Last month we focused on the financial costs of clutter.  Now, let’s consider some of the non-financial ways your clutter and overwhelm can cost you.  It seems that many people can relate to this kind of cost – I know I can!  I’ve noticed that when clients contact me for help it is almost always spurred by one of these factors, rather than the financial costs related to their clutter, even though that might be high as well.  The costs we’ll talk about this month are related to people’s “pain point” – what finally promts them to take action and ask for help.  Let’s consider just a few of the common ones.

 Time costs:

Have you ever thought about the amount of lost time your clutter or disorganization is costing you?  This includes time spent looking for lost items, cleaning, maintaining, and repairing your stuff, and of course time spent “trying to get organized” and finding a place for all of your stuff.  Not to mention the time spent worrying about all of this!

 Productivity costs:

This clutter-cost is closely related to Time.  It’s hard to lose one without losing the other!  I think of productivity as a measurable aspect of time.  We may not be able to quantify exactly how much time we are losing due to our lack of organization (after all, think about all the minutes or hours that go by when we’re lost on Facebook, never to be seen again).  But if you think about what you accomplished in the last hour, day, week, month, or year, you might notice that you were not as productive as you intended to be.  And if you work outside the home, it is sometimes very obvious when your productivity drops.  Even if you don’t notice it, it’s likely that your boss or clients will!

Emotional costs:

This is really the area that seems to be the most painful for people.  Having your space overrun with clutter or being chronically disorganized can lead to feelings of stress and anxiety, fear, overwhelm, numbness, embarrassment, shame, decreased self-esteem, anger, and depression.  Sometimes these feeling become completely paralyzing, but more often they present as a chronic underlying sense of something being “not quite right” with our lives.

 Social costs:

For many people, their clutter and disorganization eventually affect their social lives and relationships.  I have worked with several clients who do not feel comfortable inviting people into their homes because they are embarrassed by their clutter.  If they do invite people over they won’t let them past the living room, and often spend days worrying about it or playing a marathon “clean-and-stash” game.  For some people, their clutter is so overwhelming that they CAN’T have people over, because there is literally no place for them to sit or stand, there are no useable surfaces in the kitchen or living room, and sometimes even navigating in and out of the door is a challenge.  While this may seem extreme (and it is), it is all on the same spectrum.  Nobody sets off intending to become a hoarder or packrat – it’s a slippery slope.  Another way the social costs of disorganization can manifest is that you don’t feel like being very social or going out with friends, because you’re just so stressed or depressed all the time.  Your clutter has become ‘background noise’ in your mind, and you can’t escape it even when you’re physically away from it.  I’ve also seen cases where people are chronically late for events, routinely cancel at the last minute, or their energy is just always chaotic – and their friends stop wanting to spend much time with them.  These social costs can lead to a real and painful sense of isolation.  And then there is the impact on your intimate and family relationships.  The amount of stress, bickering, and outright fighting “sutff” can cause in a partnership is incredible.  It can lead to serious relationship problems and even divorce/break-ups.  And the impact it can have on kids in the home – well, that’s a different ball of wax altogether.

 Physical costs:

In some cases, clutter and overwhelm can manifest physically.  In the extreme, it can lead to respiratory problems, allergies, and skin symptoms related to rodent infestations, excess pet hair and dander, etc.  In less extreme cases, it can lead to loss of good sleep, decreased exercise (because you don’t have time, or you’re too stressed/depressed, or you don’t have room in your house for your home exercise routine) and poor diet (you have no room to cook and you end up eating out for most of your meals).  Clutter and overwhelm can also worsen symptoms of underlying anxiety disorders, depression, ADD, etc.   Chronic stress and overwhelm from any cause triggers a chain of stress hormones and biochemical reactions in our bodies that can lead to inflammation, weight gain, aches and pains, and other bad stuff.

Think about the five clutter-cost areas above, and whether you may be experiencing some of these costs in your own life.  Are you losing valuable time, experiencing decreased productivity, or feeling stressed and overwhelmed?  Are your relationships suffering?  Are there any physical or health issues that might be related to, or worsened by, your chaotic life?  What are one or two steps you could take right now, today, or this week to move in the right direction?

