DE-CLUTTERING YOUR SPACE, DE-CLUTTER YOUR LIFE! (PART 3)

BY STACI WALLACE

RULE #3: De-clutter Your Personal Space

Recently, a client came to my office with a great amount of stress. She sat in my office and cried, “My life is in a place of chaos. I’m overweight, my marriage is rocky, and I don’t even have time to clean my own house. I am behind the eight-ball with no plan of escape.”

After listening to her desperate plea for help, I asked her to take out a piece of paper and play a game with me. The game was hide and seek. The goal of the game was to search (or seek) for hidden time in her daily routine that would allow her to find greater life balance. She looked at me as if I were asking her to do the impossible.

She said, “You don’t understand, I HAVE NO TIME.” I explained that I agreed that time is a tricky little bandit that gets away from us if we let it. I then assured her that I felt like a good 007 agent, up for the task of finding the time she had somehow misplaced.

As we took inventory of her day, we started with her morning routine and discovered that her lack of planning was draining precious moments from her schedule. We found 30 minutes lost due to a lack of planning her kids clothing and lunches for the day. We discovered another 30 minutes lost when she took calls from random friends with no real purpose but to say “hi”. Another 15 minutes was lost looking for her keys, shoes, or other pertinent items to each day’s kick-off. As we continued “searching” throughout her day’s schedule, it was an eye-opening experience for her as we discovered an extra 2.5 hours in her day that were prime moments being waisted. After our meeting, she left with a new lease on life, a new outlook on her possibilities, and a new plan for reorganizing her time, her relationships and even her home.

So, when we talk about de-cluttering your personal space, we are specifically talking about your home. If you say, “Staci, I just don’t have time to clean,” I encourage you to play little game of hide and seek with yourself, too.

You don’t need HOURS to tackle the challenge of de-cluttering your home. Like the old saying goes, “You can’t eat an elephant with one bite. But inch by inch, anything is a cinch.”

Baby Steps

Take baby steps and set aside 15 minutes a day to tackle one project at a time. Here is a step by step approach you can use to get started.

STEP #1 - Prioritize.

Start your de-cluttering process by sitting down and assigning priority to each room in your home. Create a sketch or graph of your home and put a number on each room according to importance of clean-up. Room #1 would be the room that takes first priority in your de-clutter plan. Room #2 would be the second room to tackle, and so on.

STEP #2 - Divide and Conquer

Once you identify the first room you will focus on, break it into projects. For example, let’s say your bedroom is priority #1. Your first project in that room might be to organize your nightstand. Rather than looking at the room as a whole, start with one area. If you have a mound of clothes or trash on the floor, start by clearing everything out and sorting it in another room or in the garage. Only put back in the room what deserves to stay. If you are tackling the nightstand, remove all contents in the nightstand. As you put items back in the nightstand, purge with passion. If you have not used something or worn something in a year, it’s time to purge it. If it has not sentimental value, let it go to a charity, a garage sale, or make a few bucks with it on Ebay. The point is, start somewhere. By dividing big rooms into small projects, you will have quicker sucesses and stronger motivation to keep going.

STEP #3 - Keep On Keepin’ On

One of the last statements made to my by my grandmother before she passed away was, “Honey, just keep on keepin’ on.” Those simple words have had such meaning in so many areas of my life. From the natural childbirth of my son after 17 hours of labor to the passion behind starting a non-profit organization from scratch to the sometimes daunting goal of keeping our family home organized and clean, I can hear her words ring loud and clear, “Honey, just keep on keepin’ on.”

Once you have conquered that first project, don’t stop! Find another project in that top priority room and dominate it. No matter where you start, whether it be a closet, pantry, bedroom, the kitchen sink, or any space of your choice, just keep on keepin’ on. Take those little 15 minute windows and make them prime-time for clean-time. Don’t just sit on the couch when you watch that reality show, go ahead and pull a drawer into the living room with you and organize your socks, de-clutter your jewelry box, organize your warranty papers. Make the most of your time by making your time work for you!

(Note: For those of you who are in need of true down-time due to being hyper organizers, chill out and enjoy the night off. For the rest of the 99% of time-waisters, however, enjoy a great game of TIME hide and seek and eat that elephant of clutter, one bite at a time!)

