Step # 1 - Get Rid of Clutter
-Clutter stops your brain from functioning at its peak level. It is those piles of books you haven't read, have read, or maybe will read sometime in the future. Shelve them, sell them, read them, or donate them to library sale. It is the piles of folders and notes that belong in folders, the post-its and the articles you cut out of magazines to save. Put the folders in file cabinets, and file those things that need filing. It is the clothes that aren't folded or hung, as well as the myriad other little things we surround ourselves with. It all drains your energy, creates a negative force in your life, and keeps you from getting on with your work and your life.
In Feng Shui there is a recommendation to get rid of 9 things a week for 9 weeks. Although I am not a practitioner of that art, this seems like a good idea to me.
In order to cut the spiritual ties you have with the things you chose to release, sit with each object for a brief time. Acknowledge how it has served you on your path, and bid it good-bye. Now here is the hard part - get it out of the house as fast as possible before you decide you couldn't possibly live without it.
Reducing or eliminating clutter is an ongoing process for most of us. So start with just one area, and get that area under control, then move on to other areas in your house or office. Eventually, you will have it all clutter free and you will find your life will become simpler and easier to deal with. One friend of mine took this process to the extreme, getting rid of everything extraneous to her chosen life style. After three months, she realized that she had reduced her need for living space from a 3 bedroom house to something much smaller. At that pint she decided to release the house, and to allow her perfect place to live to manifest. Less than one week later, she was offered a large one room house on the waterfront. She took the opportunity and now lives happily in the amount of space she used to use for storage alone. As an added bonus, her company offered her a new position that required her to travel and live in Europe for up to three months at a time. Realizing that her house would not take the time and attention her old house had, she accepted the new position, with much better pay, and travels an lives in Europe with the same simplicity she has found at home.
For myself, I have found that I am much more creative when I don't have the remains of two or three projects staring me in the face, every time I go to work.
Since I work from a home office, this is very important to me. It is much easier to deal with clients, produce great advertising campaigns, and develop great graphic design, when I know where everything is, and don't have to search through piles of paper to find the napkin I outlined the plan on, 2 months ago. Frequently, I would find that I hadn't looked well enough when I threw something out, and the very thing I wanted was long gone- form memory and my life.
Now that I have revealed the perfidious industry in which I work, I can assure you that the Advertising Council of America would not support all the ideas in this article. Advertising is designed to make you believe that your life will not be complete without the new gadget, car, clothes, anything you name. The problem is that as soon as you buy it, and use it, your life is just the same, only now you are more encumbered than before. One way to reduce clutter is to go on a shopping diet. Now this is a really radical idea: buy nothing you don't need for the next three months. To reduce it even further - buy only consumables such as food and paper goods.
While you are working to reduce the clutter factor in your life and work, realize that there will be times when you feel overwhelmed, when the papers seem to be reproducing behind your back, and it is a conspiracy to keep you mired in a world of clutter. When you feel this way, just recognize it, and let it go.