As always, please share your comments here!  And hop on over to the Spaciousness Unlimited Facebook page or Twitter feed (@SpUnlimited) for daily tips and musings related to this month’s topic.  Thanks for reading!

It’s tax time – that time of year when most of us think more than usual about saving and spending money, where we need to make cutbacks, how to increase our financial stability, etc.  Money is on our minds!

Did you know that clutter costs?  Man, does it ever!  This month, I encourage you to really spend some time thinking about all the different ways that both physical clutter (the stuff around your house) and ‘life-clutter’ (the ‘stuff’ around your life) cost you unnecessary money.  You might find some things that surprise you!

Here are just a few common ways that clutter and chaos can cost you financially:

• Misplaced or expired gift-cards, coupons, and Groupons and the like
• Un-deposited checks
• Actual cash stashed hither and yon, where you can’t find it
• Buying an item you already own because you can’t find the one you have
• Late fees for unpaid bills, credit cards, library books, parking tickets, etc.
• Money spent on cleaning, maintaining, repairing or storing your items
• Expired food items you have to toss
• Money spent on stuff you don’t need, don’t have time for, or will never use

This list just barely scratches the surface.  There are all kinds of obvious and hidden costs that come from having too much stuff or being disorganized in general.  This month we’ll explore some of these costs, think about them in new ways, and come up with some creative and simple solutions!

As always, I’d love to hear your stories, suggestions, and questions.

Have you ever found yourself asking “Why can’t I just get organized?”, “Why can’t I get my act together?” or “Why can’t I just get rid of all the stuff?!”  Well, if you haven’t, maybe you should!

Everything we do, we do for a reason.  It may not be a “good” reason, a logical one, or even a conscious one.  But there is ALWAYS a reason behind what we do.  While on the one hand, getting too caught up in the whys can actually cause us to stay stuck, on the other hand, sometimes a gentle and nonjudgmental look into our thinking patterns can light a fire under us, or provide unexpected insights that lead the way forward.  This month, I invite you to think about YOUR whys.

Some of the common “reasons” I hear over and over again (and have experienced personally!) for why we struggle with organization and clutter include:

• I just don’t have time to deal with it.
• I’m too overwhelmed.
• I’m too tired.
• I have too much to do.
• I don’t know where to start.
• I will get to it later.
• This has sentimental value – I just can’t let it go.
• I might need it someday.
• I can’t decide right now; I’ll come back to it later.

Don’t be fooled!  These “reasons” are NOT your real whys.  Look deeper.  Listen to your reasons with the compassion and objectivity you would give to a close friend or loved one.  Dig a little, play with it, let yourself be surprised, moved, or inspired by what lies beneath.  Let whatever comes up just be there, and see where it leads you.

Consider doing a repeating-question exercise with some of your “reasons”.  Ask yourself the same question over and over until you get to the answer that resonates on a deep level and feels “most true”.  Helpful repeating questions include “Why?”, “And then what would happen?”, and “How does that make me feel?”.  Here is an example.  Let’s say your repeating question is simply “Why?”:

“I’m too overwhelmed.”

Why?

Because I always have too much to do.

Why?

Because I have a lot of responsibility.

Why? 

Because I always say yes to everything.

Why?

Because I’m afraid I might disappoint someone if I say no.

Why?

Because then they might not love me anymore.

Getting to the heart of the matter can help free you up to make a shift in your priorities or your thinking, or to just simply let something go.  Some common whys behind our “reasons” include fear, aversion, hope, longing, attachment, insecurity, a sense of lack, guilt, shame, perfectionism, unrealistic expectations, etc.  While we are each unique in our situation, the underlying themes are often similar.  What themes do you see in your own life?  How do they affect your ability to get organized, de-clutter, or manage your life the way you’d like to?

Give yourself a little time this month to do a “root-cause analysis”.  Have fun with it.  Be open to what you discover.  You might be surprised!  Let me know what you find out.

