DrDeClutterBlog.com

How do you get more “time” in your day? I hear it all the time, don’t you? “I just don’t have enough time! I just wish I had some time for myself!!”

Rewriting your “to do” list is supposed to make it shorter, right? So, what happened?!

There never seems to be enough time. Life clutter is everywhere! Calendars, emails, deadlines, requests, work, home, kids, family, pets, chores, travel and other nagging “DO THIS NOW!” sticky notes makes for a life filled with stress, overwhelm, aggravated emotions, guilt and lost energy. Creating even one more hour a day is a skill not lost on anyone who can’t take it any longer.

8 TIPS TO TAKE BACK YOUR LIFE, TIME AND MIND
Life’s short! Add (schedule in) an hour a day, to relax, reflect and complete projects with these starter tips.

1) Start simply, by reviewing your holy “to do” list. Take off anything that is not truly yours to do. Give back and delegate those activities that belong to someone else. (Be prepared…they will not like it!)
2) Review your daily schedule. Make changes where you can to make time for yourself to breathe and slow down. Everything doesn’t have to done yesterday.
3) Manage expectations of others – stop being “user-friendly”. On a airplane, the flight attendant will instruct you to put on your oxygen mask first, before helping your child or neighboring passenger with theirs. Why? Because if you’re dead, you can’t help anyone else! Say “yes” to yourself first, which may sound like “no” to others and stop being, or feeling taken advantage of. You might just be the best person to head up “another” committee, and you can say, “No. But, thank you.”
4) Support yourself: Make sure to put your most important items and personal time on your schedule first, if you don’t there’ll be no room for them after all of the lesser or other’s schedules take up your time and space.
5) Say “yes” to simplicity! The more you have the more you have… to maintain, protect, take care of, look after, store, clean… etc. Declutter, simplify or hire someone to do most of it for you!
6) Delegate. When you can, delegate it, even if it means hiring someone.
7) Stop “shoulding” on yourself! As in, “I should…. “ Make plans, do it or not, but no guilt – big time, energy and spirit waster!
Breathe. Just stop and breathe. Running all day and feeling anxious causes multiple physical energy and mental capacity problems. For even ten seconds at a time, once an hour, sit down and just b-r-e-a-t-h-e. D-e-e-p-l-y. It will make a difference.

Work, children, school, sports, band, back to school… . If your most hectic time of the day is before 8:30 a.m., then these tips may be the S.O.S. you’ve been looking for!

The hurried feelings and urgency that can rule these early morning hours can ripple over into the rest of your day like dominos. No wonder, according to a University of Maryland study, 85 percent of us feel rushed some or all of the time.

Here are 6 TIPS to Stop Morning Time Crunch Crisis

1) Prepare the night before.
This is a must if you’re going to get on top of the day. Getting ready what you’ll need for the next day the night before will really help lessen the confusion and short tempers that can take a toll on your health and relationships each morning. At last a half-hour before you go to bed at night prepare for the next day: Get your clothes; food for breakfast and lunch, even dinner when possible; everything you need for work or school; items for planned errands, drop-offs and pick-ups; children’s school notes signed; their meals ready; clothes, sports equipment, etc. Preparing the night before will make the morning so much easier on everyone.

2) Be selfish! Take care of yourself first.
Taking care of everyone else before yourself (especially a women’s/mother’s issue) will not get you “points in heaven!” It will however wear you out. Preparing the night before will take care of some of this, but waking up 15 or so minutes earlier and getting yourself ready, ideally while the kids are asleep, will give you that breathing room needed “when” things don’t run smoothly.

3) Organize Your Basics.
My basic organizing information includes the fact that “everything must have a ‘home’.” You will waste much less time searching for the little things when you take care of the basics daily, giving everything a home – a specific, consistent place to “live.” Know where your house and car keys “live.” Have an extra $20 in your wallet in even smaller bills at all times especially if you have children, they may need some of it for a school function. If you wear nylons make sure you always have more than one good pair “just in case.” Make sure any medication is up to date and bottles are never too close to empty before refills. Ask the children daily if they have parent/teacher notes to read or sign or anything that needs to be prepared for the next day. Small measures to take care of the basics will bring so much peace to your mornings immediately. No more, “Where is it?” and “I don’t know!”

