7 Things you Need To Do to Achieve Your Clutter Clearing Goals
1. Check it’s a Goal and not a Wish
If you’re not ready to protect some of your 168 hours a week, every week, to working towards achieving your goal, then it’s just a wish. Use your Wheel of Life in this Chronicle to help you decide if it’s a goal or a wish.
‘In life, you don’t get what you wish for,
you get what you make time to work for’.
Unknown
2. Make sure your Goal is SMARTER
o Specific – who, what, where, how, see, hear, feel, smell. NOT VAGUE
o Measurable – numbers
o Achievable – within YOUR control not dependent on others
o Realistic – feedback and learning
o Time Bound – deadlines and dates
o Ethical – it fits with your morals, it helps you achieve your LIFE Goals, it’s a priority
o Rewarding – if you don’t believe your goal will feel rewarding when you get there, you’ll give up fast.
‘Setting goals is the first step
in turning the invisible into the visible’.
Tony Robbins
3. Plan your time for ACTION every week
Use your weekly planner to make time EVERY WEEK to work towards your goal. Your brain likes routine, even if you don’t. It saves your brain time, energy and effort when it knows what to expect, and helps reduce any feelings of overwhelm or anxiety about what you’re going to be doing. Remember when you were at school and you knew what classes you had each day of each week which meant you could save time preparing for them.
‘The key is not to prioritize what is on your schedule,
but to schedule your priorities’.
Stephen Covey
4. Accountability
If you struggle to get into a routine of ‘Doing the Doing’, build in accountability to your routine to make sure you make regular, consistent progress towards your goal.
‘You are accountable for your actions, your decisions, your life;
no one else is’.
Catherine Pulsifer
5. Protect Your Time Boundaries
If you don’t protect your Clutter Clearing time, you’ll never get into a routine, that routine will never become a habit, and you will never clear your clutter Forever. Learn to say ‘Not Right Now’.
‘Boundaries are the distance
at which I can love you AND me simultaneously’.
Prentis Hemphil
6. Track your Progress
You know you’re Journey to your Clutter Free Goal isn’t going to be quick or easy. You’ll be focused on the goal which may seem far away, but you need to track your progress so you can celebrate how far you’ve already come. Whether it’s a sticker on your calendar for every day you ‘Do some Doing’ of your Journey, or an entry in your success graitude Journal, writing it down will help you track.
You cannot change what you don’t manage;
you cannot manage what you don’t track’.
Peter Drucker
7. Rewards
Recognise your progress towards your realistic goal by rewarding yourself. When that pile of paperwork clutter disappears and you have the evidence that it’s because you’ve let go of most of it and shredded it, reward yourself with a non-accumulation reward. You deserve it!
‘The more difficult the Journey,
the sweeter the reward’.
Erin Andrews
