Every woman knows that getting rid of junk always feels good after the fact–that is, after the work has been done. It’s not always easy to set the time aside to clear out unnecessary items from your home or office, but these 5 reasons might give you career-development incentives to take the time to declutter, especially if you have been procrastinating in doing it:
1. Increases energy. Any new change or improvement requires your energy, time and focus while launching new ideas or projects require your creative input to plan without forgetting any missing pieces. Whenever you walk past that pile of unattended papers or sort through clothes in your wardrobe that don’t fit or are too tired looking, your brain tires. You can’t afford that drain when you’re looking to progress. Set aside a weekend morning or two evenings to plow through and discard as needed. It’s true it takes an initial output of energy, but your accomplished feeling will increase your energy when it’s done much like exercising initally is somewhat tiring, but then gives you an added boost of energy.
2. Boosts confidence. Piles of unfinished work are constant reminders of your stopping and starting, yet not finishing. When you’re trying to make a change, you need all the confidence votes you can muster to remind you of your ability to follow through and complete your objective. The Fly Lady has a 15-minute at a time, step-by-step method to help you get started. The Unclutterer also offers you a method to purge stuff. If it’s clothing or other personal items you’ve not used in more than a year, think of those less fortunate who can use them more and donate them.
3. Lightens your workload, minimizes distractions. Don’t fool yourself by straightening and organizing piles, creating new email folders in your inbox to dump emails you think you’ll read later, or spreading out reading materials in different rooms so they don’t feel so overwhelming. This creates twice the work because you haven’t distinguished de-cluttering from organizing and you’re revisiting information more often than you should. Give books or magazines to your library. Make one rule never to add a possession to your wardrobe or even your abode without discarding one item in it’s place. Make a second rule to go through mail, newspapers and magazines a maximum of twice. You will save time and alleviate distraction from your bigger goals.
President Lincoln’s quote, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” has been altered over time. We use this same quote but substitute ”pleasing people” for “fooling people,” maybe that’s because the person who continues to try to please everyone is a fool.
Failed expectations is one of three primary areas of breakdowns in relationships. (The others are thwarted intentions and undelivered communications), according to Landmark Education’s courses that I took about 25 years ago. Since then I’ve certainly had enough life experiences to prove these correct and to remain committed to nurturing quality relationships.
With that kind of commitment, I know I will also have to address less empowering relationships from time to time and learn ways to not lose my step in the face of any negative reactions from others.
In putting together my local women’s singing and network group for women (L.A. Choralettes), I had 15 spots to fill. I was chastized for narrowing the age field and one woman told me I was ”discriminating” and “soulless” because the group was only for mid-life women. While I tried to explain my sandbox is only so big and I chose to narrow the applicants to women in my own age group, some women understood and some did not.
Years ago I took several workshops on relationships and communciation through Landmark Education Corporation. I’ll never forget some of the very valuable techniques I learned, including an exercise using a tissue box. But before I give that story to you, here’s some tips from my 3 C’s for Effective Living: Change, Creativity and Communication audio recordings. This is from Communication and should help get you ready to deal with confrontations and be ready to use your imaginary tissue box:
1. Recognize What We All Want – when you recognize that all of us have a fundamental desire to be understood and appreciated, this makes your being positional about being “right” in situations where one or both of you are upset, silly. It’s also definitely counterproductive to resolution. Always seek the common ground and nurture relationships.
2. Check Your Timing and Theirs - untimely and unthought out communications usually result in outward anger, hurt or ignoring the messenger. If someone approaches you and you are deep into something else, try saying to them, “Fred, I really want to hear what you have to say and I can see that you’re upset. If you can just give me 10 minutes to complete this one task I’m right in the middle of, I’ll come to your office to discuss this.” If you’re upset, then be calm enough to be sure your comment will be heard. Tell someone, “I need a few minutes to tell you something important. Is this a good time?” What good will it do if they’re not present and able to digest what you have to say?
3. Always Assess What Is Your Responsibility in the Matter – don’t assume that every upset someone has with you is their problem. Take a deep breath and look inside yourself to ask yourself, “Is there something I could have done, said or communicated differently to have a better outcome than this?” It’s not about fault-finding, but about learning how to make things work best.
4. Asking for Feedback or Not – sometimes, especially as women, we just want to let an upset out or process something aloud. We’re not always asking for any suggestions or for something to be changed or fixed. In fact, when our partner or associate tries to offer suggestions before we’ve even got our upset off our chest, this can be annoying. Truth is they’re trying to be helpful, so it’s your job to let them know if you’ll want input when you’re done or not. You can try this out when you don’t want input, “I just need to tell you something and get it off my chest. Would you mind just listening for 2 minutes?” This prevents them from being unnecessarily the one you take out your frustrations on when their response doesn’t match your feelings.
The truth is, beauty sometimes does escape me. I’m busy getting things done, and I forget to notice the world around me. But it means a lot to me to not let it slip by. I go for walks as often as I can and remind myself to catch the sunrise, sunshine, late nights when the world is dark and still – it’s so peaceful.
I think that’s the blessing of sick days (and yes, I’m taking a quick break and writing this from bed where I’ve been down a few days with a cold). It causes you to slow down and notice things. And though I’ve taken the full week off, I was so inspired I had to write this.
I live in a home with huge glass windows and the immense beauty of the rolling grey clouds announcing another rain is about to begin, just captured me completely on a trip to the kitchen for water. I had to stop and sit down with a chair in front of the windows and catch my breath and thank God for not letting this beauty escape me. It was an artist’s huge palette and perfect painting of the quick rumbling, yet graceful clouds.
“This Emotional Life – Happiness/Intimacy,” Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, talks about intimacy and relationships and uses the story analogy of why people are like porcupines. Courtesy of YouTube.com, 1:58 minutes
Every woman knows that getting rid of junk always feels good after the fact–that is, after the work has been done. It’s not always easy to set the time aside to clear out unnecessary items from your home or office, but these 5 reasons might give you career-development incentives to take the time to declutter, especially if you have been procrastinating in doing it:
Years ago I took several workshops on relationships and communciation through Landmark Education Corporation. I’ll never forget some of the very valuable techniques I learned, including an exercise using a tissue box. But before I give that story to you, here’s some tips from my 3 C’s for Effective Living: Change, Creativity and Communication audio recordings. This is from Communication and should help get you ready to deal with confrontations and be ready to use your imaginary tissue box: 
The truth is, beauty sometimes does escape me. I’m busy getting things done, and I forget to notice the world around me. But it means a lot to me to not let it slip by. I go for walks as often as I can and remind myself to catch the sunrise, sunshine, late nights when the world is dark and still – it’s so peaceful.