4) Keep it simple!
From children’s clothing to breakfast and lunch choices, choose the easiest options, especially during really busy weeks. Buy clothes that are so easy “a child could do it!” Example: Velcro sneakers for them; front buttons and zippers for you. Minimal preparation is the key for breakfast foods, as well as foods the children can get themselves: Like cold cereal, energy bars, and yogurt – healthy and easy. Teach your family to put dishes in the sink or right into the dishwasher as early as possible. Even very small children can do this to help out. Decide how important it is to fix the beds “perfectly” or have all the dishes cleaned before you leave – things like this don’t matter in the big picture and will only create more stress where it’s not necessary.

5) Just say “no” to TV in the morning.
You might consider TV a useful tool to keep kids in one place, but studies show that it’s actually a huge distraction. Leaving the TV off lets everyone focus on the business at hand, communicate without shouting over the TV and finish sooner.

6) Calendar Central.
Don’t let yourself become the “all knowing” person in the house of the appointments and schedules (it’s a set up for victimhood and martyrdom!). Buy a large calendar. Hang it on the refrigerator or wall where everyone, no matter how short or tall, can see it easily. Write in all kids’ appointments, practices, and activities. When you’re doing your night before prepping (see #1 above!), check the calendar. Gather all necessary items – school projects, soccer ball, treats for band, extra socks, violin cases – and put them by the door. You’re ready! When you leave in the morning, just grab everything and go.

Kids get as or more stressed than parents when they feel unorganized, unprepared, out of control and helpless to change it. Being a leader and model for peaceful mornings will be a life-long proactive lesson for your children. Start off of the right foot this school year!

“There is no such thing as a good tax.”
~ Winston Churchill

Tax time, again. I hear it in every phone call this time of year more than usual… “Kim, please help me organize all this paper. I can’t handle it!” Or, more to the point, two weeks ago I received a call from Jenna, “Kim, I will shoot myself if you don’t come and help me find all my tax stuff and get it together. I just can’t deal with this!”

Paper. Taxes. Not doing your Patriotic Duty throughout the year, one-receipt-at-a-time to stay on top of it. Life. Overload. High blood pressure. Fear. Anxiety. It’s a lethal mix.

What do you do? Please take the following guides seriously to organize now and throughout your year to get your financial paperwork and taxes ready and done, on time and with so much less stress, pain and self-loathing.

Fact:
If you haven’t started pulling your taxes together “yet” and may not until about April 14th, plan on lots of stress, fear, complaining, blaming the government and others and gnashing of teeth, thoughts about “extensions,” and wondering if people really do go to jail for not paying their taxes and by the way, “Doesn’t the government have more important things to worry about than my petty couple hundred dollars?”

Solution #1:
Stop waiting. Stop stalling. Stop procrastinating… NOW. Start doing them today… little by little. Sit on the floor or at a clean table and start dividing, sorting, culling through your receipts, putting them in their separate categories, such as vehicle, utilities, health insurance, etc. Put these in envelopes labeled for each category. When you sit down again, go through each envelope and add up the totals and write them on the envelope. Call your accountant. Be done for this year.

Fact:
What you put off creates more stress and becomes a health hazard.

Solution #2:
The magic of maintenance — I say it all the time, especially when I hear people complain about having to deal with and take care of their “stuff” – “90% of life is maintenance.” Whatever you have, buy, create, keep, use or store… must be maintained, even your thoughts and beliefs! You choose how much you want to maintain. If you don’t want a lot of tax papers to think about and take care of here are a few options: 1) hire someone to take care of them (which means having the money to pay them and trust that they’ll really take care of it); 2) use and buy less creating less paper/receipts; 3) move to a country that doesn’t have taxes; 4) see Solution #3.

Fact: Computer tax programs, they’re a good thing.

