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.

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You may be like so many of us who didn’t see the year coming to a close as quickly as it has and, if that’s true, you want to quickly assess where things are at in your business and be able to welcome in the new year, rather than fear it.  Here’s what me and my end-of-year career clients have enacted together, using a SWOT Analysis template:

1.  Make a clear determination of your business’s health by filling in the four quadrants on your template of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. (If you don’t already have a template for this, you can use Alan Chapman’s free SWOT pdf template. Though his template was designed for new business development, it’s also useful for business review and his questions in the sidebars will prompt you to look at specific areas of your business).

2. Now that you’ve assessed all areas of your business, see if there is anything urgent in your threats quadrant that requires your immediate attention.  It’s possible you need to put out a few fires quickly, but see if any of the opportunities you have listed can help your threats to resolve.  If more long-term resolutions are needed, match your opportunities and strengths to devise a plan to handle any problems, working backwards from your deadlines with step-by-step actions.  All plans are only as effective as they have included each step, plus who will take those steps, and a clear timeline for each step.

3.  Review the weaknesses quadrant to be sure you don’t repeat your mistakes.  For example, if you’ve had some important projects delayed because of poor administrative assistance, before relying on that same assistant to complete your work, consider who you’ll hire first to help you, or how else you’ll get your project completed in a timely and stress-free manner.

4.  Now that your plan is in place to address the most important matters for end-of-year wrap up—or beginning the new year out right—determine alternative solutions.  That’s right!  Your ideas still have to be matched with other folks projects and their timelines.  What if you can’t get something done in the way you imagined it, with that person you expected to be available, or according to your schedule?  What can you do differently if your initial plan of enactment fails?  This may require out-of-ordinary-thinking and unusual tactics.  Consider all options to rework your game plan before you’d consider dropping it.

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10 minutes late to your doctor appointment?  “No problem, everyone waiting expects delays and half their day shot.”   Three days late in getting back on that email?  “Not a big deal.  They’ll understand, since their email is likely overloaded too.”  A week late getting a project complete?  “I got it handled.  Extra time was factored it in at the beginning of the proposal.”  Not exercising day after day?  “Not the best, but I’m getting to it.  Can’t get there when there’s so much to do.”  Etc. Etc.

Are excuses merely tolerated or do they rule?  Unfortunately they rule—because we let them.  As a culture, we’re so conditioned to the fact that someone will have a reason for not doing what they said they would, that we’ve told ourselves this behavior is natural and something we must accept…so we do.

It seems we’re no longer able to regulate our own time and we often operate as if we’re at the mercy of it.  We seem to have lost the ability to make firm commitments and stick to them. 

Look more closely at the source of your excuses and find more effective ways to self-manage.  Rather than overbooking so you’re running late, maybe you should choose not to do that one extra thing.  Instead of postponing responses to important emails, you could set a fixed time to review your inbox and ignore all other miscellaneous emails until you have time scheduled to get back to them.  If you set your most important projects at the head of the list, then wouldn’t your time be most devoted there?  The project might even be completed a little early.  What a concept!  And ignoring your exercise is just plain shooting yourself in the foot.  Afterall, you need your health to get all your stuff done.

But then, part of the problem is thinking you have to do it all.  Then when you can’t, you make up an excuse so you don’t tarnish your image as superachiever to others.  Try out saying instead, “thanks, can’t take that on right now, even though I’d like to help.”  OR don’t give any excuse at all.  French author, Jules Renard, said, “The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.” 

Be courteous to others, but don’t confuse that with your reliance on lame excuses for not keeping your word.  If you’re confident in your behaviors and choices and manage your time more effectively, then you rule and not your excuses! 

What is it about our addiction to getting one more thing done, doing it all ourselves and being exhausted in the process?

I have a friend who has a holiday business and for about five weeks, she hardly gets any sleep.  In fact, she literally sleeps in her clothes at times if she’s too tired to go through the bed prep ritual, sometimes rationalizing it gives her an edge to start her next activities earlier.

Over half of the country are coffee consumers, most of us increase our consumption as we age.  The U.S. ranks fourth in the world to sugar consumption, 8,614,460 tons of refined sugar to be exact. We use stimulants to give us the physical edge to do more in less time, even though sometimes the edginess produced from overuse of these can disrupt our productivity.

I’ve had clients who refuse to choose what work they’ll begin next, because they want to do all of it now.  I often use the analogy with them about their multiple career interests (or their many goals)  being like horses running around a track.  I tell them to imagine there is only one gate at the end to get them all through. Similarly, goals have to line up to get through the gate and they have to be strategically paced to be fruitful and rewarding.  It doesn’t mean that they won’t get to do all they want to, just not all at one time.

Sometimes clients tell me they have equal passion for their goals.  Then I tell them it’s simply a matter of choosing which one will go first.

But often it’s the thrill of the near miss that keeps “addicts” coming back for more.  They will push themselves to do it all or that one last thing, simply because it makes them feel heroic.  If in pushing yourself and just by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin you accomplish the task, the unconscious rationale is how great you are and doesn’t it make you more accomplished than just having done things as a matter of course?!  Of course not. 

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Today begins the last day of the year.  That gives us 21 days to wrap up our wishes for 2009 (excluding the weekends and holidays and not counting extra days off if you’re planning to take that time).  So here is 30 minutes worth taking, to assess your most important needs to better shape this last month, and close the end of year to-do’s.  I’ll be doing this myself…hope it helps you too.

1.  What are the most important projects I want to get done?  (List up to 10, prioritize them.  See if there is action you can take on these to complete, complete half and schedule the balance for the new year, or delegate).

2.  Who are the people I most want to communicate with and what do I want to share with them? (Schedule others in your pilot or planner for conversations at a later time or delete them from your call list.)

3.  What negotiations, offers or deals do I want to close?  (You may decide you’re not interested afterall, but if you are, don’t let this holiday month slip by without step-by-step communication and followup. You may think others have too much on their plates at this time, but your alertness to the offer will keep you uppermost in their minds when they’re ready to decide).

4.  What health needs do I have to attend to?  (If you haven’t taken a day for that annual physical or dental checkup, now is a  good time.  Others are cramming these in too so you may only to get to schedule appointments, but surprisingly many folks put these off or cancel their appointments, so you’re likely to get in now.)

5.  What are the things I had wanted to learn?  (Decide if you can begin some part of this learning today or determine if rescheduling is authentic or it’s better to let it go.)

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