Is Your Life Cluttered?

For the past year, my home has been filled with the books, photos and memorabilia of two households - my own, and much of my parents'.

Being a naturally neat person, I keep trying to get it all organized.  It's more than I really want to own.  I don't want to keep it all.  At the same time, I remember many of the items from my youth, and I want to give my parents' possessions proper respect.  You can't just throw away memories.

It takes a lot of time to go through all the letters and papers and photographs.  It's been over a year and I haven't gotten through them all.  But I have come to a realization.  These items - whether they be treasures to me or junk to anyone else - have taken over my life.  Trying to organize them and decide what to keep and what not to keep, has exacted a cost in my home life, and also in my business life.

The further I get behind at home, the less time I have to stay organized in my office.  My desk has gotten cluttered to the point where I can't see the top of it, even though it's a good size desk with an ell on one side.  I'm experiencing what is known as "cognitive dissonance" - what I envision as my ideal working environment isn't what I see in front of me.

And there never seems to be enough time to do what needs to be done.

What is clutter?  Clutter is things that aren't being used.  Clutter is things that don't make us happy.  Clutter keeps us from efficiently finding the things we do want.  Clutter adds stress to our lives.

I think I have finally made an important discovery:  There is a connection between cluttered homes, cluttered offices, and cluttered schedules!  If we want to free up our lives, we have to figure out what's important, and discard the rest.  This doesn't just apply to stuff.  It applies to the demands on our time, too. 

We all have constant distractions during our day, and demands from others as to how we should allocate our time.  But each of us only goes around once in life, and the only way that we can get to all the important things is to discard all the unimportant things.  I'm glad I finally figured this out.  I hope I can take my own advice...

Copyright2007BrianSchulman©