Declutter Your Life!

Have you learned how to declutter your home but you still feel overwhelmed and unproductive? That’s because we need to take things a step further and clear out the rest of our lives! Clutter goes far beyond those tangible items that we can pick up and toss into a box to give away or into a garbage can. Click here to read more about decluttering your “things”.

I feel compelled to write this NOW because this is one area I struggle with a great deal, and I don't think I'm alone.

I get sidetracked by my computer, magazines, emails, websites, newsletters, TV, etc. Sometimes I catch myself and realize I spent my entire evening catching up on email… most of which got deleted without even being read! My evening “me time” is terribly limited and I get quite angry when it’s bedtime and I got nothing accomplished after being at the computer for an hour or two or more! And it’s not just my computer… I feel like I have this huge queue that needs to be kept up with and eventually cleared. It requires keeping up with all emails in all email accounts, reading all magazines subscribed to, flipping through all catalogs received, watching all TV shows on the DVR, visiting certain websites I belong to in order to keep up to date on what’s going on, etc. And only once I catch up with everything and the que is empty may I then actually attack my projects that I really want to work on! But that queue never gets empty and the projects get pushed aside.

This is simply ridiculous!

It's time to declutter the rest of my life. My precious time is being sucked away with too many emails, magazines, tv shows, etc. I can’t even begin to imagine how productive I could be and how many great things I could have accomplished by now if I had not wasted hours and hours deleting emails or flipping through catalogs!

The hard thing is that I really LOVE my computer! As a stay-at-home-mom it is my main connection to the outside world and the adults I interact with. It is my sanity from Blues Clues and Sponge Bob! And it’s more than just a social outlet. It’s also where I research information regarding several important things to support my family such as special recipes, paying our bills, managing our budget, keeping track of health records, etc. It’s not ALL fun and games!

In fact, my husband will tease that in the evenings when we relax at the computer together, he’s reading jokes and listening to music, and I’m “working”. He wants to know why I never do fun stuff on the computer. Well, I’ve got to empty out that queue of stuff that needs to be done first!

I don’t ever sit down at the computer without a reason for being there… I don’t just “surf the net” without a specific purpose. But inevitably, some big wave or a bunch of little ones come by and sweep me away from what I was supposed to be doing! And by the time I am able to pull myself out of that undercurrent, it’s late and I need to get some sleep and my task is not completed. Grrrr…

And I’m tired of this routine and feeling overwhelmed with ALL of the media: tv, books, magazines, and the computer. Here is my attempt to declutter the rest of my life and put some perspective and order back into it regarding this overfull queue of stuff to do! Perhaps it will help you out too.

Let’s talk about each of these areas in a little more detail and see if we can free up some more time in our lives for the things that really inspire us. Let’s discuss watching less TV , only receiving catalogs we really want, only subscribing to a couple magazines of interest, decluttering and organizing emails coming into our inboxes, and having more time to read books for pleasure and time to work on inspiring projects and hobbies! Whew!