"I WILL ZAP THE CLUTTER OF MY LIFE THIS YEAR AND FEEL RENEWED!" I declared boldly in my last post, In Living Clutter.
And I meant what I said. The "new move" in my life (at least, physically) was the purchase of a condominium in South Jersey, making me a first-time homeowner. Ecstatic hardly describes how I felt when I unlocked the front door of my new home and new space. I felt like a space within me was being cleared and my goals were revealed to me in a new way.
"Imagine what I can create in this space," I thought, not in reference to interior decorating but to the quietness I would have to write and a room for a creative workspace.
It's been almost three months since moving into my new place and I still feel that rush of excitement when I walk through the door. I thank God every day for blessing me with a space of my own. Looking around my relatively bare condo, I also think, "How will protect this space from clutter?" Discipline and new habits, of course--a simple answer but an even harder task to execute. Here's how I am getting it, my clutter-prone tendencies, under control:
Know your values
We all have values and standards but how often are they reflected in how we live and act. I have a friend who can rattle down his key values at a moment's notice. "God, family, and money," he says, counting them with his fingers. I realized a firm knowledge of his values help him to structure his decisions, priorities, and habits. It has done the same for me. Values remind me what's important and helps me discern what is worth keeping or letting go.
Start Small and Act Immediately
Clutter is a physical result of our procrastination. The goal is to identify your clutter weak areas and act immediately to control it (before it overtakes you). Start by asking, "What piles up the most?" For me, its paperwork. For you, it could be clothes or shoes. Start there and control the influx. Before getting a filing system in place, I had an organized chaos approach to keeping paperwork (and most other things). Thank God for a photographic memory or else I would never be able to find my most important documents. To address this weak area, I immediately bought filing bins, folders, and tags to catalog my creative writing materials, personal finances, and work papers. I started with the work papers first and each week or two moved to the next set of papers.
Stay committed
Habit begins with creating a routine. To control my inflow of papers, I check the mail in the evenings when I get home. I throw out junk immediately and file the important stuff for later. To control influx of clothes, my mother taught me to donate or give away clothes for each new item I purchased in a quarter. You need tactics that will help you keep your word on clutter elimination.
Hope it helps,
Malaika
