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Decluttering & organising your life – Do you know what’s in your handbag? Really?

Decluttering and organising – whether it’s our home or any other area in our life – can feel overwhelming.

We often postpone certain tasks because we believe that it’s too hard, that it takes too much time, that we don’t know how to do it, that it wouldn’t make a big difference anyway, etc.

However, we can decide to start small.

We can create some small wins first. And some confidence. And move on from there more easily.

Starting and finishing an decluttering & organising project – no matter how small it is – is a first win – and an important step of our journey into a simply organised life.

It’s proof that making changes is possible and that we can achieve visible and valuable results even if we invest only a few minutes at a time.

Our first little successes increase our confidence (‘Yes, I can do this!’) and can help us get inspired and motivated to plan bigger projects. Or to create a new habit, applying the ‘little-step-by-little-step’ approach consistently – which will create huge progress over time.

A powerful little exercise: Declutter and re-organise your handbag

This little project will help you get a better understanding of the simply organising process in general.

You will directly experience how the 3 steps of any decluttering/organising project work together to create positive results: More space and clarity and lightness. And positive feelings about yourself.

Choose a ‘space’ that you use regularly, a personal ‘container’ like your purse/handbag, your backpack or briefcase (We’ll call it ‘your bag’ here.)

The condition of your chosen bag can be seen as a reflection of who you are and how you treat yourself.

    • If this space is cluttered and unorganised it sends the message to its owner (you!), ‘I am a bit messy/disorganised’.

Each time you grapple with trying to find what you need, or you suffer from the heavy useless stuff you carry around in your bag, you experience frustration which reinforces the message ‘I am so disorganised’ and the feeling of frustration.

    • However, if the bag is clutterfree and well sorted, you send yourself the opposite message, ‘I am organised’.

You have positive feelings when you open your bag, and you feel in control because you know what’s in there and where you can find it.

As soon as you have successfully cleared up and organised a formerly cluttered and messy space that you access multiple times during the day – like in this case your bag -, you will repeatedly get reminded that you are able to do successfully whatever you want to do.

You will also have clear proof that you can overcome the overwhelm that in the past kept you from getting certain tasks done.

You will enjoy the benefits of organised spaces – every time you use the decluttered item.

The 3 steps of the decluttering process

Step 1 – Get a clear picture of what’s in there

    • Dump all the contents of your chosen bag on a flat clean surface.
    • Sort everything into categories, such as personal care items, personal documents, paperwork/books, snacks, etc.
    • Notice what thoughts and feelings are coming up while you look at the categories of things. Any surprises? Any items you had forgotten about? Anything you haven’t used for ages? Or not at all?

Step 2 – Decide what you want to discard

    • Start making let-go decisions by assigning things that are damaged or have become useless to a rubbish pile (e.g., crumpled tissues, old receipts, empty water bottle, dried up lipsticks).
    • Sort out what you never use, and let go of all the duplicates, e.g., the additional comb, the second and third pen, another roll of peppermint drops.
    • Now ask yourself: What do I really need and use regularly?
    • Decide and put aside what you are no longer willing to carry around every day. (Reserve the umbrella for rainy days, the sun cream for summer, the novel for times when you use public transport, etc.)
    • Have a look at the remaining items.
    • Appreciate all the things that are helpful and important to you and decide that you are going to take good care of them in future.

Step 3 – Take action and re-organise

    • Throw the rubbish pile into the bin.
    • Find easy-to-access storage options in your house for the things that you only need/use from time to time (e.g., umbrella, sun cream).
    • Re-pack your bag deliberately.
    • Use any compartments that your bag provides to separate categories of things, or find little extra bags to containerise like items (like makeup products, or pens and post-its, or receipts).

Congratulations – You have proven to yourself that you are a capable organiser! Well done!

Now you can feel certain that you’ll enjoy your clutterfree and organised bag – every day.

Notice what else you are feeling at the end of this little project.