Since February is the shortest month, it seems like a perfect time to focus on the concept of minimalism.  What exactly is minimalism, you ask?  Merriam-Webster defines it as “a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity”.  Minimalism as a lifestyle has experienced an uptick in interest recently, and for good reason.  It seems that we as a society are beginning to think differently about what we want from our lives, how we want to feel on a daily basis, and what gives us a sense of pleasure and purpose.

Does embracing minimalism mean you have to get rid of all of your possessions, keeping only the clothes on your back and a couple of pieces of furniture?  NO (unless you want to, and then by all means, go for it)!   Minimalism exists near one end of a spectrum with extreme Spartan living at one end, and extreme excess on the other.  Most of us fall somewhere in the middle; the trick is to figure out where you are now, and decide where you’d LIKE to be.  Then, move in that direction.  Think of it as a journey, rather than a fixed destination.  Many people report that the amount of “stuff” in their lives causes them to feel stressed, frustrated, overwhelmed, and burned out.  Does this sound like you?  “Stuff” can refer to physical possessions, commitments, social events, our To-Do list, and even the people in our lives.  Do YOU have more than you need?  More than you want?  More than feels sane, healthy and manageable?  If so, then perhaps you could benefit from exploring minimalism, and making some small or big changes in your environment and lifestyle.

Wondering how to even begin this process?  Start where you are.  Think about the “stuff” that you encounter on a daily basis that feels like it might be more than you need.  Can’t find anything to wear in the morning because your closet is overly full?  Start there.  Hate cooking at home because your cabinets are so overflowing or disorganized that you can’t find what you need?  Start there.  Irritated by the stacks of paperwork that seem to just move from one pile to another?  Start there.  Can’t park in your garage because it’s full of stuff?  Start there.  Just START.   Consider making a commitment to let go of a certain number of items, or cut down on one social engagement per week, or give up one obligation you don’t really enjoy anyway.  Challenge yourself to downsize your book or CD collection, your closet, your garage, your bookshelves, your cabinets.  Come up with a goal that feels like a stretch, but doable, and that would feel great to achieve!  Set a deadline, and stick to it.

In addition to feeling less overwhelmed and more at peace in your space, there are other benefits to downsizing as well.  You will save time, money, and energy.  You will have more free time to pursue things that interest you.  The less you have, the less upkeep is required.  Donating items to charity or selling your stuff online or elsewhere can add up to big bucks for you!  I just finished the donations section of my 2012 taxes, and was shocked at how much my donations to Goodwill and similar organizations added to my refund!  The possible benefits of embracing minimalism are endless.  Have fun with it!  Challenge yourself to explore what you really need, and what you can live without.

My personal commitment for the month of February is to divest myself of at least 100 personal possessions, such as clothes, shoes, jewelry, nick-knacks, books, CDs, housewares, etc.  This feels like a stretch for me, since I routinely purge things and take them to the thrift store every few months.  It’s not like I have a lot of junk I haven’t sorted through!  But I am committed to downsizing, to moving the needle on my minimal-o-meter.  How about you?  Please join me by creating your own February challenge!  Share your goals and your progress here, so we can celebrate our successes together!  By the way, I will be adding some interesting resource links to my website this month, including some on minimalism, so please check back soon for that.

Happy Downsizing!

My New Year’s Eve was perfect.  Absolutely couldn’t-have-been-better PERFECT.  This was not entirely clear to me earlier in the day.  It seemed pretty sub-optimal at moments.  Oh, silly girl.   Have you no faith?

A few weeks ago I gave myself an early Christmas present – a book/program called The Desire Map, by Danielle LaPorte.  It’s a different way of conceiving what we want from our lives, how to set ‘goals’ and intentions, and find our true internal compass.  I had big plans to spend most of my New Year’s weekend reading the book, working through the exercises, drilling down on my ‘core desired feelings’, and generally getting 2013 off to a good start.  I also planned to do a lot of relaxing, regrouping, and hitting the reset-button on my overly busy brain and life.  This weekend was going to be PERFECT.  Everything I wanted to do, and nothing I didn’t.

