Truth Bomb Tuesday: decluttering your life is all about vision:
So some girlfriends of mine are doing a challenge – The Declutter Challenge.
Basically you declutter (get rid of) stuff. You get rid of one thing on day one, then two things on day two, three things on day three etc. The idea is that you try and last the month, giving away 30 things on day 30 and 31 things on day 31.
If you get through the full month, you will have cleared 496 things from your home.
Love it.
You might be thinking, I don’t have 500 things to get rid of. But ask anyone who’s moved house recently. They’ll tell you that you can hit 500 things without breaking a sweat.
No, the real challenge is not in finding the things to get rid of. It’s about finding the time to do it, and the discipline needed to cut stuff loose that isn’t really serving you.
Now, I’ve done culls like this in the past. I totally recommended it. You feel so much lighter afterwards.
But there’s a really interesting challenge here. And that’s when you hit that question, “Do I really want this thing or not?”
How do you know?
For example, I know a woman whose house is full of lovely antiques. Each piece is adorable. But put them all together and they just make an incoherent clutter. The sun room doesn’t need a Victorian era glass display cabinet. The lounge room doesn’t need a 50s art deco couch and a pure leather chesterfield.
Because this woman didn’t have a consistent vision of what she wanted her house to be, she just took each item she found in the op shop or the antique shop on its own merits.
“Do I need a set of porcelain dogs? I don’t know. But maybe, so I’ll buy it.”
To declutter and to know if you need something or not, you need to have a very clear idea of what you want your living space to be.
To declutter, you need vision.
It’s the same story with life.
Unless you have a very clear idea of what you want your life to be, you can end up saying yes to all sorts of stuff that is nice enough in and of itself, but doesn’t really help you build towards your ideal life.
It’s the promotion that takes you to a new town and away from all your friends and family. It’s the coffee-date you have with the person who calls you up most, not the person you most enjoy hanging out with. It’s the investment property that is a pretty decent little investment, but is not the killer-deal you’ve been hanging out for.
If you don’t have a clear vision of what you want your life to be, it can become full of clutter.
Nice, pleasant clutter, but clutter all the same.
So my advice is that if you’re going to do an audit of your house and everything in it, why not do an audit of your time and all the ways you spend it?
Ask yourself, am I really making the best use of my time?
You might be surprised at how much clutter you find.
DB.