Liberation - Spring is on it's way...

The warmer weather this weekend meant that everyone was out and about and it was lovely to see people enjoying the sunshine and experiencing some pleasure as we come out of this winter of lockdown. I know that there were areas here in London where people were acting as if the dangers of Covid-19 were in the dim distant past by being far too close to one another and gathering in groups of different households, but this is indicative of the fact that we are all desperate to go back to normal, we are tired of feeling imprisoned in our homes and with the vaccination programme well under way and the prospect of non-essential shops opening, we are in a hurry to get there. And it won’t be long before we are all enjoying the freedoms that we have been dreaming of… visiting relatives, going shopping, eating out with friends, booking and actually going on holiday.

My mind has been focusing on the promise of this Spring and how much more intensely I am looking forward to it. During this period, we have all become much more aware of the joys of nature and how much satisfaction and rejuvenation it can bring. The beautiful sunsets that we have been having are featured in so many peoples’ Instagram posts, we really have been rejuvenating our relationship with nature. For that reason, this Spring will bring more intense pleasure than ever before. The daffodils that are sitting on my sideboard have exploded into bloom and I am looking at them often, enjoying the intensity of their colour and the way it brightens the room, more so than any other year that I can remember.

I have begun to sense my annual Spring clean coming on. I used to spend time with people in their homes de-cluttering their lives, outwardly, but also inwardly, and this is the time of year when people feel the need to do this most. And Spring supports us in doing so because life begins to feel so much easier. We are happy with the sunshine, the freshness of the morning, the absence of the frosty chill in the air, the inkling of Summer. I really want to be ready to get out there and enjoy life with renewed vigour and energy and for this I need to feel not only that I have nothing big on my to do list but also that my mind is clear and focused only on having fun. There is another layer to this for me this year, as for all of us, the fact that we are slowly moving back towards the life that we consider normal and I want to be ready for that too. I don’t want to be at home sorting through my clothes to find what I want to wear amongst the clothes I no longer want, I want to know exactly what I have and for it to be at my fingertips!

But really, why should we de-clutter?

Here are some advantages to de-cluttering our environment, whether it’s at home or at work:

1. De-stressing

Living with clutter actually causes stress and so, even if we are not aware of it, living with a full and disorganised cupboard, whether it’s in the kitchen, the bathroom or the bedroom, causes us anxiety. Research was done at Princeton University which found that living or working in a cluttered environment impairs our ability to process information and to focus. It can lead to overwhelm and even anxiety. Who knew?

2. Enabling action

When we are confronted by mess, anywhere, we can’t get ourselves together, we can’t actually DO anything and so we don’t do anything.. all our plans for that new project or piece of work come to nought again and again, because we can’t get going, we can’t do anything. Once that clutter is gone, we can take action and get results.

3. Using time more effectively

By not dealing with our clutter, we waste energy on trying to organise our planning and actually getting things done. If we had de-cluttered our homes, then we would have the time to do what we want, but we would find it a lot easier to deal with the space in which we work – apparently, de-cluttering cuts our time spent cleaning by almost half! What’s not to like about that – less time cleaning, more time doing whatever we want! Plus – we all become more efficient as a result, we can get to the things we need to do faster and get them done without any extra effort, and we then feel happier too!

Some people have actually improved their ability to make decisions too – do I want this? What do I do with this? Where do I keep this? By doing this we gain more and more clarity about decision-making and we improve our decision-making skills.

So how do we de-cluttering? We get rid of stuff we no longer need and we reorder the things that we want to keep. It sounds simple doesn’t it! Like everyone, I have a lot of stuff but there are a lot of levels of stuff - stuff that is visible and that I use, stuff that is ordered in my wardrobe that I use, stuff that is in my wardrobe that I don’t use, stuff that is drawers that I use, and then loads of stuff that is in cupboards and drawers that I occasionally use and other stuff that I never use, some of which I want to keep and other stuff, which could easily go. Of course, lots more of it than I think could actually go, because I probably need about a third of what I have got. So I need to get rid of as much stuff as I can and clear my space.

This sounds like a really easy thing to do but somehow we find it difficult. I open a drawer, see a few things that I would like to keep, a couple I could throw and then some that I would have to decide about and so I shut the drawer, because I can’t stand the idea of having to make that decision. It’s easier to hide it away again and forget about it. This is why it’s important to do only fifteen minutes of decluttering at a time. That’s right, just fifteen minutes. That way, you can tackle it more easily. Of course, if you have a larger space from which you need to pull everything out, then the task will take quite a few fifteen-minute slots, but with regular breaks, you can do it! Normally I start with fifteen minutes and then I decide, at the end of that fifteen minutes, to do another fifteen minutes, and so on. I am conscious of my decision to continue. I set my stopwatch so that my alarm goes off after fifteen minutes and then reset it again and again…

Over time, without pressurising ourselves, we can get the job done.. and the above reasons for doing so can spur us on when we loose momentum. Keep going, the payoff is enormous and the feeling of achievement is second to none. I can feel some de-cluttering coming on as I write!

Next week will write about how to de-clutter internally.. which is just as important, if not more, than our homes and work spaces.

Remember, you are not alone!

hillybarker@gmail.com