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The 3 rules for a well-functioning inbox

In the first article of this series, I talked about why we need inboxes – if we want to get good at getting things done and organised.

I listed the inboxes that easily come to mind – like our email inbox, our mailbox, and the in-tray in the office.

I also came up with lots of other examples of containers or places that we use as inboxes in various daily life circumstances. And I talked about the purpose and benefits of inboxes.

This is a quick summary:

What are inboxes, and what’s their purpose?

Inboxes are temporary storage areas for things that need to get done/organised in the future.

These storage areas

- offer an easy and quick way to get things out of the way,
- ensure that individual items don’t get lost,
- are supposed to store things temporarily,
- make sorted-away items retrievable,
- offer quick overviews of pending tasks,
- help sort and prioritise items.

Today, I want to discuss what we need to do to make an inbox work. We need to follow just a few rules.

Important requirements of a well-functioning inbox.

Continue reading The 3 rules for a well-functioning inbox

Inboxes are the most fundamental elements of a well-organised life.

What’s an inbox?

It is not possible to get properly organised without the support of inboxes. We can’t avoid clutter from building up if we don’t have inboxes or if our inboxes are not well cared for.

Okay, but what is an inbox?

Inboxes are temporary storage areas for things that need to get done/organised.

Let’s have a look at a few examples:

The email inbox is the inbox that typically comes to mind when we talk about inboxes. It’s the easiest and simplest of all inboxes: We don’t have to install/arrange it – as soon as we create an email account, we automatically get an inbox. We also don’t have to personally arrange the inflow of data and information into our inbox, it gets filled up automatically: Any message that anybody decides to send to our email address will end up in the inbox.

Continue reading Inboxes are the most fundamental elements of a well-organised life.

Living intentionally means that we carefully pay attention to where we put our attention.

Our lives and our experience of life reflect where we spend most of our attention.

The thoughts that we paid the most attention to in the past, the ones we thought most frequently, are the thoughts that have created our current results.

The thoughts we pay most attention to today, those we are thinking most frequently right now, will create our future results.

Our attention is our most powerful resource. And we can intentionally make good use of this resource. We have the power to control where we place our attention.

However, the amount of attention available to us is limited.

At any given moment, we can pay attention to only one thing. Just one.

That’s why it is so important to intentionally decide where we want to put our attention.

The 2-minute rule: If it takes less than 2 minutes, just do it.

The 2-minute rule has been around for a while.

I don’t know who ‘invented’ the 2-minute rule. Maybe it was David Allen who presented it in his book ‘Getting things done’, first published in 2001.

The 2-minute rule is still very popular and most productivity gurus have it in their toolbox.

I like it because it’s so simple and clear, it’s very effective, and it can be applied to things we need to do in all areas of our lives.

The 2-minute rule is a great tool that helps us overcome procrastinating and get small tasks done immediately, whenever they come up.

The 2-minute rule says,

3 little questions help us make use of every day – intentionally

Often, time flies by, one day quickly passes, and then the next, and the next, and suddenly the week is gone.

And if someone asked us what actually happened during the week, what we did or didn’t do, what went well and what didn’t, we struggle to remember.

That’s a pity.

We risk losing valuable memories and experiences. And we miss the opportunity to learn from our daily successes and failures.

A little evening routine can help us live every day more intentionally.

Two powerful decluttering questions

Do you plan to do some decluttering work – and feel stuck?

If you don’t feel motivated to get your stuff sorted out and to let go of any clutter, or if you feel motivated but feel unable to decide what’s actually clutter and what’s not,

I suggest you answer two questions – although it might feel a bit uncomfortable.

Ask yourself:

- Who will most probably (have to) clear up my belongings after my death?
- And what do I want them to think about my stuff – and about me?

Yes, I know, most of us don’t like to think about our mortality.

That’s why we actively avoid thinking about what is going to happen with our personal stuff and who will have to take care of it when we pass away.

Answering the questions can bring clarity and make decluttering decisions easier.

Living Intentionally – Short Introduction – Part 3

In Part 1 of this short introduction series, we defined what living intentionally means, in a broader and in a more narrow way.

