Clutter Clearing Myth-Buster

MYTH

YOU CAN CLEAR YOUR CLUTTER QUICKY

IF YOU JUST HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO GO THROUGH IT

AND DECIDE WHAT TO KEEP

AND WHAT TO GET RID OF

If that were true, then you wouldn’t be reading this now. You’d have set aside ‘enough’ time and you’d have gone through your clutter deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, you’d be completely clutter free and you’d already be living your best life.

Of course if we really stop and think about this myth it doesn’t make sense. In fact it just raises more questions.

  • What do you define as ‘quickly’?
  • How much time is ‘enough’ time to go through it? 
  • Are you talking hours, days, weeks, months?

I get lots of calls from people telling me they need my help to clear their clutter. When I explain that I don’t help people have blitz’s, I won’t be coming to their home to help them and it’s going to take a minimum of 2 years to clear all their clutter if they have 3 or more rooms and areas in their home that have had visible clutter for 3 or more years, one of two things happens.

If they’ve been around me and Clutter Clearing for more than a couple of months, they’ve joined a Clutter Clearing Class or two, got one of the workshops or joined a term of Social Gatherings, they tell me they know and they’re ready to face their fears and commit to the Journey.

The other thing that happens is that there’s a pause followed by a ‘but I can’t wait that long, I need to do it much quicker than that, all I need is help to make time, someone to help me make decisions and how to organise and store it.’

It’s this second type of person who I know hasn’t reached their true turning point of accepting that you can’t clear their clutter quickly even if they have enough time to go through it deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. They still believe this myth.

Here are 3 reasons why this myth is a myth.

1.

Time

If you genuinely think you just need a big block of time to clear your clutter and you haven’t made that big block of time in the last 3 or more years, then it’s time to accept you’re never going to have, or make, a big block of time to clear your clutter. 

No one does make a big block of time because no one can. Think about it. Other than if you have / had a full or part-time job, when have you ever had 8 straight hours a day when you’ve been able to focus on and finish one big task, uninterrupted or undistracted? And when have you ever had more than one day like that? 

Besides, how much time would be ‘enough’ time? No one knows because everyone clears their Clutter at their own pace, one that’s comfortable for THEM. Everyone’s pace is unique to them and their clutter.

That’s why you’ll never clear your clutter if you have ‘enough’ time – because the realities of life are that we don’t have big blocks of time, we don’t know how much time we need to clear it and we need to go our own pace.

2.

Your Brain

Your brain can only make decisions about your clutter for a maximum of 30 minutes at a time for a maximum of 2 hours a day for a maximum of 5 days a week. After that it gets overwhelmed, can’t process all the thoughts, feelings and emotions triggered by the things you’re trying to make a decision on, and shuts down.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself:

  • When you’ve tried to clear your clutter, how long after starting to make decisions was it before you felt overwhelmed and mentally exhausted? Maybe you reached that point before you even  started trying to make decisions.
  • How long is it before you get lost in the memory, feelings or emotions of something you find?
  • How long is it before you give up because it’s too hard to make a decision?
  • If you did successfully set aside a whole day, a whole weekend or a whole week, did you manage to make decisions for 8 hours a day, every day?

3.

Wrong Method

You’ve been trying to clear your clutter deciding whether to ‘keep’ or ‘get rid of’ things. You will never be able to clear your clutter forever if you give yourself these 2 extreme choices about what to do with the things in your clutter. 

You need to make your brain feel safe, comfortable and confident that it can make the RIGHT decision, one that it won’t regret in the future. 

We’ve all had that experience where we decide to ‘get rid’ of something and then changed our minds a day, week or month later because we regretted our decision, which we then use to justify keeping more clutter next time so we don’t make the same mistake again.

Your brain is only comfortable doing 30 minutes of decision making at a time when it has 7 action focused choices about what to do with each and every one of the things in your clutter. One of those 7 action focused choices must be Not Sure.

Yes, you may have decided that you weren’t sure what to do with things in your clutter in the past, but it wasn’t an action focused choice. I bet you just moved anything you weren’t sure about to another pile of clutter to deal with ‘later’ – which is otherwise known as ‘churning’ because ‘later’ never comes.

Accept and respect the fact that you won’t be able to clear your clutter quickly if you just have enough time to go through it and decide what to keep and what to get rid of, and start being kind to your brain.

Find out more about the Clutter Clearing 7 Step Journey here: https://www.clutterclearing.net/7-step-journey/

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