The thousands of choices we make each day may not seem important by themselves, but they all add up to create the path that we take in life.
In truth, every single decision is an opportunity to choose light or dark, to choose life affirming actions that have integrity or ones that will take us off track. From each mouthful of food we choose to eat to the bigger decisions in life that determine who we are, every single one counts. And if you hold this firmly in mind while clutter clearing, it will give you a very different level of motivation to get the job done.
An excellent example of this comes from a lovely woman who took one of my Fast Track Clutter Clearing online courses and kindly gave me permission to publish some of her insights here.
‘I think about all the time I have spent over the years organizing things from place to place or bin to bin,’ she commented, ‘when what I should have done was just released it at the time and spent more time with friends and family rather than organizing stuff.’
These are wise words indeed. With this realization firmly in mind, I encouraged her to tackle with renewed vigour the bins she had accumulated full of her children’s school work from kindergarten to university.
‘My youngest son is very good at throwing out all his school work at the end of the year,’ she observed. ‘I watched as he did it the last two years and knew that I could do the same to virtually all the school work, birthday cards, soccer schedules and mementos of his that I have saved over the years. He wouldn’t care. So I will keep that in mind when I get to those bins.’
Her husband turned out to be an even more stalwart role model when it came to sorting through and organizing the thousands of pictures she had on her computer.
‘My husband has 12 pictures of his childhood, while my children have hundreds!’ she exclaimed. ‘That is one of the reasons why I am here now, taking this course. It’s time to let go and concentrate on people rather than things.’
She added, ‘My husband says that when you say “yes” to something you are always saying “no” to something else. So if I am spending all my time organizing memories, what am I am saying “no” to?’
You may like to ponder on this as you sort through your own stuff. Or better still, as you make your original choices about what to keep in your life and what to let go. As you become more experienced at this, you learn to spot more easily the things that will turn out to need clutter clearing in years to come. It’s called the art of intercepting clutter before it even starts, and it’s a vital skill to have in order to own your own life rather than feeling constantly overwhelmed by all the things you have set yourself up to do.
Copyright © Karen Kingston, 2014