Yesterday, being the actual eve of the new year, was supposed to be the most perfect part of my most perfect weekend.   There were, however, a few obstacles.  I awoke exhausted – I was out too late, drank too much, and danced too hard the night before.  Well worth it, but still…ugh.  So, on not enough sleep, I went out into the freezing cold to seek out the perfect hangover food (Success! Thanks, Sloan’s in Edgewater), and pick up some critical items such as a new rug for the basement.  Why the rug?  We’ll get to that in a minute.

In the midst of my ‘perfect retreat weekend’ I had scheduled a meeting with my consulting CFO.  Not part of my original vision for the weekend, but it was the only time I could do it, and it felt important.  So what did I do, unexpectedly, through most of the meeting?  CRY.   About not having a handle on the systems we’re putting in place.  About feeling incompetent, overwhelmed, out of control, and stressed about my financial/business life.  About having too much to do and not knowing where to start.  About the possibility of failing.  This spontaneous tear-fest in front of someone I have a working relationship with was not in my plan, and was pretty embarrassing, but there I was – in all my glorious humanness.   And anyway, I couldn’t spend too much time worrying about it, because there was one more thing I had to finish before I could start my “Perfect New Year’s Eve”.

I had to deal with THE SHIT.  I don’t mean this in some metaphoric, “I have some stuff to deal with” kinda way.  I mean this literally.  See, a few days ago I had a sewage flood in my basement.  And the way my basement is configured, the part that was affected?   My meditation area.  My sacred, holy, beautiful shrine space.  Literally, the place where I sit each day in order to connect with my spiritual path was full of shit.  The cleanup process took a few days.  Move furniture, call plumber, throw out rug, mop, rinse, mop, rinse, mop. Deal with the fact that the drain isn’t draining so every time you think you’re done with the shit, more shit appears.  Call plumber again.  Love him for having a sense of humor and good advise.   Perform microsurgery on basement drain (suddenly I see how my Nurse Practitioner life and my home life overlap.  It’s at the intersection of poop and surgical instruments.  I wonder how my dad would feel about how his old hemostat got used yesterday?).  Mop and rinse again.  And again.  And yet again.  Corral the shit into a smaller and smaller area.  Patiently wait for it to drain away.

One smart thing I did in order to make this 3-day cleanup process productive?  I listened to the audio version of The Desire Map.   At least that way I was accomplishing some of what I had planned for the weekend.  Finally last night, on New Year’s Eve, the final push to finish the cleanup.  I just had to get it done before the new year arrived, you know?  Then I could get to the bottle of champagne I had chilling, and spend some quiet time with my thoughts, feelings and dreams.  I thought I had about an hour of crap-duty left.  Nearly three hours later, I was standing in my boots over the basement drain, still at it, thinking to myself “Are You Fucking Kidding Me???”   And then it dawned on me.  This is PERFECT.  This is exactly what I need to be doing.  Cleaning up residual yuck in order to create a fresh start.  This was a huge “Ah-ha” moment.  Suddenly I was happy to be doing exactly what I was doing.

I finally finished around 8:30.  Shrine area clean and beautiful again, new rug in place, everything sufficiently sterilized and generally in order.  But now I was way too worked-up to sit down quietly with a notebook and think about my ‘core desired feelings’ for 2013.  I was hungry and restless, and wanted to do something ‘fun’.  So I opened the bottle of champagne, ordered the most perfect Thai take-out ever, and put on the music playlist created by Danielle LaPorte to accompany The Desire Map.  I turned it up loud, and jammed out.  I asked myself what I MOST wanted to do with the rest of my night.  The unexpected answer?  Rearrange my art studio.  Seriously.  I had an overwhelming desire to recreate my creative space.  So in between bites of sesame scallops and sips of champagne, I got out my tools, took apart a desk downstairs and moved it upstairs piece by piece, moved things around, dusted, shuffled art supplies, hung art and inspiration on the walls, and moved things around some more.   The room I’ve been struggling with for two years magically transformed into a space I completely love.  Within this process I began to organically feel the answers to some of the exercises in The Desire Map.  So I wrote them down as they came to me, without pressure, without making it a bit deal.  Eat.  Drink.  Write.  Rearrange.  Be merry.  Repeat.