DE-CLUTTERING YOUR SPACE, DE-CLUTTER YOUR LIFE!

BY STACI WALLACE

PT. 2 - DE-CLUTTERING YOUR WORK/OFFICE ENVIRONMENT

Did you know that your desk can play a physiological role in your daily productivity and overall health? A messy desk and disorganized office environment could very well be the cause of deeper issues in life.

According to researchers at NEC-Mitsubishi, a computer-monitor manufacturer, many office workers are suffering from IDS, irritable desk syndrome (IDS), which can cause chronic pain, loss of productivity and other physical and mental symptoms. IDS is actually a sickness associated with working long hours at a cluttered desk (often with poor posture, as well). In a recent study of 2,000 office workers, researchers found that:

• 40 percent said they were "infuriated by too much clutter and paper on their desks but could not be bothered to do anything about it."

• 35 percent said they had back or neck pain because they knowingly had poor posture or an awkward position while at their desk.

"What most individuals fail to realize is that desk symptoms typically escalate very quickly, from persistent discomfort to chronic pain, which can end a person's career and reduce their quality of life in a wide range of ways," said Nigel Robertson, researcher and noted "deskologist."

Other studies have stated that working at a cluttered desk is less time-effective and often results in workers devoting excess time and attention to finding what they need, before they even get to their regular assignments.

"Studies have shown that the person who works with a messy desk spends, on average, one and a half hours per day looking for things or being distracted by things. That's seven and a half hours per week," says time-management speaker and consultant Dr. Donald E. Wetmore.

Of course, the antithesis of this syndrome is the person who spends excess time organizing too much. The key? Balance. Once you set your space, maintain it with a simple system of organization. Here are a few tips to getting started on a de-cluttered work/office environment.

1. De-clutter your raw space.

Not sure where to begin with a completely cluttered office? Start by de-cluttering your raw space. Take one drawer at a time and take everything out before trying to organize. You may have papers, files, or documents that are useless and just cluttering your space. As you begin adding things back to your drawers, be strict about what makes the cut back into the drawer. Your office is your sanctuary of productivity. Don’t let just ANYTHING be accepted into the drawer or in your office as a whole. Items must earn their way into your space based on their importance and their ability to produce income, productivity, or creativity to what you do.


2. Eliminate visible clutter.

Once you have gone through your drawers and eliminated the “inner” excess, you should have an organized “inner office”. Your “inner office” is what people DON’T see. Much like finding “inner peace”, your “inner office” will be the foundation of what others should begin to see externally. Now that your inner office is in order, clean off your desk completely, removing all pictures, notes, papers, etc. Once you have a clean slate, only add the essentials back to your space. If you are a picture lover, make sure that your pictures are organized, well displayed, and appropriate for your environment. Your desk will be a reflection of your life and if you have a disorganized mess of pictures, papers, or trinkets on your desk, it will show the lack of balance in other areas, as well. On the other hand, a clean desk is often a sign of a clear mind.


3. Place value on your open space.

Now that your inner and outer office space is clean and de-cluttered, choose wisely what you allow to take up space in the future. When new papers come into your room, read them and determine if they are to be taking up space or hitting the bottom of the trash can immediately. Open your mail and read it. Experts say that a major amount of office clutter comes from items we intend to get to at a later date that never end up being addressed. Mail is a good example; open it, read it, and then either eliminate it or file it appropriately. This will also help you in assuring that bills are paid on time and not overlooked in the shuffle.

4. Specify your space.

You can eliminate needless stress by labeling your space. For example, if you have a file or box that is labeled “IMMEDIATE ATTENTION”, that means that anything in that box gets your attention before the end of the day. Before you go home, look through the box and make sure you have completed the items of high priority. Have a space set aside for essential items. For example, by eliminating that mad scramble for your keys or any other item, you've spared yourself loads of unnecessary anxiety. Save yourself this precious energy and give your space labeled boundaries.