In Part 2, we listed some typical life situations to get a clearer idea of what intentional living might look like in real life.

Today, I want to briefly discuss a simple framework that helps us create a more intentional life.

Living intentionally – How do we get there?

No matter what the specific intention behind a client’s decluttering or organising project is, we always use my simple 3-step process – the ‘ADA Framework’ – to realise the desired outcomes successfully.

The ADA Framework

These are the steps that my clients practice and implement to actively take control and create the life they want to live:

Living Intentionally – Short Introduction – Part 2

Now, that we have defined what intentional living means, it’s time to consider how the concept plays out in real life.

Living intentionally – What does that look like?

Living an intentional and organised life looks different for each of us, of course.

Each of my clients has very personal and unique goals and ideas about what they want to achieve and why they want that.

Decluttering and organising physical stuff and personal information.

For some of my clients, the focus of the work is creating more space and order in their personal environment. They want to clear their home and belongings or optimise their physical paperwork and digital information management. Their intention is to enjoy more spaciousness, clarity, and lightness.

Planning, organising, and successfully realising bigger changes in life.

Living Intentionally – Short Introduction – Part 1

Living intentionally – What does that mean?

Basically, living intentionally means that we deliberately decide how we want to live our life. And then we act on that.

We don’t let life just happen to us and purely react to its circumstances and challenges.

Instead, we actively define what’s important to us and how we want to experience and live our life.

We proactively make any necessary changes, even if that doesn’t feel very comfortable.

And we get ourselves well prepared for the challenges and opportunities the future might bring along.

Specifically, living intentionally means that we get good at thinking and acting intentionally.

It means that we actively

Decluttering Tip – Let go of ‘sunk costs’

If something has no longer value for us, it’s clutter.

And it doesn’t matter how much we paid for it.

Sometimes we hold on to something we don’t need, use, or love any longer, just because we have spent money on it.

We believe that we are obliged to continue valuing (= keeping) it because of the money we once invested into getting it.

However, money that has been spent is gone – it’s ‘sunk cost’, it’s gone as soon as we spend it.

Keeping something that no longer serves us but once cost us money means – in our mind – we still ‘own’ it and that makes us feel like we are somehow still having the money’s worth in our pocket.

But that’s not the case, of course, the money is gone.

Continue reading Decluttering Tip – Let go of ‘sunk costs’

Clutter Awareness – 4 ways to get to know your stuff better

Before you can decide what to declutter you need to know what you have

If you don’t feel completely comfortable in your home but struggle to decide what you should change or what you should let go of, you can use little experimental exercises that are not only fun but also help you see your home from a different and more neutral point of view.

Your increased awareness will help you make more confident and determined decluttering decisions.

EXERCISE 1 – Take the view of a stranger who is visiting for the first time

Go outside and enter your home through the front door again.

Walk through all rooms and pretend to see all your furniture and belongings for the first time.

Which assumptions are you making about the people living in this place?

Take notes of the thoughts, feelings, and judgments that come up.

EXERCISE 2 – Imagine you would move out soon

Continue reading Clutter Awareness – 4 ways to get to know your stuff better

Easy-to-do mini habits help us achieve our goals – easier and faster

Mini habits create the path to our goals – no matter how big those goals are.

If we want to achieve long-term goals, we should not focus on the goal itself but on the behaviours that will get us to the goal.

We design an easy path to the goal by choosing suitable behaviours and changing them into habits.

The behaviours that we want to develop into habits should be behaviours that we want to do – because we have positive thoughts and feelings about them:

- They don’t make us feel cautious, anxious, or threatened – because we don’t expect them to be risky or dangerous.
- They make us feel motivated and excited – because we trust they will be easy to do, even enjoyable, not at all painful or hard and difficult.
- They don’t make us feel overwhelmed or exhausted – because we know they will not cost us much energy and effort.

Because of our deliberately positive thoughts and feelings, we are willing and able to do new behaviours repeatedly, until we have achieved the goal.

To check whether the chosen action is tiny and enjoyable enough, we can ask ourselves if we can believe and say with confidence:

Continue reading Easy-to-do mini habits help us achieve our goals – easier and faster