space. A cluttered space leads to a cluttered mind, and a cluttered mind leads to stress. Stress takes energy. The energy it takes is nonproductive. Do you really want to spend any of your time being nonproductive? I doubt it, especially since the goal is to free up more time.
Seeing things things that make you feel bad, or worse, things that conjure up guilt is just as damaging. Looking at things that create less than desirable feelings is not healthy. It just leads to more stress and wastes more energy. Oh, I know what you’re thinking….it’s so hard to let go! And it is, but when you know how your mind works, you can make letting go of clutter much, much easier (it’s science based so it’s true for all of us!).
Stuff also costs energy and time more directly. Time to put away and time to care for. When you have too many things you have to work around them in some capacity and that causes time to be wasted.
I would challenge you to let go of five things over the next five days – if you’re stuck think about low hanging fruit -it’s the easiest clutter to let go. Then see how it feels to free yourself from a little bit of energy sapping, time stealing clutter.
Now this might surprise you – what if I said you could actually learn to enjoy clutter clearing? You can if you use this simple mindset tip – no jokes!
If you are ready to jump start the clutter clearing process be sure to check out the How To Declutter, Simplify and Organize Your Life E-Course (it’s free!) – I take you step-by-step through the decluttering process and start you on the path to organized living (and how awesome is that?!).
