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Living
Boldly® e-Zine Archives
It's
time to come clean about clutter!
July 06,
2003
If you're a regular, long-time subscriber to my
newsletter, you might have noticed I haven't been getting these issues out as
frequently or in a timely way for the past couple of months. In fact, it's been
about 6 weeks since my last issue, which is pretty much unheard of for me, and
the one before that was a couple of weeks late, too. (My apologies!) The truth
is, I've been feeling stuck in my writing, as well feeling very scattered with
my energies and ability to focus. I haven't "felt like" writing and couldn't
really come up with anything brilliant to talk about, so I just kept putting it
off and putting it off. Today, I decided to just make myself sit down and
write, without having any idea of what I was going to want to talk about. As I
looked around the mountains of paper all over my office, and found myself
having an internal argument about whether or not I should "clean up" before
writing, I started to realize the cause of my writer's block! CLUTTER AND
CHAOS!
The first sign, for me, that things are getting out of control
and chaotic in my life is the appearance of excessive physical clutter in my
home and work environment. Physical clutter and disorder is often just a
manifestation of internal chaos or emotional stuff that is going on inside of
us. So, it's no wonder that, since I've been going through a phase of
transition and feeling scattered inside for the past few months, that there is
clutter that is LITERALLY scattered all over the place! My office, for example,
has been steadily drowning in paper. Where once it was an organized, orderly
room and a pleasure to work in here (I had a professional organizer help me!),
now I find myself avoiding the space completely - not a good thing for a
home-based business! Why would I want to write in HERE, it's a mess!
My whole life (and my mother, sister, and former roommates can attest to this)
I've been a cluttered person. When I was a teenager, probably in part as some
normal teenage rebellion, my response to "Clean your room!" was "What for, it's
only going to get messy again later!" I always seemed to be able to justify my
messy behavior because there was always something more interesting I wanted to
be doing, and at some point I think I recall making a decision that I didn't
want to be a domestic goddess anyway and no one was going to make me clean
something if I didn't want to!
A convenient excuse
As I moved out into the world, first sharing apartments with roommates and
eventually being on my own, I had no one to rebel against but I took my
cluttered housekeeping habits along with me. Although I probably wasn't quite
as sloppy when I had roommates (only out of consideration), looking back, I can
see that I was very comfortable in the stories I would tell myself about why I
couldn't seem to create and maintain a neat and orderly existence.
I
have been guilty of being someone who tells herself that "clutter doesn't
matter, who's it hurting, and I've got better things to do than clean the house
today". Or, at the office, it was "I know where everything is, I don't have
time to worry about organizing all this stuff". Gee, THAT'S convenient, isn't
it?
Living the cluttered life can provide us with great excuses for a
LOT of things - not just avoiding housework. When your house is a mess, you
don't want to have people over because it's just plain embarrassing - and
heaven forbid someone should just "drop in" unannounced! You might find you're
late for client appointments or for work because you can't find your car keys
or you can't locate that important file folder you need for a meeting. And, if
you're stepping over the piles on the floor, what ELSE might you be "stepping
over" (avoiding, tolerating, making excuses for) in your life? Are you stepping
over someone else's bad behavior - or your own? Are you stepping over your own
lack of motivation? Clutter provides us with all kinds of ways we can "hide
out" from things we don't want to deal with.
I recently had a friend
tell me about a great book on this subject, called "It's Hard to Make a
Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys: The Seven Step Path to Becoming Truly
Organized", by Marilyn Paul. Although I've only just started reading it, even
the title caught my attention - because don't we all really LONG to make a
difference in the world in some way? Is the clutter in our lives preventing us
from being all that we truly are meant to be?
Paying a higher price than you
realize
While it might be more "comfortable" to ignore the
clutter, in reality we are paying a pretty high price for that familiar mess.
Even if we're good at sweeping the mess under the carpet (like, when you've got
company coming over and you rush through the house throwing the clutter in a
closet or under the bed, out of sight for the moment but still needing to be
dealt with later), we feel like frauds because WE know that while our guests
are complimenting us on our lovely home, we've got messy little "secrets"
stashed all over the place. When our lives are so cluttered that we can't think
straight, are we at our best in our jobs or businesses? Do customers want to
give us their business? Do our friends, family, spouses, partners want to be
around us? Are new people going to be attracted to us?
