An End to Clutter Hot Spots
There are certain areas in homes and lives that seem to magically attract clutter. One day you have a beautifully clean, empty kitchen table and the next day it is covered in mail, school papers, dry cleaning receipts and other odds and ends. Sound familiar? While owning less certainly helps the clutter hot spot battle, it’s nice to have a strategy for each area.
Phone: If you have a phone with apps, we can almost guarantee that you have too many. Do you really need a compass on your phone? Do a monthly app sweep and put a hold on buying new apps. Before adding a new one to your phone ask yourself this question. “will this tool help me live a better life or will it be an added distraction?” Also notice if you are using your apps to engage or ju
st to check things that don’t matter in the moment. For instance, if you check email or Facebook on your phone and then respond later from your computer, why bother checking in advance. That mindless, seemingly harmless check-in adds mental clutter.
Computer: Digital clutter is the worst because it’s silent and you can easily hide it in folders. You can ignore it indefinetly until you are looking for something or until that one special day when you lose it all. If you’ve been through a big crash, you know that as soon as it happens, everyone asks you this questions, “didn’t you have it backed up?” Save less and back things up from your computer or phone on a regular basis. 
Counter and Table Tops: These beautiful surfaces never stay empty for long. Keys, mail, and everything in your hands when you walk through the door ends up in a cluttered pile.The intitial pile isn’t the biggest pile. The issue is the law of attraction. Clutter attracts clutter. Once the pile starts, there is no stopping it. Instead of facing a mountain of clutter at the end of the month, take two simple steps: 1. Declare a clutter-free zone. Keep one counter or table top completely clear of clutter. Use that space to motivate other clutter-free areas. 2. Put things away, right now. That small pile is a 2-4 minute project. Go there before it takes over.
Closets: Your clothes and other clutter may be behind closed doors, but you see it when you get dressed. Take action and pack a suitcase as if you were going on a seven-day trip. The destination: YOUR LIFE. Set aside enough clothing to get through exactly seven days of your life. With your seven days of clothing set aside, box up everything else and hide the boxes in another room. Challenge yourself to see how long you can dress with your seven days worth of clothing. Thirty days will be long enough to prove that you can successfully dress with less. Silly? A waste of time? So is a closet full of clothes you don’t/can’t wear.
Hidden Storage: Garages, attics and paid storage units are a perfect place for ultimate clutter denial. Stop paying to store your stuff. Clearing the clutter that you don’t see every day will be nothing less than liberating! All of that stuff that you have hidden away weighs you down and holds you back even though you can’t see it. Let it go, and make room for the good stuff.
Clutter invades your space, steals your time and money and clouds your mind. Move beyond clutter and let your life unfold without the distraction of knick knacks, odds and ends, bits and pieces and stuff that has little meaning and no purpose.Copyright © 2014 Organizing Lives ® All rights are reserved and no part of this article may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means unless expressly stated otherwise, or except with the written permission Organizing Lives®. Enquires should be directed to: info@orgliv.mybusinesshub.ca