Simplify your life challenge

Google the word “clutter” and you get almost 38 million results. That tells me that a lot of people are thinking about, concerned about and overwhelmed with the clutter in their lives. I bet there is some space in your home or office that needs a little de-cluttering. Perhaps it is that universal collection point in most homes – the kitchen junk drawer – a bizarre accumulation of odds and ends, bits and pieces, things with no real home or ones that might just come in handy some day or things that we’re certain are important if we could only remember what they were for.

Perhaps you have a larger collection space – what a friend of mine calls “the back room” – a place that stores in a rather dysfunctional way similar items to the kitchen junk drawer but only of a much bigger nature. Perhaps you are someone who has piles of unsorted photos or children’s keepsakes, things that you continually promise yourself that you will organize. Except you never quite get around to it and the piles and boxes keep growing as does your apprehension at the sheer magnitude of the task.

Perhaps your clutter collects on your desk, slightly unfinished projects or completed ones that have not been put away, articles to read one day, phone messages, coffee cups. For those of you who hang out primarily in the a cyber world, your clutter may just be less visible – stacks of email messages in your inbox, hundreds of digital photos with no real organization, unfinished tasks on your smart phone.

Clutter in your life is not just about the piles of stuff. Sure we want to get rid of those, but what if this year you focused on de-cluttering in your heart and mind too? Let go of those thoughts that take up space but don’t really provide any return – the shoulds and the musts, the guilty or unforgiving ones. What if you re-organized your to do list so that the things that are most important to you took precedence over those that are more insistent but less essential? Set some boundaries that reflect who you really are and what you really want.

Perhaps then the task of de-cluttering the things – the rooms and drawers and desks and stuff – will become much easier. You might have more time and a better sense of what to keep and why, what is simply a physical barrier holding you back, what to toss out because you no longer need a thing to remind you of a feeling or memory.

Albert Einstein once said that out of clutter, find simplicity. That’s what this year is all about. Today is the first day of the Simplify your Life Challenge. It’s time for you to get rid of some of the physical, emotional or mental clutter that’s been dragging you down. Each week you’ll learn about the impact of all kinds of clutter in your life, discover some practical strategies for dealing with the stuff that holds you back and figure out what you really do and don’t need in your life.

Less clutter, more space and energy for the things you really want in your life. What could be more simple?

What’s your biggest clutter challenge?