Serving Eastern Pennsylvania, Central and Southern New Jersey, and Delaware
Serving Eastern Pennsylvania, Central and Southern New Jersey, and Delaware
“We have thoughts, feelings and emotions, but we are not our thoughts feelings or emotions” Frances Vaughn
Mental Clutter is more mysterious and different from physical clutter. It hides, and resides in the mind disguised. It can be defined as an abundance of thoughts, and self-talk swirling around in our headspace! Layers of current thoughts, past thoughts and thoughts waiting to be triggered will occupy the mind space. Then if emotions arise, the mental clarity is gone and the cluttered brain exists.
On one level, mental clutter can be caused by:
On a deeper level, other mind clutter may not show up on your radar screen, depending on how self-aware you are. Things appear as they are, and we say it’s just the way it is!! We are blindsighted by the thought. Here’s one example: perfection. The thought of being perfect exists, regardless of why, or how it is there. You hold onto the belief that being perfect is the way to be and think. There isn’t much freedom in having this thought. It sabotages actions, and brings on negative self-talk.
Here’s what is true: we are in total control of what we choose to think or believe. Although what thoughts are in the mind can come from limiting beliefs you hold on to and live by. Sometimes these are generalizations, ideas or interpretations that you hold on to and then forget you did. At some time you may have felt strongly connected to them but now you’ve grown and changed and they don’t fit! All these thoughts may be laying dormant until something triggers it to surface. Next, you are living a life that’s not yours.
Try looking at where this thought, or belief came from. You may realize the roots of this. With introspection you realize that it doesn’t serve you anymore at this time. It’s time to give it up and free yourself. What I mean by this is, you may have lost touch with what’s really important to you – now, in the present. Maybe at one time all these thoughts, beliefs, and truths matched what was important to you. You can ask yourself, how true is this belief? The end result is living true to who you are, and who you say you are. In any given moment you can “CHOOSE” what you want to think or what doesn’t fit. The choices you make can motivate and uplift your spirit. Staying true to yourself brings inner peace.
Mindfulness and awareness will be the guide for clearing the mental clutter.
The principles of organizing apply here:
Assess what’s going on.
Take Action – Either jot down all that’s in your head until you feel empty. Seek support, like someone to talk or vent to. This helps in getting all the stuff out of your head.
Sort what thoughts to hold on to and why.
Identify what doesn’t serve you anymore. Ask yourself if any of those thoughts are draining you and your energy? Can you rephrase your thoughts so they empower you?
Choice – With acknowledgment, awareness and conscious choice, a clearing takes place. The result can be more head space! This is freeing. You may notice your energy higher. You may feel like you shed a layer or two, feel lighter, and quite positive.
Space has been created and quietness of mind and peace attained – You now have a blank slate.
So much of getting organized is about building new habits. To maintain those habits, you have to exercise your organizing muscles regularly. Below are a few exercises to help you get into shape.
Remember, one of the fastest ways to feel lighter is to exercise your organizing muscles by shedding pounds of clutter. Happy New Year!
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I read an interview with Michael Jensen, Emeritus of Harvard Business School entitled, “Integrity: Without It, Nothing Works,” a bold title, that peaked my interest. He really made me see that if I got in sync with the “Law of Integrity,” I could tackle those areas in my life — where I feel stuck — with greater ease. I could create workability where it is lacking and increase my productivity and performance tenfold just with a little practice.
Before I read the interview, the word integrity, made me think of “integrity” as a virtue; it is good to have integrity and it’s bad not to. The article helped me see that being caught up in the good / bad, right / wrong characteristics of integrity hides its relationship to workability and performance. Jensen makes the case that “as integrity declines, workability declines, and when workability declines the opportunity for performance declines” as well. He calls it the Law of Integrity.
Think of the spokes on a bicycle. If I remove spokes from the wheel, the integrity of the bike is increasingly diminished with each spoke I remove. As the integrity is more and more dimished, the wheel becomes less and less workable: its performance is ultimately compromised.
Jensen gives an example of how things that lack integrity affect our lives. Think of your car. When you don’t manage its maintenance, parts of the car can begin to wear out, run less efficiently, or break. The car becomes unreliable which makes you late for work, late for meetings, maybe even late to pick up your child at school. The “out-of-integrity” of your car creates a lack of integrity in your life that produces all kinds of fallout. Over time, you begin to show up as unpredictable, unreliable and untrustworthy, to your work associates, family members, and yourself.
The effects of the “out-in-integrity” behavior in our lives mostly go misidentified, unnoticed, and unacknowledged by us and others. We could simply say, the issue is with the car. However, if we look at integrity as defined in the article as “a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound and in perfect condition,” then the condition of my car directly provides “actionable access” that leads to opportunities for workability that enhance my ability to perform in life. With this model of integrity, the breakdown with my car illuminates the pathway or actionable steps I can take to create, maintain and restore integrity. This, in turn, gives me direct access to maximum performance in all areas of my life.