Solution #3:
Get ready for your 2005 taxes by getting ready now. Gather, organize and account for papers, receipts, etc. well in advance of the April 15 filing deadline. Keeping up with your paperwork and bookkeeping on a daily, weekly and monthly schedule gives you plenty of time for Tax Time to request copies of any missing documents as well.

Use Quicken, QuickBooks or some computer finance, banking and tax preparation program REGULARLY (weekly, monthly) to keep up with your receipts, expenses and income, investments and interest so that at the end of the year, like magic, you can click on REPORTS and PRINT and vwalla!! It’s all done. Incredible! Yea technology!

“This [preparing my tax return] is too difficult for a mathematician.
It takes a philosopher.”
~ Albert Einstein

Fact:
Some people need to have chaos, drama and negative experiences in their lives to feel alive.

Solution #4:
I know several people that I simply stay away from this time of year. They wait until the last few weeks before tax deadline and then become maniacs. This kind of behavior and self-imposed habit is not good for the person or their family, friends or co-workers.

Waiting until March or April every year to do your taxes creates fear, stress, anger and adrenaline spikes that are seriously not healthy for your body. Stop it. Drama and adrenaline may make you feel “alive,” but they are only helping you get “adead!” You should have and want to have much more important activities that bring joy, happiness, excitement and positive adrenaline rushes to exchange for doing mundane paperwork on a regular basis.

Do what you love, take care of the “life on planet earth daily stuff” and have a happy life — you deserve it! Those around you will love you for it too!

However you grew up, however you were programmed and patterned as a child — in your “formative” years (by the age of 7) – has literally “formed” your life, your years to date of beliefs, thoughts and life perceptions that you believe are “normal!”

They are “normal” to you, but not to everyone else.

If you are not happy and at peace in your life it is a sign that you are yearning to consciously create “new normals.”

CREATING NEW NORMALS: HOW TO START
Take out a piece of paper and start writing a list of what you DON’T WANT in your life experience.

Then, write a list of what you DO WANT.

It’s important to know what you DON’T WANT in order to move them aside to bring in your new, fresh and joyfilled WANTS and DESIRES.

As you write down your WANTS, you might notice all kinds of what I call “red monkeys and hitchhikers” showing up in your head telling you that you can’t have them. That’s “normal.” Keep writing anyway and identifying where these limiting ideas and learned beliefs from others came from and how they are not true for you today. Know that it’s alright for you to move past them, to move towards what you WANT and allow in what you WANT that will expand your life in much more positive ways.

PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE.
To make this process “stick” you must commit to doing it daily, like exercise to change your body. You are not only changing “your mind” about yourself, you are literally “changing your BRAIN/MIND” and its electric neuropathways that have kept you on the old road all these years. It will take a while to reprogram those pathways. Don’t stop!

                                              “No one can create in your experience,
                               for no one can control where you direct your thought.
                                    On the path to your happiness you will discover
                                                   all you want to be, do, or have.”
                                                                 ~ Abraham-Hicks

Suggested movies:

- What the Bleep Do We Know?

- Last Holiday, with Queen Latifah

- Joe vs. The Volcano and You’ve Got Mail, with Tom Hanks

- City Slickers, with Billy Crystal

We tend to look at piles and heaps and think that decluttering just means getting organized again, right?

But, the cold-hard-truth is that decluttering just isn’t about moving your possessions around so that they fit better; it is about coming to terms with the issues “under” your stuff.  Those emotions, grief, loss, fears, safety and security issues, etc. that make us pile and stack and “trance out” like zombies so that we don’t “just do it” one more day, month and decade.

This is true not only for physical “stuff” clutter and things, but weight and relationships and other “stuck” places. Deal with the “inner clutter” in your mind and emotions and you’ll be amazed at what falls away easily and effortlessly and what gets organized or moved out more quickly. 

WHAT DO YOU WANT? 

The big reason to get to the bottom of the pile of emotional back-logged clutter you have about whatever issues you have in your life is that the energy of the clutter that surrounds you is actually suppressing your ability to acknowledge your deepest desires - and furthermore, to act on them.  The driving force in our lives are our priorities. Priorities give us the necessary focus to make plans, decisions and get things done.