Do you feel relief? Satisfaction? Clarity? Pride? Something else?

How could you ‘store’ any positive feelings you have right now and ‘re-use’ them in the next project that you don’t feel too excited about?

Your future identity depends on what you choose to think today

What’s your future identity? – Who are you becoming?

When we decide to make bigger changes in our lives or when we start to move towards achieving new goals, we are not only starting to do something differently.

Before we can start to act differently, we need to learn to think and feel differently.

Imagine someone who’s retiring after 40 years in the corporate world. This person is not only going to change daily their lifestyle and activities but also in the process of switching identities – a process that’s often not easy to go through.

Because we can’t click just a button and say, ‘Yesterday I was a manager, and today I am a retiree.’ 

Becoming someone different, and building a new identity usually takes some time, effort – and thought work.

Thus, let’s not focus so much on what we are going to do differently, let’s instead focus on intentionally choosing how we are going to think and feel differently.

Let’s actively define and create our new identity.

We can ask ourselves questions like these:

    • ‘Who am I becoming? How will my new identity look like?’
    • ‘How does that person – the new me – make decisions?’
    • ‘What does that person think?’
    • ‘How does that person feel?’
    • ‘How does that person act?
    • What’s important to that person? And what’s not?

LITTLE EXERCISE

You can’t change your past but you can choose how you want to experience the future – because you can choose your future identity.

Play around with the questions above and find your unique answers – so that you can build a close relationship with your future you.

Focusing your thinking on your future identity will help you think, feel, and act like the person you want to become.

Step 1: Define your new identity

These are just a few examples of new-identity ideas:

    • ‘I am becoming someone who is really good at time management.’
    • ‘I am becoming a mindful person,’
    • ‘I am learning to be a conscious shopper.’
    • ‘I am determined to become the organiser of my mind, my home, and my life.’

Step 2: Describe how you will think, feel, and act differently.

Example:

My future identity: I am becoming a successful ‘declutterer’

What I will think: As an expert declutterer, I make sure that there is no clutter in my mind and no clutter in my home. I only ‘own’ thoughts and belongings that serve me. My mind and my home are clutterfree and organised.

How I will feel: I feel competent and confident.

What I will do: I practice mind-decluttering every day, and I create useful habits and routines that help me to keep my home clear and clean.’

Now it’s your turn!

Who are you going to be? And what will that person – your future identiy – think, feel, and do?

 

HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

Are you tired?

Tired of trying to (re)organise the various areas of your life entirely on your own?

Fortunately, you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself.

We can do it together.

You can decide to get my support, advice, and guidance – and achieve the desired changes in your life so much faster and easier. 

Check out how I can help you.

The ‘Shoe Parade’ – Decluttering your shoes CAN be fun

Taking action is not always easy, especially if we feel worried about the size and complexity of a home decluttering project. It often helps to start small.

If we begin with one clearly defined decluttering project – and finish it successfully, in a short period of time, with tangible results – our self-confidence and motivation get a boost.

Give it a try, forget about your bigger decluttering projects for a short while. Instead, have some fun with the ‘Shoe Parade’.  

A word of caution:

If your love for shoes is your Achilles’ heel (you own lots and lots of pairs of shoes), the Shoe Parade can be an overwhelming experience.

In this case, it’s better to begin your decluttering journey with a different category of belongings (e.g., socks, books, shirts).

EXERCISE 

Step 1

Before you do anything, please answer the following two questions:

    • How many pairs of shoes do you have? Take a guess: ………
    • How many pairs of shoes do you regularly wear? Take a guess: ……….

Step 2

Now walk around your home and collect all your shoes.

Arrange a ‘shoe parade’ in your backyard or on the kitchen floor – wherever you have enough space to get them all together.

Any surprises?

    • How many pairs do you have?
    • How many do you actually wear?
    • Any shoes you had completely forgotten about?
    • Any really ugly ones?
    • Completely new and unworn shoes?
    • Other insights?