Around 11, I began thinking about the events/people/things/feelings I wanted to release from 2012.  I tore off a piece of scratch paper from my recycling bin and jotted them down, in brown pen – just to be thoroughly symbolic.  And I kept on writing down my desired feelings for 2013 as they came to me.  I kept listening to Danielle’s playlist.  Around 11:57 I walked outside into the bitter cold with my brown list of yuck, and I burned it.  As I walked back in at straight-up midnight, the song playing was KD Lang’s Allelujah.  Seriously…!  Suddenly I realized this night could not get any more perfect.  Everything was exactly as it should be.  I climbed into a hot bath with a glass of champagne, completely relaxed, and called it good.

So what’s the take-home message here?  Shit happens.  Things don’t always go as planned, but they may be going even better than you wished for.  Expect the unexpected.  Sometimes you have to do stuff you don’t particularly want to do, in order to get to the good stuff you do want to do. Clean up your mess, and then go do something wildly fun and creative.  Be in love with what you create.  Let go of the yuck so it doesn’t follow you into the future.  Put some thought into how you want to feel in your life, and then go about what it takes to feel that way.  Trust the process.  Be open to surprises and detours.  Take a hot bath.  Eat, drink, and be merry.

So, where is the shit-storm you need to handle?  What awesome thing is just waiting to be manifested by your fabulous self?  Whence does your surprising and perfect unfolding lie?  (yes, I just used ‘whence’ in a sentence).

Do yourself a favor.  Invest in yourself and check out The Desire Map: https://wt107.infusionsoft.com/go/desiremap/myoungnp/   It may just change the way you navigate your life.  It will certainly give you some cool and juicy things to think about.

Happy New Year, to each and every one of you!

It’s that time again.  Black Friday (which has now morphed into Black Thursday), Cyber Monday, the Christmas Eve mad rush for last minute gifts.  This is the time of year when most of us are in the midst of a six-week marathon of spending and consuming – things, time, money, food, etc.

Do any of these things sound like you?

• Worrying about how you’re going to pay for all of the holiday gifts you simply “must” get for family and friends, because that’s just what they expect.
• Dreading all the “gifts” you know you will receive from family and friends that are things you neither want nor need.
• Planning to give your kids a virtual retail-store worth of gifts, including multiple clothing items, games, toys, CDs, and electronics, to name a few.
• Scheduling your calendar so full with holiday parties, events, and get-togethers with family and friends that you barely have time to breathe, and can’t wait until the holiday season is over.
• Dreading having to work off the 10 pounds you gain over the holiday season.

And the list goes on…

We’ve all heard the saying “Less is more”.  But have you ever thought about the opposite of that?  “MORE IS LESS”.  I love this phrase; it is one of my new mantras.  Think about it.  More really IS less.  If we are packed to the gills with stuff – be it physical possessions (wanted or unwanted), calendar events, food and drink, obligations, people, projects, and ‘busy work’, we have literally NO FREE SPACE in our lives for anything.  We can’t enjoy the things we DO have.  Hell, we can’t even FIND the things we have!  We certainly don’t have the time to use it all.  More is less.

We feel totally overwhelmed, and unable to find some kind of order for it all.  We resent the people and obligations that take up our time.  We dread many of the things we have to do, because we’re exhausted.  We mentally check out, by using TV, food, alcohol, sleep, or other busy mindless activity to numb ourselves because we just can’t deal with it all.   More is less.

We deny ourselves the time and space to relax, daydream, nap, or do something completely spontaneous because we have a free afternoon.  We deny ourselves a sense of completion, because we are always so busy that we never really get anything done.  We deny ourselves the chance to get rid of that credit card debt or save for that vacation, because we always need that ‘one more thing’.  We deny ourselves the ability to use our homes effectively.  To see our floors or the surface of our dining room table or.  The ability to park in our garage.   More is less.

The more accumulation we engage in, the less fulfilling it all seems to be.  It’s like we can no longer see the forest for the trees.  And suddenly all of this stuff we think is supposed to be bringing us pleasure becomes a source of acute stress and anxiety.  “More” becomes less.  WAY less.

