Focused Business Action

My coaching clients often request help with decluttering. Most of the time they are embarrassed to admit just how much stuff they have and despair that it will ever go away. Well. I say, “Phooey. It can be managed.” Here is what I have found to be the key for clients who have successfully decluttered.

Free your Mind…

The key lies in how you are BEing with the process of decluttering. In other words, how you think about it, and there are two parts to this.

1. Stop thinking and “Just do it”

Have a belief that getting rid of clutter is simple. You heard me right. You just do it. Notice I didn’t say easy. Decluttering is simple, but not easy. After all, how hard is it to file a piece of paper away? Well, I have found that it can be hard if you have an attachment to that piece of paper or you have no idea where to put it.

We have so many thoughts paperclipped to that dreaded paper. You might be thinking that if you file that paper, it will disappear never to be seen again. Or, that you will never get to doing whatever that paper is reminding you to do. Or, that it is so simple to do the task at hand that it isn’t worth putting the paper away. Whatever the reasoning, your thinking is the culprit here. It is getting in the way of the simple act of doing something with that piece of paper.

2. Create a plan for filing and purging.

Even though you may not think so, you really do know how to get rid of the clutter. As someone with ADD, you are very creative. Using that creative mind, you can devise a plan for that paper and for everything else underneath it. And, if you don’t believe that, the answer lies just one book away. However, I would like to recommend two books:

Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern
The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life

ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg & Kathleen Nadeau
Strategies that work from a professional organizer and a renowned ADD clinician

…And the Rest will Follow.

After unlocking the thinking that is in the way of decluttering, the next steps open the door to the DOing of clearing space.

• Just start – As I talked about earlier sometimes our thinking gets in the way. Pick a day and a time and begin.
• Clutter-free zone – start with an area from which the “clutter-free” will grow. Perhaps, a dining room table or a computer desk. This is the one area that no matter what, that surface stays clear. Period.
• Consistency – devoting a regular time will get the job done. Even spending the same 15 minutes each week will get you somewhere.
• Celebrate your successes along the way – determine when you have completed 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the job and celebrate your progress along the way.

What helps you to declutter? Will you share it with us in the comment section?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 by Scott Lewis and is filed under Attention Deficit Disorder, Resources. You can follow the comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site.