You might wish to take a photograph. And take some notes.

Step 3

Sort out any shoes that are beyond repair or missing their mate.

These shoes need a new home: the rubbish bin.

Step 4

Then divide you your pairs of shoes into three main groups:

    • In one area of the room arrange all your favourite pairs, the shoes you absolutely love and wear often. Celebrate them – they belong to your ‘keepers’.
    • In another area of the room, you arrange all those pairs of shoes that you don’t love but regularly need/wear. They also have the right to stay.
    • In a third area, you place all those pairs of shoes you have not worn in the past 6 months.

Do they still deserve space in your home? Would they be happier with a new owner?

Show them your respect by saying ‘Thank you’ and ‘Goodbye’ and drop them off at your local charity. Someone else will appreciate and use them.

Step 5

Finally, honour the shoes that you love or need to keep.

Clean them, and then organise them nicely and orderly in one place.

Step 6

WELL DONE! – Celebrate your first decluttering success!

You are now ready and well prepared to start working on your bigger decluttering projects.

Struggling with the clutter in your wardrobe? – ‘Talk’ to your clothes and ask them for help

‘Talking’ to our belongings can open a door to our unconscious mind

Asking our belongings for their feedback is a playful way to gain more awareness about the things we have accumulated over time. Questions like ’‘Why am I not using you?’ help us uncover what’s going on in our mind.

If we are willing to listen to the honest answers we get from our stuff, we begin to understand our subconscious attachment to things that no longer serve us, and we find it easier to make let-go decisions that are over-due.

Wardrobe clutter conversations – Your clothes know what’s going on in your closet

There are many ways to declutter and organise our wardrobe so that getting dressed in the morning becomes simple and enjoyable.

One way to understand the situation in our wardrobe better and to simplify the decluttering-decision process is to ‘talk’ to our clothes and ‘ask’ them for help.

EXERCISE

You start the ‘conversation’ by taking everything out of the wardrobe that you haven’t worn for a while.

Spread it out on your bed or another suitable flat surface.

Then take each piece of clothing in your hands and ask it,

‘Why am I not wearing you?’

All sorts of answers will come up and they will help you clarify your relationships with your clothes.

Making confident decluttering decisions gets easier if you hear (and accept) the truth.

Your clothes might give you answers such as

‘You’re not wearing me because

    • I have stains that you can’t get out’
    • you’ve never tried. Look here, I’ve still the price tag on’
    • you never liked me’
    • I am out of fashion’
    • you forgot about my existence’
    • you have so many clothes similar to me’
    • I don’t fit you’
    • we don’t fit to each other’
    • your lifestyle changed and you no longer need me’
    • you don’t look good when you put me on’
    • I give you negative emotional associations’
    • you don’t like my colour/style any longer’

If you are willing to listen to your clothes and trust their answers, you will find it easier to decide what you want to keep – and to say thank you and goodbye to those clothes that gave you honest and tough answers – because they no longer want to stay with you.

Decluttering your wardrobe can make decluttering your life easier

If you plan to not only declutter your home but other areas in your life as well, getting your wardrobe sorted out is a great starting point.

Many of us feel emotionally attached to at least some of our clothes. This can be the reason why we postpone decluttering our wardrobe again and again.

As soon as we get curious and ask ourselves (and our clothes) questions about all the stuff in the closet, we start to come up with answers that help us clear up the emotional ballast – ballast that causes not only the clutter in our closet but also in other areas of our life.

3 questions that help us focus on creating more fun and excitement in our life

In a recent article of the Powerful Questions Series I discussed how defining our values and our purpose in life can give our mind and our soul structure, stability, and direction. We used a couple of questions to get a clearer idea of the priorities in our lives.

The following 3 little questions can also help us pay more attention to what’s important to us – this time the focus is on having fun and excitement in our life.

Ask yourself – and play around with the answers:

    • What am I currently excited about in my life?
    • What does it mean to me to have a full and rich life?
    • How could I have more fun and joy in my life?