Let me give you an example.  Imagine a family that includes a mom, a dad, and Jason, who just turned eight.  Jason’s parents love him to death.  They ADORE this kid.  It took them a long time to get pregnant with him, so they really go out of their way to shower him with love and affection.  A lot of this showering comes in the form of ‘stuff’.  Jason’s mom LOVES buying clothes for him, and so he has a whole lot of them to choose from.  Probably about 4 closets worth, actually.  Except that he can’t choose from them.  Why?  Because they are all piled in the middle of his floor, so high that he can’t get to the dressers, which remain empty, as does the closet.  It’s not clear which are clean and which are dirty.  Of the clothes he does have, most of them are clothes he has already outgrown, even going back to when he was an infant and toddler.  Many of those still have the tags on them.  His parents want to save these items, just in case they are someday able to have a second child.  But they are a very busy family, so they haven’t quite found the time to sort through it and put the outgrown stuff into storage, or donating some of it.  So he mainly wears the 8 to 10 outfits that seem to stay near the top of the pile on his floor.

One other thing.  Jason isn’t really able to sleep in his bed most nights, because it’s usually covered with too many clothes, toys, and stuffed animals.  Often he’ll just sleep with mom and dad.  It’s been this way since he was little, so it doesn’t seem like a problem.

Jason’s dad travels a lot for work.  He feels guilty for being gone so much, so he buys a lot of gifts for Jason while he’s on the road.  And I mean A LOT.  If he sees something he thinks Jason might like, he’ll pick it up, just in case.  Usually these items will get stored in the basement to be given at a future special occasion like Christmas or birthdays.  Unfortunately there are so many of these ‘gifts’ piled up that they forget what’s there, so many of them don’t ever actually make it to Jason, and he ends up outgrowing them before he ever sees them.

Mom and dad have become so busy with their jobs, Jason’s activities, and their social calendar, that they can’t quite find the time to deal with the stuff that has begun to consume their house.  They keep meaning to get to it, but it seems like it will take so much time that they don’t even know where to start.  They continue finding new nooks and crannies to put stuff in.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Except that now there’s so much stuff that they can’t quite keep it out of sight.  See, Jason’s mom loves fashion.  Her weight occasionally fluctuates, so she needs to make sure she has plenty of outfits in different sizes.  Like Jason’s clothes, some of these still have the tags on them.  She has around 2000 different clothing items, all told.  Most days, however, she can’t find anything to wear…

You get the picture.  I realize this is an extreme example, but it is a real one.  And the reality is that we all fall somewhere along the spectrum between Spartan and Packrat.  Where do you fall?  Do you have extra clutter, obligations, energy drains, or habits that are taking over your physical and mental space, and rather than enhancing your life are now detracting from it, in a rather big way?  When you look at the big picture of your life, can you identify areas where “more is less”?

Spend some time thinking about this during the next couple of weeks.  As you go about buying your gifts, making your plans, and doing all of that holiday stuff we all do, give some thought to how you want to spend your time and money, what it is that you TRULY value in life, how you most want to show your family and friends that you love them, and what example you most want to set for your kids, to set them up for a happy healthy present and future.  What are some habits you would like to change this year to create the time and space to settle into your life and enjoy the true holiday spirit?  How would you like to move toward “Less is more”?

This contemplation is my holiday gift to you.  As always, I’d love to hear your comments.

Happy Holidays!

If it’s not an absolute “yes”, it’s a NO.  I got this phrase from my amazing coach, Christine Kane, who learned it from someone else equally amazing.  I have adopted it as a mantra for my life, and I can attest to the fact that things begin to shift when you try to live by this simple idea!  It takes practice and dedication, and I’m a long way from being perfect at it, but each time I successfully implement it, I can feel a shift in both the content and the energy of my life.

I believe that this phrase holds the key to solving nearly every clutter problem, regardless of the details of the situation.  If used thoughtfully, I think it is also the answer to most time management, organizational, and relationship issues as well!