Set your priorities today. Write them down. Notice what emotions show up as you “get serious” about your life, purpose and direction. Face those emotions with honesty and whatever emotions surface to release them (declutter inner stuckness) so that you can move forward.

EFT

I can help you with this on a one-to-one basis if you are interested. I offer Focused Life Coaching using EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique, to help you release the blocks from your mind and body more quickly. Click here to find out more.

To be a conscious creator we need to be aware of our intentions, attentions and actions. The key here is starting to think, know, believe, intend and act upon what you WANT, not what you DON'T WANT.Our minds naturally go for the negative, the don't want. "I don't want to gain weight!" Instead of , "I want to stay at the weight I am." Or, better yet, "I love being the weight I am and will do what it takes to stay here!"Being proactive is paramount in setting your New Year's Goals and Intentions. Set your DO WANTS now!

I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s. 
~ Henry Moore

Get out your colored pens and pencils and make your first or your fiftieth end-of-year gratitude list!

Never done one before? Great time to start!

It’s just too easy to let another year slide by and forget all of the good that has come into our lives, and all the good that we’ve done. Making daily gratitude lists are a good place to review and find the nuggets that you want to include.

This is a great exercise in remembering all the good in life, in your life, and even better, to take this good feeling into your new next year!

Make the time to sit and reflect over 2009 and be grateful, thankful, appreciative and kindhearted to yourself and your life experiences.

The good you get out of this will also be very helpful as you decide who you want to be for the next 365 days!

Losses throughout the year of any kind, human, animal, health, wealth or of spirit can take an extra toll during the holiday weeks. Here are a few steps to take care of yourself during this time.

1. Make time to grieve.

Set aside time to really feel your feelings, cry your tears and let it all go where it needs to. Your body needs to mourn your loss or change all the way through.

2. Get support from others.

It’s not always easy to ask for help. Being “strong” isn’t smart. Being “human” is. Whether you talk to family or friends or see a counselor or minister, you will find layers of grief just waiting to spring forth when you talk to someone else and tell your story once more.

3. Develop skills that help you remember you are a worthwhile person.

You can let grief control you and fall into a deep depression or illness, chipping away at your self worth; you can ignore and deny it and stay busy, keeping your “mind off of it”; or, you can gain knowledge of how to embrace your pain and grow positively from it.

4. Create a physical environment that supports rather than stresses you.

During the mourning process stress levels increase. You need to create a space where you feel safe, comfortable, quiet when you need it and nurtured, even if only by yourself.

5. Take care of yourself.

There are physical as well as emotional aspects of grief. Exercise increases your strength and stamina and reduces your stress. Healthy eating gives your body the good nourishment it needs. Find quiet time. Schedule a massage to stay connected with your body.

Bottom line, grief is hard. Make sure to take the time to face it and deal with it, otherwise it will affect you for years to come.

Yes, Virginia, there is a You-a-Claus!

It turns out money can buy happiness! What’s the catch? You have to spend it on others!

The University of British Columbia’s Elizabeth Dunn, Ph.D., led a survey of 632 American to find out just how true this is. She found, “We’re significantly happier when spending pro-socially” — on gifts or charity.

The amount of money isn’t even an issue, it’s just the giving it to and for others that makes the difference.

BONUS! Dunn says that the good feeling we get from this altruistic act can last 6 to 8 weeks! Much longer than your new sox or vacation!

So, when you’re returning Christmas gifts this week, think about the money you’re getting back in cash or gift cards. Maybe, instead of rebuying something for yourself, that you may not need anyway, put that money toward your favorite charity or cause. Remember, you’ll get 6-8 weeks of glow from it!

Oh, what does this have to do with the Law of Attraction? Like attracts life. Sooo, if you’re giving money and goodness, and feeeeeling it for weeks, you’ll attract “like!” I “like” that!

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” 
~ Charles Dickens, author of “A Christmas Carol”

Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Kim