Banish Clutter Forever

Eating healthily and exercising will almost certainly lengthen your life. So will not smoking and not drinking to excess. But what if you’re frittering the precious and hard won extra time you’ve created, on something tiresome and meaningless?

The National Association of Professional Organizers says the average person spends one year of their lives looking for lost items. One whole year. We’ve all been there. Searching frantically for keys when we’re late for a meeting, or the phone when it’s ringing because we can’t remember where we had it last. Or for a tax return or receipts when the deadline is due, in the fear that we won’t find it. Not nice at all! Not being able to find these items causes considerable stress and so we tend to remember searching for them. But if having to search for everyday items in your home is a habit for you, then it’s likely that you’re ‘building’ this search time into your schedule, without noticing how much time it’s costing you.

Well now you know. If you’re pretty average, it’s a year of your life. If you’re very cluttered, it’s likely to be several years. I don’t know about you, but when my body has finally given up and I’ve run out of time to spend with my loved ones, I don’t want to feel that I wasted a year of it…

The real aim of being organised, is not so that your house ‘looks good’ or so that you pass some mythical ‘mother-in-law/white glove’ test. If you set out trying to organise, thinking that these things are what matter, you won’t manage to maintain it, because living up to some mythical standard just isn’t that important, and your subconscious mind knows it. The real aim of being well organised is so that you can get your essential tasks done quickly and easily, so that you have more time to spend with those you love and doing what you love.

Next time you resist getting rid of all that sentimental clutter, and say that you can’t bear to ‘lose’ the memories and ways in which those items connect you to your loved ones, think about how keeping them is actually keeping you from spending time with them. Because you can either spend time searching for stuff and dusting your possessions, or you can clear your home so that you have the time to get out there and create more memories. It’s entirely up to you…

Filed under: Time by Sheila Chandra