These are just a few tips for de-cluttering your work/office environment. Stay tuned next week for tips on how to de-clutter your home/life environment. :)

DE-CLUTTERING YOUR SPACE, DE-CLUTTER YOUR LIFE!

BY STACI WALLACE

PT. 1 - DE-CLUTTERING YOUR EMOTIONAL SPACE


De-cluttering your home, office and life have the potential to radically improve your productivity at work, home and in relationships. From kitchen counter tops to a messy desk and even a junk filled car – your “space” is a reflection of your life. Show me a person’s car, for example, and I can tell you a lot about their thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

It’s hard to believe, but our environments reflect our inner space and give a glimpse into our souls. When Sanya came to our organization looking to lose weight and demolish over $30,000 in credit card debt, I asked her if she would take me to her car. She looked at me perplexed and yet walked me to her vehicle. As she opened the car door, a can fell out of a messy, trash-filled car full of old papers, shoes, food bags, and wrappers. I had seen enough and kindly asked her to follow me inside.

Sure enough, as we unraveled her emotional, physical, and spiritual “issues” it was clear that her car was a mere symptom of a deeper need for transformation, self-respect and self-discipline. Sanya weighed 373 pounds and was desperately seeking change. Good news is that after only one year, Sanya lost over 85 pounds and demolished $30,000 in debt to go on to live a thriving life of balance and peace.

The key: She had a cluttered mind, cluttered soul, and cluttered life. Though her process included much mental reconditioning, there are a few practical tips we gave her to de-clutter her environments that will serve as a great help to anyone looking to de-clutter their life. They include:

Rule #1: De-clutter Your Emotional Space
Rule #2: De-clutter Your Work/Office Space
Rule #3: De-clutter Your Home/Personal Space
Rule #4: De-clutter Your Relational Space
Rule #5: De-clutter Your Spiritual Space

RULE #1: De-clutter Your Emotional Space

Do you ever find yourself misplacing important items or searching for things that you just can’t seem to find? You say to yourself that you will come up with a better system for organizing the details of your life, but where do you begin? Design Psychologist, Kelli Ellis states, “You see that person who has papers flying out of files, or you see their handbag, and you say, 'I know exactly what your car looks like or what your home office looks like.'” If you have overflowing drawers or an overflowing purse, chances are you have excessive overflow in every area of life. We call that overflow: Clutter.

Clutter, both mental and physical, can leave you frustrated, delayed, disappointed and even late for important meetings, deadlines, or events. Such disorganization eats away at our time and productivity. Think of all of the wasted seconds and minutes used up on searching for keys, papers, clothing and even excess time spent on messy relationships.

“To be truly happy, sometimes you must eliminate unhealthy people and situations from your life,” says Alex Lluch, author of Secrets to Love Life and Be Happy.

If you find yourself surrounded by negative, emotionally draining people, begin to remove them from your mental and physical space. If you feel stuck in a dead-end job, don’t just sit around complaining about the mess, make a determined effort to change.

Breaking away from a comfort zone of cluttered voices, relationships, and even a job will not be easy. It may take a monumental amount of confidence and courage, but it could very well be the key to unlocking your greatest, most inspiring days ahead.

Take Denise Gerrich who came to EMwomen weighing 330 pounds. Her life, home, work, and car were a cluttered mess. She lived with a massive amount of clutter for over 10 years till finally she made a radical decision to leave her comfort zone, change jobs, move to a new city, and clean house personally, emotionally, and physically.

The result? Nine months later she was working in the job of her dreams, having lost 123 pounds and loving life.

To master Rule #1, you may have to made some radical decisions. However, change doesn't come to those who wish for it to happen. It comes to those willing to make it happen with daily effort, faith, and determination.

Tip For The Week:

Start with one area of your home that needs to be de-cluttered. It could be a closet, pantry, bedroom, or any space of your choice. Remove everything from the room, including furniture so that you start with a clean space. Then, place back into the room, only the items you wish to keep. Be courageous. If you haven’t used an item for over a year....let it go! If you don’t plan on using it in the next 3 months, set it free! Those items that end up in your “excess” pile, either throw them away, donate them to a local charity, post them on Freecycle.org, or apply them to a garage sale to pay off some of your debt or bills!