You will probably not arrive at a final definition of your fun priorities and your idea of living more joyfully on purpose just by answering some questions.

But anything that helps us define our priorities in life will make it easier to move forward in a meaningful and intentional way.

Are you ready for some more fun, and excitement in your life?

A small step can change everything: Your home – your mind – your life.

Small steps matter.

They create change, step-by-step.

The first small step is the most powerful. Nothing happens without it.

Having a clear and organised home (or not) has to do with how successful we manage two different but closely related activities:

    • we have to be good at decluttering / organising physical stuff
    • and we have to be good at decluttering/organising our mind.

Our home and our possessions should reflect and support our lifestyle and our values, instead of making life more difficult and stressful.

However, when we are surrounded by belongings that we don’t use, like, need, we can’t relax and refuel our energy resources.

Instead, the mess sucks up our attention and energy. It clutters our mind, the physical clutter bombards our brain with excessive stimuli. We find it hard to focus on our daily lives – it’s all too much!

If we struggle to take action to declutter and organise our home and life, it’s often because the task seems to be so huge that we feel overwhelmed and end up with doing nothing.

We look at the mess and feel stuck, we feel incapable of getting active and making changes.

In this situation, it often helps to just get started – to take the first tiny step:

We choose one small area to focus our decluttering project on and forget about the big rest of the mess for now.

Instead of planning the clear up of the whole house, we decide, for example, to get one drawer in the kitchen sorted, or a little cupboard in the bed room, or our handbag. We set the timer for 20 or 30 minutes, and get the job done, from start to finish.

A small exercise like this, these 20 or 30 minutes, can change everything.

Choosing one small concrete project and tackling it successfully, creates not only new order and space in a little area of our home.

It also changes how we experience ourselves.

Decluttering and organising a small area delivers a visible real result. And this little success triggers a sense of ‘I can take action’, ‘I can organise’, ‘I can achieve results’.

It allows us to start believing in ourselves and our capacity to be(come) an organised person. 

Thus, even just a small successful experience like taking action and changing a cluttered drawer into a clear and organised drawer can have significant effects on our mind and our thinking. (Click Here to read about an example project: Decluttering and organising my office supplies’ drawer.)

It can have the power to set off a cascade of other changes in our life because our thoughts and beliefs are the cause of anything we experience in our life:

As soon as we start to believe that we can organise our stuff, that we can achieve results by taking action, we start to feel more powerful and confident, which frees us up to take further action, which delivers further results.

Which then reinforce and intensify our thoughts of being capable of changing our life and taking control. Which strengthens our feelings of strengths, which … .

A tiny small action creating small but real results can get the ball rolling, can trigger a circle of success. 

A small step can change everything. Give it a try.

Our mind – not the stuff in our home – is the cause of our (clutter) problems

Where does the clutter in our life come from?

As human beings, we all have clutter in our life:

    • Belongings in our home that we don’t need, use, love.
    • Thoughts in our minds that don’t serve us.
    • Feelings in our heart that disturb our wellbeing.
    • Actions in our daily life that draw us away from where we want to go.
    • Results in our life that keep us stuck.

The most damaging category of clutter is the clutter in our mind.

This type of clutter – all the self-limiting thoughts and unsupportive beliefs – is so powerful because the mind-clutter causes all the other types of clutter in our life.

Why we need to actively manage our mind

An unsupervised mind gets easily cluttered.

Left on its own, the lack of direction and guidance causes the mind to come up with automatic thoughts which then create feelings and actions that can

    • cause us to create a mess in our home,
    • damage our relationships with others and with ourselves,
    • hold us back in our personal development,
    • keep us stuck in a job we don’t like or slow us down in our career,
    • make our financial situation difficult,
    • keep us from setting and reaching goals and creating the life we want to have.

However, it’s within our power to take back control and clear up the mess in our mind – and in our life.