Think about it.  Most “clutter” consists of things that a person used to need or want, might need or want someday, or believes that they should need or want but really doesn’t.  Clutter happens when you let things into your home or your life passively, impulsively, or without clarity.  Or when you have things that at one time served a purpose, but that you have not reevaluated recently with a discerning eye.  This likely holds true for some of the activities, obligations, and people in your life as well as your physical possessions.  For example, situations you may have outgrown, didn’t really want to get involved with in the first place, or that do not contribute to your highest good.

Does any of this sound familiar?  I fully believe that, if used thoughtfully and with intention, looking at your life through this lens will decrease your clutter, make your schedule more manageable, improve your organizational skills, and shift your relationships.  Try it!  For the next week (or day, or month, or year), try looking at your possessions, activities and relationships with this phrase in mind, and see what arises for you.  Make some notes or keep a journal about it.  Talk to your friends and loved ones about it.  Have an open and curious mind as to what might happen.  Post your thoughts, questions and experiences here.  I’d LOVE to hear about them!

Remember:  If it’s not an absolute “yes”, it’s a NO!

Clutter – the little and big things that seem to make their way in, settle down and make themselves at home in your life, often in a place they don’t belong, taking up your space.  These things might seem innocent enough at first (“I’m just sure I really need this one thing to make my life better” or “I’ll just set this one paper aside to deal with later”).  But these little and big things invite their friends and cousins, and before you know it you have a whole PILE of things in your way.  You vaguely know how it got there, and you know you should deal with it somehow.  And you would LOVE to find a way to make sure that this pattern doesn’t continue in the future.  But what do you do?  Usually, nothing.  You leave it where it is.  Or rearrange the piles.  Or shove it all in a closet and close the door.  Or promise yourself you’ll get to it later.  Why?  Maybe because you’re just not sure what to do with it all.   Or you are afraid to get rid of something because you “might need it someday”.  Or some of the items have sentimental value, and you just can’t face letting them go.  Or you’re too tired and overwhelmed from everything else going on in your life, and you just don’t have it in you to deal with the clutter – it seems so much easier to just ignore it.  There are LOTS of reasons we allow clutter to pile up and don’t do much to about it.

The clutter that shows up and makes itself at home in our lives is not always of the physical kind.  It doesn’t always take the form of paper piles, stacks of newspapers and magazines, knick-knacks, more clothes than you could ever wear, or more toys than your child could ever hope to play with.  Sometimes it’s the invisible clutter that really hooks us.  All of the little and big things in our lives that sneak in and take up our time, our emotional or mental energy, and the ‘space’ where we might otherwise be creating a life we truly love.  Sometimes the clutter that is the hardest to let go of or deal with is the stuff we said ‘yes’ to because we thought we should, rather than because we wanted to.  The appointments, events, and social obligations filling up our calendars so much that we need a personal assistant to keep track of it all!  The friendships that maybe don’t fit us so well anymore, but we continue them half-heartedly because we feel guilty, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, “we may need them someday”, or we just don’t want to have to deal with making a change.

Change is scary.  Letting go is one of the scariest forms of change. Whether you are letting go of a sweater you used to love that now has a hole in it and no longer fits you anyway, or a friendship that is toxic and negative, or that committee you agreed to join because it looks good on your resume but that you resent having to work on – it often feels easier to just do nothing.  But if you take that route, then the piles of paper, stacks of magazines, boxes of things you don’t need, the garage full of stuff you haven’t seen or used in 15 years, the “friends” that drain you, the social calendar that doesn’t give you a moment to yourself, the obligations that don’t fulfill you on a soul-level – all of it – will just continue to accumulate until it literally and energetically crowds you out of your own life.

I refer to these things as ”life-clutter”, and I think of them all as energy leaks.  All of the little and big things that are undone, incomplete, overdue, nagging at you, worrying you, in your way, taking up time you don’t have, draining you, or causing chaos in your life.  Anything that is an obstacle between you and a sense of peace, joy, and contentment in your life is an energy leak.  Spend a little time thinking about your own leaks.  What are the things, physical or intangible, that are draining you right now?  Where are your biggest leaks?  Jot these down, and over the coming days, allow your mind to wander there from time to time, and make note of any small action steps you could take to begin to repair these leaks, and begin creating a life that is both spacious and fulfilling.  A life without life-clutter.

