What is the Cost of Clutter?

Clutter can be expensive and the cost of clutter can be divided into 3 categories: financial, physical and emotional.

• The financial cost of clutter can result in lost or displaced money in the form of checks or fees. When unopened mail accumulates, it’s often followed by late fees that have accrued and missing tax records can lead to financial penalties.
• The physical cost of clutter includes stress and anxiety experienced by the inability to locate items when they are needed. Time wasted searching for items is frustrating and physically exhausting.
• The emotional cost of clutter frequently comes in the form of confusion and a sense that we have lost control of our circumstances.

How do we regain that sense of control?

Getting organized is one way we can take control of our daily lives and navigate through challenging transitions.  We often feel that if we achieve a certain goal or arrive at a particular milestone, life will suddenly be better. There may be some truth to this, however, it’s frequently the journey itself that transforms us. The journey involves change which can be difficult and frightening.  Even though we know that change is the only constant in life, we still resist it. We resist letting go of things, places and even people who are no longer a positive fit in our lives. Sometimes the act of “letting go” is the path to control.

De-clutter Your Mind, Body and Space

Let’s look at three organizing concepts to de-clutter your mind, body and space:

1. Create a schedule: Make sure the entire family is informed and involved. The most imperative tasks should be scheduled first and the remaining tasks in order of importance.
2. Make a list: This is the fastest way to physically reduce stress. This list can be created on paper, computer or dry erase board. The objective is to get the tasks out of your head, then use the list!
3. Sort, categorize and purge! For small jobs like a junk drawer, sort all the items into categories that are similar in order to determine how much of each category you own. Then purge what you don’t want or need. The left-over items will determine the type of storage container needed for proper organization. For larger piles or stacks, like clothes, it’s best to simply sort items into “keep” and “let go”. The goal is to quickly reduce the size of the “keep pile” and then categorize and organize the remaining items.

Embrace the Journey

We can choose to embrace the journey or we can avoid it as the world moves forward. Change can be difficult and we all occasionally need a little help and guidance to arrive at our destination.

If you are struggling and need a little assistance, we would love to help you embrace the journey. Give us a call at 610.847.5422 or schedule a free consultation.

Darla Pompilio

Your Tasks Our Time, LLC

The post Is Clutter Robbing You of the Life You Deserve? appeared first on Your Tasks Our Time.

At YTOT we believe it depends on the individual. It boils down to how you want to live your life? What belongings, what information and which activities are going to serve you? There is a quote by Bill Jenson that we find true “The paradox of simplicity is that making things simple is hard work”. Choosing what to include AND exclude in our lives is a process that takes time and a great deal of effort.

How do you get started? There is a difference between organizing and simplifying and a good place to start is with the physical stuff that surrounds you.

Organizing is a tool that’s used to simplify. Organizing is about finding homes for your stuff and being able to find what you need, when you need it. Finding a home for all your items can have a huge impact on your life. This effect can transform your life.

Simplifying is more about determining what is really going to serve you. Are you going to read or re-read the 300 books you have on your bookcases? Do you value all decorative objects on the flat surfaces of your home? Do you wear the 30 pairs of jeans in your closet? In short, how do you want to live and how much time do you want to devote to your stuff?

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Make Time for Yourself

This means we need to be sure to make time for ourselves first.  If we don’t take care of ourselves, then in the long run we will not be able to take care of anyone else. That includes eating well, exercising, meditating a few minutes a day and spending time with family and friends.

Set Daily Priorities

The best way to so this is to set daily priorities and intentions.  Setting daily priorities creates a space for achieving your goals.  It gives you a clear focus so the mind can hone in the day’s activities.  Spending 10 to 15 minutes every morning mapping out your day can save up to 6 hours a week.

Scheduling

Now that you have your list of priorities it’s time to put them on the calendar.  Schedule appointments with yourself to complete priority work.  This will block out the space you need to get your tasks completed in a timely manner.  Be sure to schedule the most important tasks at a time of day that you are most productive.  If you are a morning person, then do your most important task first thing in the morning.

• Put your personal & business schedules into one calendar so you have a snapshot of all your commitments at a glance.  If you need several calendars for work, home and kids, then consider something like Google calendars that allows you to create a separate calendar for everyone in the family that can be snapped together as one calendar and separated on an as needed basis.
• Go over your schedule each evening for the next day.  This will actually help you sleep at night by preventing some of the list making that goes on in our heads when we wake up in the middle of the night.

Tasks

Try not to plan too much in one day.  Too many items on a to-do list can create paralysis instead of action. Adding fewer more important tasks versus a long list of less important tasks forces you to focus on what is really essential in your day.

• Prioritize your list so that you get the most important items completed first
• Break projects down into actionable steps
• Add any info you need to complete the task—phone #, links, addresses, etc
• Separate work and personal tasks
• Group tasks together like all phone calls, all errands, similar writing projects
• Avoid multitasking.  It takes the brain four times longer to recognize and process each time you change gears to a new task.  If you switch back and forth constantly you are wasting valuable time.
• Consider timing your tasks to give you a more accurate idea of how long certain activities take each day. This will help you to better plan your time.

Parting thoughts:

• Most people are dis-organized because their organizing systems don’t match their current lives.  If you are using the same system now that you used in college or when you first started working, then it’s not going to work.
• Using a new organizing system takes time and practice. There is no one size fits all. If you have been doing the same thing for 20 years and you implement a new system then you may need to give it a little time.

Darla Pompilio

Your Tasks – Our Time, Inc

The post Self Management a.k.a Time Management appeared first on Your Tasks Our Time.

Shedding the old is easy if we are not attached to our items, but often we are attached to family heirlooms and to those items we have lovingly purchased!  After all, we paid for them and consequently consider them to be good stuff!  These are the items that hinder our efforts as we attempt to un-clutter our lives. The more we accumulate, the more difficult it is to be clutter free.

The costs of clutter are both tangible and intangible.  The tangible costs include financial loss from over spending, late fees on bills, diminished work productivity because we have to spend time locating missing papers and also creating stress that can lead to depression and illness.  The intangible costs of clutter may include social embarrassment resulting from having a cluttered home, distressed personal relationships and even loss of momentum and direction in pursuit of our goals.

Detaching from clutter may be difficult, but it’s worth the time and effort if you truly wish to live a simplified and more fulfilling life

Let’s begin this journey by asking some questions about the items you own:

Do you need the items?  If not, let them go.

Do you love the item? If not, let them go!

Do you use these items on a regular basis or recently? If so maintain those items but keep them at a minimum.

How do you use these items and are they in good working order? How you use an item can shed light on whether the item should be kept.  Items that work improperly or are difficult to use can cause frustration and should not be kept.

What is your relationship to the item? If you feel emotionally attached to an item, ask yourself the following questions.

Does this item bring value to my current life style?

Is this item contributing to the life I wish to lead?

Are you keeping the item because you think you should or because you want to? It’s okay to let go of those items that were given to us by our family members.  It’s fine to keep family items that you treasure, but frequently family members donate items because they believe only other family members would truly enjoy them or would use them properly.

Learning to detach is often a journey that includes creating new habits.  One of the best ways to avoid having to purge, is to ask yourself if you really need or love an item before purchasing it?

Begin by consciously using the method for a month or so, and you will be surprised at how easily you can reduce the clutter in your home and simplify your surroundings.

The post The Clutter Free Life – How to Detach appeared first on Your Tasks Our Time.