In fact, our mind can become our best and most supportive friend – if we take the initiative and learn to manage what’s going on up there and how to get rid of anything that’s not serving us.

How we can start to manage our mind and our life successfully

The best way to start is to focus.

Instead of trying to change everything to the better in one go, we take a step-by-step approach.

We choose just one area of our life and commit ourselves to get it sorted out.

Clearing up this one area – and the related part in our mind – will build and strengthen our ‘decluttering-muscles’. We become experts in recognising clutter and sorting it out.

We also become mind-management experts.

Now we are the ones who decide what’s happening in our mind. Limiting thoughts are no longer tolerated, we get really good at letting go of what doesn’t serve us.

We gain space and clarity in our mind. Now we are free to move on with new useful thoughts, feelings and actions – which help us to create the results we want to have in the chosen area of our life.

Your home could be the one area of your life that you focus on.

Team up with your mind and get the clutter out – out of your home and out of your mind.

Decluttered & Organised BLOG ARCHIVE @ Let Go – Move On

What’s your focus of interest – Home Decluttering or Mind Decluttering? 

Just ask me – I now can easily find the information you are interested in. 

All my blog articles are now nicely organised in two ‘containers’ with clear labels:

Blog - Focus Home DeclutteringOne ‘container’ contains all the blog posts that focus on Home Decluttering topics.

Blog - Focus Mind Decluttering

The other one stores the articles that focus on Mind Decluttering issues.

The reason why I decided to do the work and why my blog archive is now clutterfree and well sorted:

Recently, I felt a bit ashamed because I – the ‘clutterfree life’ coach – struggled to find one of my blog posts under the ‘clutter’ in the archive.

A client wanted to get her sentimental belongings – items inherited from her mother – sorted out. I thought that a blog post that I had written about this topic a while ago would be helpful to her. 

But then I had a typical clutter experience – I couldn’t find that post. I knew it was somewhere but not where exactly. So it took me a while to search around in my archive. Finally I found it.

But I knew that it was time to declutter and organise my blog archive. 

And I had a typical decluttering experience – I discovered articles that I had forgotten about and was happy to see again. And others that might have been useful at the time I created them but now no longer were up-to-date and needed to go.

I made some tough decisions. And then got everything that I wanted to keep nicely organised.

Now I know again what I have in my blog archive and where I can find it. 

I can’t say that I was happy about the time I had to invest in the decluttering and organising process but I totally like the result. It was worth the time and effort. 

That’s a typical clutterfree experience:

The process of letting go of what we have kept but don’t need (any longer) is not always fun and very often hard work – but the result is always positive:

More order, space and clarity. More reason to feel relaxed, content, and peaceful.

More …   Fill in the blank – What are the feelings that you experience at the end of a successful decluttering project? 

Why we need to be very careful about what we are thinking

If we aren’t getting the result we want it’s because of a thought.

Our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, our actions accumulate into results. – The trouble starts when we forget about this powerful cycle of results-creation.

If something is not as we want it to be, if we have a result in our life that we don’t like, we often believe that something is wrong with us. Or we blame certain ‘unfair’ circumstances in our life.

Feeling incapable, out of control and stuck is the consequence, and making any changes to the unsatisfying situation seems impossible.

However, we can do something about it.

We can change the results we currently have by changing the thoughts we currently think.

One of the many ways to test our thoughts – especially our limiting beliefs – is to ask ourselves powerful questions – AND answer them! For example:

    • ‘If I didn’t believe this, then what would I do?’
    • ‘What if I’m wrong about that?’
    • ‘What if this is just a story my mind made up?’

Click here to learn more about how we can declutter our limiting thoughts.

Knowing and living our values gives life structure and stability

What can we do to ensure that we live and experience our life the way we want to live and experience it?

Deeply understanding what’s truly important to us and defining our values can give our mind structure, stability, and direction.

