Clutter, Clutter, Everywhere….

I’ve never liked clutter, but it seems that it likes me. I find myself blaming my family for the clutter in my home because surely I couldn’t produce such a horrific sight. Then I look at my office, which is always a disaster, and no one else works in here but me. How could they? There’s no room. So, I’m on a mission to eliminate the clutter in both my home and office.

Clutter does more than just make my environment look messy and disorganized. It also affects my ability to think, act and be clear. Practitioners of Feng Shui believe that the location of your clutter has a dramatic effect on the area of your life that location represents. Although I’m not a practitioner of Feng Shui, I have certainly found that clearing clutter in my home and office in the areas that relate to money and relationships has had a profound effect on those areas of my life. Whether that occurred because I imagined it would or if there is really something behind the practice is immaterial. The results were tangible.

When I have clutter in my house, it makes me feel heavy, encumbered and even lethargic or depressed. Clutter in my office can be distracting — both to me and anyone who visits me here — and it definitely slows productivity.

To help me get rid of clutter, I went on a mission I call “A Bag A Day”. I used a 12-gallon kitchen trash bag and forced myself to fill it with trash or with items to donate. I committed to filling one bag and remove it from the house each day. At first this didn’t seem to make much of a difference, but after 2 weeks, I was amazed at how much less cluttered the house appeared. In fact it inspired me to take on the garage and then the den. It feels good to clear the place of the unnecessary stuff that was only serving to bog me down. Granted, the clutter always threatens to invade again, but I’m now armed with a 12-gallon bag and a desire to fight back.