Week 6 focus: De-Clutter

Clutter creeps up on us slowly, until one day it’s completely out of control. This reminds me of a clever decluttering book by Don Aslett, “Lose 200 lbs. this weekend”. People are often surprised by the amount of excess they have tucked away. How many excess pounds of clutter are you storing? Is it weighing you down? Maybe it’s time to lose it by putting your house on a diet. Most people have no idea how much their clutter affects them. You may actually fondly believe yours to be an asset, or at least a potential asset, after it has been sorted through and organized. It is only when you start clearing it out that you will realize how much better you feel without it.
The dictionary defines clutter as:
1. A crowded, untidy, collection of things.
2. Disorder
3. Confusion
4. Litter
The word clutter derives from the word ‘clotter’, which means to coagulate – and that’s about as stuck as you can get. Clutter accumulates when energy stagnates and, likewise, energy stagnates when clutter accumulates. So the clutter begins as a symptom of what is happening to you in your life and then becomes a part of the problem itself because the more of it you have, the more stagnant energy it attracts to itself. The reason why clearing out the clutter is so effective is that while you are putting your external world in order there are corresponding changes going on internally too.
Here are 4 categories of clutter:
• Things you do not use or love.
• Things that are untidy or disorganized.
• Too many things in too small a space.
• Anything unfinished. (ouch)
I’ve adapted the following from,”Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui”, by Karen Kingston. Now I’m not big on anything Feng Shui. In fact I think most of it is a lot of gobbledy gook, but I have had this article on clutter for a few years and find that it is right on.
Having clutter can make you feel tired and lethargic.
Most people who have clutter say they can’t find the energy to begin to clear it. They constantly feel tired. But the stagnant energy that stacks up around clutter actually causes tiredness and lethargy. Clearing it frees up the energy in your home and releases new vitality in your body. Clutter drains your energy and dampens your very best intentions.
Having clutter can keep you in the past.
When all your available space is filled with clutter, there is no room for anything new to come into your life. Your thoughts tend to dwell in the past, and you feel bogged down with problems that have dogged you for some time. Clearing your clutter allows you to begin to deal with your problems and move forward. You have to release the past to create a better tomorrow.
Having Clutter Can Affect Your Body Weight.
A curious fact is that people who have lots of clutter in their homes are often overweight. After you have cleared the junk out of your home it doesn’t feel right to continue to put junk food into your bodies. Sometimes body fat and clutter are forms of self-protection. You hope to cushion yourself against the shocks of life, and particularly against emotions you have difficulty handling. It gives you the illusion of being able to control things and prevent them from affecting you too deeply. But this is an illusion.
Having Clutter Can Confuse You.
When you live surrounded by clutter, it is impossible to have clarity about what you are doing in your life. When you clear it, you can think more clearly, and life decisions become easier. Having Clutter Can Affect the Way People Treat You.
People treat you the way you treat yourself. So if you value yourself and look after yourself, people will treat you well. If you allow the junk to mount up around you, you may attract people who mistreat you in some way because subconsciously you will feel that it is what you deserve.
Having Clutter Can Make You Feel Ashamed.
Perhaps you have reached the stage where your home is so cluttered and such a mess that you are ashamed to invite people over and positively panic if anyone turns up unannounced. You can live in lonely isolation with your junk, but wouldn’t you prefer to have a good clear-out, repair your self-esteem, and regenerate your social life with confidence?
Having clutter can make you procrastinate.
If you have a lot of clutter, you will tend to put off doing things until tomorrow. The clutter stagnates your energy and makes it difficult to get yourself to do anything. After clutter clearing you are likely to surprise yourself (and everyone else!) by wanting to do things you have put off for a long time. People suddenly feel motivated to do the things they have been putting off for a long time.
Having clutter can cause disharmony.
Clutter is a major cause of arguments in families, among roommates and co-workers. We might well ask ourselves if our lifestyle is not impeding the progress of others, especially our family members. What are we teaching our children! If you know anything about metaphysics you will understand that all these people attracted you into their lives for a reason. But the clutter is a low level reason. Clear it out and then you will be able to get to the higher purpose of why you are together, which is more interesting than arguing about mundane junk!
Having clutter can put your life on hold.
Don’t let your life slip away. Sit down right now and make a list of all the things you would love to do if only your clutter were sorted, and let this be the inspiration for you to get on with it.
Having clutter can depress you.
The stagnant energy of clutter pulls your energy down and makes you depressed. Many depressed people surround themselves with clutter. Feelings of hopelessness are compounded by clutter and can be relieved to some extent by clearing it because you create space for something new to come into your life.
Having clutter can create excess baggage.
Do you make mountains out of molehills, create dramas unnecessarily, get upset at imagined slights? Learn to lighten up in your physical environment and discover that you can lighten up emotionally too, and enjoy life much more.
Having clutter can dull your sensitivity and enjoyment of life.
A major clear out is absolutely essential if you want to have true joy and happiness in your life. These feelings are the experience of great energy flowing through your body and this cannot happen if your channels are clogged.
Having clutter can make you disorganized.
Being disorganized wastes time, this is frustrating, and makes you feel like a failure. Many people stay disorganized as a long standing protest against parental discipline enforced when they were young. To continue this all your life only sabotages you. It is very empowering to take control of your home and do what you want to do, instead of allowing unresolved issues from your past to run your life.

