Simplify your life!

Simple living leads to a more productive, happier life. Having worked with overwhelmed, overworked, stressed out women, what I have found is that it is possible to simplify to become more productive, less stressed, more positive and flexible. This trend usually starts at home with a reduction in the amount of stuff/clutter you face every day.

Clutter is anything that:

1. does not have a use (to you!)
2. has negative feeling associated with it – an unfinished project, a gift from an ex-boyfriend, the cast from when you broke your arm in a car accident
3. does not have a ‘home’ in your home

A good rule of thumb for deciding whether to keep an item is to ask:

1. Do I use this?
2. Do I love it?
3. Do I need to keep it for tax purposes.

When looking at your stuff consider the following statements:

• Do I have visible clutter? Items you do not want or ones that just need to be put away
• Do I have paper clutter? Paper is a clutter monster, despite your best efforts it attacks via the mail carrier every day (except on Sunday!) and requires constant effort to stay on top of if.
• Do I have hidden clutter? This could be junk drawers, well organized knick knacks (if there are just too many), closets or room that are packed full but have a door or storage sheds.
• Do I have mental clutter? Feelings of being overwhelmed do to too many commitments, any of the previous 3 clutter areas or even negative events that have happened in your life.

Releasing the clutter is a slow process. If you take it slowly you will learn new habits and change your life style. If you decide today, ‘I am going to be clutter-free’, go home and clear your bedroom in 24 hours you will most likely revert to your cluttered ways and be disappointed that the process did not work.

• Attack the clutter that you can see – one area at a time working in small steps until it is finished.
• Create a plan to deal with the paper – set up a file system and a process for handling incoming mail.
• Deal with the hidden clutter in the same manner your tackled the visible clutter.

In the process above, you will be chipping away at the mental clutter as long as you are asking yourself the ‘rule of thumb’ questions above.