In all
honesty, I really DO love it when my home is neat, clean and well organized. I
actually have a very attractive home and work space, underneath all those piles
of stuff! I get a very strong feeling of being at peace with myself when I can
look around and see an attractive room to work in, read in, or sleep in. When
my bedroom is in good shape and all the clothes are put away and I can walk in
to my walk-in closet, I get a more restful sleep. When my living space is neat,
I want to socialize more, I'm more outgoing, more adventurous. When my work
space is organized, with everything in it's place, I walk into my home office
and just enjoy being there, and my creativity seems to skyrocket - and I tend
to attract more business, too! I even want to take better care of myself, by
taking the time to exercise (when my workout clothes are clean and easy to
find) or to shop for and prepare healthy meals for myself (when there aren't a
stack of dishes in the sink)!
What I've come to realize is that there
is a very direct and powerful relationship between how we are feeling on the
inside, and how we treat our physical space - and ourselves - on the outside.
When we feel scattered, chaotic, cluttered in our inner selves, our physical
space will show that very clearly. So physical clutter isn't just a logistical
and organizational problem, it's really an important wake-up call to get our
attention, telling us that something is "off" in our lives that we need to deal
with quickly.
Watch
your creativity and energy SOAR
I have come to realize that the
clutter is just a symbol that something else is going on in my life, something
I need to pay close attention to. I've even come up with a list of questions to
help me get to the root of what is REALLY going on, where the clutter is just a
convenient way for me to avoid dealing with something challenging or difficult.
(See the Tips for Living Boldly below, for the questions.) And once I come to
grips with what's really going on, it becomes much easier to start taking
action, getting focused again, at the same time as I'm getting organized. The
more organized I get, the more creative I feel, and the more energized!
What price are YOU paying for your clutter? If you, too, are living the
cluttered life, are you willing to take some time now and get it handled? By
dealing with what's BEHIND your need for clutter, you will be able to let go of
the physical clutter bit by bit, as you take steps forward to living your life
the way you TRULY want to be living it - in a serene, organized, space that
allows your creativity and sense of freedom to blossom - so you really CAN get
out there and make a difference!
Living Boldly in Action
Let's
clean up our act, together! My commitment to you is that I will be doing these
steps right along with you. Start by asking yourself some tough questions:
- What space is cluttered (office, bedroom, living room, kitchen, car,
basement, etc.) - is it just one or two areas, or an across the board mess?
[Some people have one particular area that is always messy, but the rest of
their space is in good shape - this might be a clue to avoiding something in
one specific area of your life.]
- What is it about having clutter in
this space that bothers me the most? [Get in touch with the negatives of having
the clutter present.]
- What is it about having clutter in this space
that gives me a reason/excuse to do something, or to avoid doing something?
[I.e., what is the hidden payoff in being cluttered? You are getting something
out of it, or you wouldn't be doing it.]
- Who am I able to keep at a
distance by having this clutter? [Are you using the messy space to keep others
at an emotionally comfortable distance?]
- What vision or mission or
goals do I have for my life, that I am NOT accomplishing or making progress
towards, as a result of having this clutter in my life? [If you say you want to
make a difference in some way, but it's not happening, how is the clutter
contributing as an obstacle?]
- If I were to create and maintain a
clutter free existence - what would that feel like? [PAY ATTENTION: in addition
to being able to envision feelings of satisfaction and peace of mind, you may
also notice feelings of complete fear or anxiety at the very notion of having
your clutter gone for good. It's important to notice what emotions are stirred
up by the thought of a clutter-free space, because if there are some fears and
anxieties lurking unacknowledged, they may cause you to fall back into old
patterns when you do actually clean up the space!]
NEXT: take some
action. Start small. Pick a space that is cluttered where you know, if you were
to have it neat and organized, you'd really feel terrific. Then, if it's a big
job, start by taking small steps. Are you willing to spend just 15 minutes (or
20 or 30 or whatever) a day to clean up or organize this space until all the
clutter is handled? [Don't get overwhelmed by having to devote an entire day or
weekend to cleaning up, break it down into manageable chunks of time, and just
do what you can do in that time, giving yourself permission to stop when time
is up. You'll be amazed at how much you can accomplish in regular, short
intervals!]
If you need it, get extra support - buddy up with a
friend, hire a professional organizer, enlist your coach for some extra
support. Don't go it alone if you don't have to!
Sometimes, just the
act of forcing yourself to take ONE small action step (like me making myself
sit down at the computer to write today, even when I didn't feel like it) can
help you cut through that feeling of being stuck and overwhelmed, and you'll
end up making BIG progress!
After all, look at me - once I got started
writing, I was hooked and before I knew it... I'm DONE! Gosh, I feel so much
better now...
For permission to reprint this
article, please contact me.
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