You can use this little exercise to become more aware of what you value:

Ask yourself questions like these:

    • What’s really important to me in the different areas of my life?
    • Am I currently neglecting important values?
    • What do I want to achieve in my life, today and tomorrow, in the next 5 years, etc?
    • Where do I want to focus my time and my energy right now?

Don’t rush through the questions.

To really benefit from the exercise, you need to be willing to invest some time. Consider the questions, one by one, and write down what comes to your mind. 

For example:

Before you answer the first question, you could make a list of the different areas of your life.

Your list might include important relationships, your work, your finances, your home, your hobbies and interests, your personal development, your fitness and health, etc.

Then you can go through your list and write down what’s most important to you in each area. 

At the end of the exercise, you can take your notes and decide how you could use your insights to now truly ‘value your values’. Ask – and answer:

    • How can I pay more attention to what’s important to me in my daily life?
    • Could I start a new personal or professional project, here and now, that’s closely linked to my values and my goals?
    • What else can I do to truly value what’s important to me?

Knowing what’s important to us helps us value and fully live our life, the way we want to live it. 

HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

Are you tired?

Tired of trying to (re)organise the various areas of your life entirely on your own?

Fortunately, you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself.

We can do it together.

You can decide to get my support, advice, and guidance – and achieve the desired changes in your life so much faster and easier. 

Check out how I can help you.

How a conversation with your future self can help you to achieve your goals

The secret to creating the life you want: Talk to your Future Self.

A conversation with our future self brings us clarity.

This little exercise can be fun. And it can be extremely helpful if we feel a bit stuck.

EXERCISE – Talk to your much older future self

Imagine your future self being much older than you are now. You can expect her to be much wiser and more mindful and knowledgeable at this stage of life. 

Picture yourself sitting together with your future self, having a relaxed conversation with her. Don’t forget to take notes while you are talking with her.

STEP 1 – Choose a topic

Choose the area of your life you want to discuss with your future self. Tell her what you wish to change, improve, achieve.

STEP 2 – Ask powerful questions

Now ask her these 3 questions:

    • What does she recommend you should stop doing?
    • What does she want you to start doing?
    • What does she think you should continue doing?

Don’t judge or evaluate, just write down whatever comes up in her(your) mind.

Don’t push away what you don’t like to hear. Take your time to think it through.

STEP 3 – Create an action plan

Choose one or two of her recommendations about what you should stop, start, or continue doing.

Compile an action plan: List all the things you want to think, feel, and do differently.

Then start realising your goals.

Don’t postpone, take the first step – now.

 

HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

Are you tired?

Tired of trying to (re)organise the various areas of your life entirely on your own?

Fortunately, you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself.

We can do it together.

You can decide to get my support, advice, and guidance – and achieve the desired changes in your life so much faster and easier. 

Check out how I can help you.

A set of 3 little questions – to make our actions and activities more valuable

Each day in our life offers numerous opportunities to learn something new, to gain helpful insights, to think in a different way, to benefit from an experience.

Unfortunately, we often miss these opportunities because we rush through our day. We are in a hurry to start, manage, and complete tasks, projects, processes, activities. We want to get it done so that we can move on to the next thing.

We don’t take the time to look back at what we have been doing, we don’t pay attention to the results we have created, we don’t stop to evaluate, review and adjust – we just move on, and on, and on.

How can we become more aware of learning opportunities and use them deliberately for our personal development?

A set of 3 little questions can help.

As soon as a job, task or project has been completed, at the end of an event, after any success or failure experience, at the end of the day/week/month/year month, we can ask ourselves:

    • What worked?
    • What didn’t work?
    • What am I going to do differently?

GIVE IT A TRY

At the end of today, pause for a moment, and see what you can learn from your answers to the questions

    • What worked out today? What did I do successfully? What positive results have I created today?
    • What didn’t work? What feels like a failure? Why? What went wrong, or not as expected/wanted?
    • What can I learn from this? What can I do differently tomorrow?