Fundamental to the Law of Integrity is honoring your word with yourself and others. More specifically, it means:
If we faithfully manage our integrity with ourselves, with the groups we are involved with, and the organizations that are important to us, Jensen explains, over time, “it enriches the quality of one’s life.” Effectiveness, workability, and increased performance are all a by-product of this model of integrity. He says, “People fail to link the difficulties in their lives or in their organizations to out-of-integrity behavior. The increases in performance that are possible by focusing on integrity are huge.” In his own company, after three years of implementing this Law of Integrity, Jensen saw a “300% increase in output, with essentially no increase in inputs.”
Michael Jensen makes a convincing case for integrity’s critical link to performance. Think about areas in our lives that don’t work (our homes, our work environments, our healthcare system, the financial industry, our political system). What would be possible if we, as individuals, in our society took on the “Law of Integrity” in those areas where we feel stuck, life feels unworkable and productivity needs a boost!
Wow, that would create a new future for all of us!
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Every time I enter a client’s home, I’m reminded of the sheer amount of stuff with which we surround ourselves. Does our stuff make our lives better or more difficult? And, what happens to all of the stuff we don’t want?
Most clients try to recycle as much as they can, but the truth is, much of what is donated ends up in the dump. Just this week, I was at a baby shower and the mother-to-be received so many gifts, she remarked they would need a storage unit. She wasn’t kidding.
April 22nd is Earth Day and a great opportunity to reflect on the world we would like to leave to our children and grandchildren. Take a look at the road sides as you drive around this month. Few places don’t have plastic bags blowing in the limbs of the trees and litter strewn about. While we need things to live, conduct business and improve our quality of life, do we want to leave a legacy of trash for the next generation?
Water bottles are a scourge on our earth and resources. According to Ban the Bottle, “Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year. However, the U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles – more than $1 billion worth of plastic – are wasted each year.” The EPA estimates that 75% of the American waste stream is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it and The Recycling Coalition of Utah states that “Americans represent 5% of the world’s population, but generate 30% of the world’s garbage.”
How can we stop burying ourselves and our loved ones in garbage?
Happy Earth Day!
While I don’t personally know enough about college basketball teams to predict who will win this year’s March Madness Tournament, I do follow the excitement as my family creates detailed brackets and fans bet on their top picks.
In my play book, we are all winners when we follow organizing rules inspired by the concept:
The less you stress…the more freedom you gain.
The less you buy…the more financial resources you maintain.
Make your own play and create MORE in your life with these tips:
M – More clarity in your priorities gives you more time and space for life.
A – Anyone can become organized when you structure your time.
R – Review your next day’s schedule the night before to eliminate surprises.
C – Carve out time daily for exercise, nutrition and sleep.
H – Handle any task that will take less than 2 minutes – now!
M – Make physical AND mental space in your life.
A – Add breathing room into your schedule for delays and transitions.
D – Delegating is a skill worth learning – develop a team mentality.
N – NAPO.net is your go-to for help if some rules seem beyond your reach.
E – Easy access is your goal for anything you use on a daily basis.
S – Simplify one area of your life today.
S – Stay focused on priorities for big playoffs…I mean big PAY-offs 🙂
January is National Get Organized Month and it’s also the time for making resolutions and promising to follow through on all the advice in the self-help books on your bookshelves. Being the author of a self-help book, I can’t say I don’t recommend them, but striving to constantly improve your life and your home may not be the best advice.
According to Lindsay Myers on brainblogger.com, self-improvement represents a $10 billion per year industry in the U.S. alone. (In addition to high revenues, self-help has a high recidivism rate, which means that those same people already purchased another self-help book in the last 18 months.) Whether we want to lose weight, eat healthy, have a better marriage, or advance in our career, many of us rely on self-help books to improve our lives.
What’s more, home improvement is an almost $300 billion industry, which some say started with Bob Vila on This Old House and cable channels taking over from there with HGTV and DIY Network. I must admit that we bought our old farm house over 30 years ago and we’ve been improving and upgrading ever since.
Stop Improving Yourself and Start Living by Robert Jean Bryant is a classic self-help book that challenges us to end the perpetual quest for improvement and instead upgrade the quality of our daily lives. We are constantly bombarded by commercials and retailers who try to convince us to buy the latest and greatest stuff so we can “improve” our lives. But all that buying means more clutter, distracts us from the real issues and the real people in our lives, and takes us away from living in the moment. Bryant also says that when you get off the treadmill of constant improvement you help yourself to the freedom of creativity, joy and well-being.
I suggest that we start 2016 by getting back to the basics. Let’s break it down:
Finally, answer the question “I wish I had more time to…” and make it happen. As the saying goes, life is not a dress rehearsal.
Clutter Quote: “Know many, trust few, learn to paddle your own canoe.” Anonymous