In the coming months we’ll begin to address these energy leaks, and some strategies for repairing them.  In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts, plans, goals, fears or ideas about de-cluttering your own life, and stopping those leaks!

All of the wildfires this summer, first in Colorado, and now in the rest of the American West, has gotten me thinking about disaster preparedness. I occasionally think about what I would grab from my house, if I had 20 minutes to evacuate.  I grew up in the mountains of Colorado, so I have thought about this question off and on since I was a kid.  I remember once as a pre-teen watching a forest fire come over the mountain we lived on.  I went from being able to see smoke, to being able to see trees explode in flashes or orange.  My mind was not mature enough to be able to process what was happening, but I do remember feeling like we all needed to be prepared to salvage what was important if it came down the mountain.  Fortunately, it didn’t.  I have had many friends have to answer the question in real-time.  I’ve had one friend who unfortunately didn’t even get the chance to answer it.  He was in Denver and got a call from a neighbor near his home in the mountains telling him one of the biggest wildfires in recent Colorado history had literally started in his driveway.  I remember leaving my work-day at a job in Boulder several years ago to spend the day helping my boss and his wife packing up their most precious heirlooms as quickly as possible.  It was so painful to watch them try to decide what what items were the MOST important.

Of course, important documents and my pets top the list. Next is photos and journals, and some important meditation items. Of course my computer and cell phone would be important.  :-)  If I had still more time, some memorabilia from my dad, and some favorite books.  After that, everything becomes less important.  I have become more strategic about storing things, and backing up the most important items.  I have a fire-proof “strong-box” that contains some of my important papers, a thumb drive of important photos, etc.  My goal in the next few months is to have this box be pretty comprehensive, as opposed to the somewhat haphazard safe box it currently is.  I also want to have everything backed up online, as a second back-up.

The other thing I have done recently, which I am SO thrilled about, is getting my photographs scanned into electronic form.  I don’t have a ton of photos, but the few boxes I have are very important to me.  I recently got all of my hard-copy photos scanned and backed up onto a thumb-drive, and I also have them stored online in a virtual safe-deposit box.  Because I’m a sentimental fool, this is really important to me.  It feels good not to have to worry.  There are some decent scanning services out there, such as Scan-My-Photos, etc.  However, for people who are really attached to their pics, and would worry about them for the 3+ weeks they are gone (shipped off to California or somewhere else, and then sometimes having them shipped to India for scanning), it would be good to have a better option.  (I did ship off a small portion of my photos last year and they came back fine).  Much to my delight, the Denver area now has a fantastic option: there is a new MOBILE scanning service called Scangaroo (http://www.scangaroo.com).  They have vans outfitted specifically for mobile scanning, with state-of-the art equipment, and they will come to your home or office, and scan your photos, of whatever size, and whatever number.  There is very little organization required on your part.  They will also scan your most important documents (birth certificate, passport, etc.) for free.  I recently used this service for ALL of my remaining photos (a couple of thousand pics), and I was so impressed.  The best part was knowing that my photos were not leaving my driveway, and that I could actually go out and watch the process if I wanted to.  I also really like the idea of a virtual safe-deposit box, and plan to put some important documents in there as well.

I would love to hear from you.  What is on YOUR short-list of important items?  Why did you choose those particular items?  What steps have you taken to back up important documents, or otherwise plan for a potential evacuation situation?  What advice do you have for others?  I’d love to hear from you!

I’ve had a lot of opportunity over the past few days to think about the beauty of SYSTEMS.  I just spent three days at a business retreat, where a whole lot of content was delivered in a very short amount of time.  Fortunately this content was divided into distinct modules, concrete steps, clear action items,  and exercises and worksheets to help participants integrate the copious information.  Additionally, the retreat was overseen by an event-management team who made sure all of the details were taken care of, everything fit together in a way that made sense, and that any problems were taken care of quickly.  It was like a well-oiled machine.  In other words, this event was MADLY ORGANIZED.