By mentally changing your approach and having realistic goals you can actually start living clutter free. It is important to give yourself time though; you will achieve the best results with a consistent system, complimented by new habits.

Imagine waking up to a serene, uncluttered bedroom, choosing an attractive outfit from a tidy, well-organized closet in which everything fits and is clean and pressed and ready to wear…
Imagine getting out the door on time because you haven't had to search for your keys, find school permission slips, or look for the bills you forgot to mail yesterday…
Imagine sharing a meal with your family at the dining table... without having to move piles of stuff first...
Imagine relaxing in your living room… where there's room to sit on the couch and you can find the TV remotes because you have cleared out all of the clutter…
Imagine that friends stop by and you open the door to invite them in … without cringing with embarrassment at the condition of your house...

What’s a Realistic Level of Clutter?
For most of us, especially for parents of small children, it’s not realistic to maintain a home in perfect order every moment of each day. While it’s inspirational to thumb through catalogs that show beautifully furnished rooms or walk through a wonderfully un-cluttered model home, holding oneself to such high standards of neatness may not only be unrealistic, but can cause additional stress. For example, if you find yourself nagging or resenting other family members for the minor messes that they make to the point that it strains family harmony; you may need to relax your standards. But knowing the toll that clutter takes, how much clutter is too much?
While we know that piles of clutter can cause stress and a perfect home may be unrealistic for some people, the level of tolerable clutter may vary from person to person.

Here are some guidelines to follow to help you decide where you should draw the line on clutter:
• Company: Do you like to have your home neat enough to have drop-in company? Are you happy to be company-ready after 15 minutes of cleaning?
• Organization: Is your home organized enough that you can generally find everything you’re looking for without having to search?
• Stress Level: Can you truly relax in your home, is it a haven, or is it an energy drain?

Some Tips: There are many books and even websites dedicated to helping you de-clutter your home, but here are some basic steps that work well:
1. Going room by room, divide your things into four boxes: things to donate, things to throw away, things to keep, and things to store. If you don’t need it or love it, consider getting rid of it.
2. Go through your box of things to keep and find a place for everything. Make it a logical place that’s in the same area where it’ll need to be used. For example, keep keys by the door.
3. Finish one room before moving on to the next.

If you can only do it in "baby steps," Flylady.net has a good system that can help.
I enjoy being a fly lady.

Organize What’s Left: As you find places to keep what you’re keeping, be sure that you’re storing things in a way that makes sense and looks nice. For example, kids’ toys can be stored very neatly in tubs, which provide quick cleanup and keep toy clutter out of sight. Getting drawer organizers for your bathrooms and kitchen can keep drawers from overflowing with extra items. Having a filing system for papers makes it easy to put them away and find them when you need them. Putting a little extra effort into organizing your things now will save you time in cleaning up and maintaining order for years to come.

Create Beauty: Once you have your home de-cluttered and organized, you can add a few nice touches that can make your home the ideal haven for you to relax.

Keep A Schedule: This is a wonderfully organized way to maintain a clean house, especially for those who work best when they have a list of "to-dos" to follow. http://housekeeping.about.com/ has some excellent schedules to follow for daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning so you know what to do and when.

Watch Your ‘Hot Spots: Remember those piles that you just got rid of? Clutter tends to accumulate in the same places--the front door, the kitchen table--little by little each day. Flylady recommends that you focus on the areas where you tend to leave clutter at the end of each day so they don’t turn into big piles again. Put YOUR Things Away: Once you have "a place for everything and everything in its place," you’re ready for this important companion rule: When you take something out, you should simply put it back.

The scriptures tell us that we have three sanctuaries where we may stand on holy ground. The Temple, the Lord’s meeting houses, and our homes. All sacred space.
So this week our focus is to clear out the clutter in our lives. Spend as much time as you can but at least 15 minutes is required. Try doing more. Put yourself in the driver’s seat of your life and take control of all THAT STUFF by donating it, throwing it away, or organizing it — and get everyone in your home in on the act. Imagine walking in to a room where the tops are cleared off and there are no papers and mess scattered about. How does it make you feel? That’s the AAAHHHH feeling you get when you walk into a room and you can see the room and not all the stuff. Suddenly, order appears in the Universe, you can find things, the feeling of being overwhelmed isn’t omnipresent and you look forward to things; life is sweet again. Getting your home organized feels great!!!
Go to it girls!!