Common Characteristics of a Clutter Clearer

INFO-JUNKIE

The majority of Clutterholics are info-junkies. We love to learn, have facts, have information available when we want and need it.

Sadly, in the modern technological world, our info-junkie addiction is made worse by the ease of access to information – the internet. No need to plan a trip to the library, sign up for a course that starts next month, ask other people or debate the subject.

It’s all there at the click of a button – fact, fiction, ‘fake news’ – it really doesn’t matter to an info-junkie. We want it all. Who knows what information is on the end of that click. The internet and the information on it are like a never-ending library of unlimited procrastination for a clutterholic.

Add being an info-junkie to being an ‘in-time’ person and perfectionist who struggles with temporal discounting, and you’ve got the perfect storm for sabotaging your success by convincing yourself you don’t have time to deal with your clutter.

5 Negative Consequences of being an Info-Junkie

1. Lack of Focus, Progress and Success

You can end up spending a huge amount of time gathering information to make just one decision, leading to few decisions actually being made, a lack of visible progress, and a higher risk of impatience, giving up and not succeeding.

2. It Changes your Brain

All that knowledge and information overwhelms your brain which means it affects your ability to make sense of things and trust the information you’re binging on. This lack of trust can spill over into your personal life and negatively affect your relationships.

3. Stress / Anxiety

Multiple pieces of conflicting information that make you feel overwhelmed leads to stress and anxiety because you don’t know what’s fact and what’s fiction. This in turn can cause you to become more irritable and can negatively affect your relationships.

4. Adrenaline

If learning or finding new information is a thrill for you, it may cause you to become addicted to the high that it gives you because of the epinephrine hormone release it triggers, commonly known as an adrenaline rush.

5. Sleep / Insomnia

If your brain is still in adrenaline mode before you go to sleep because of all the information you’ve given your brain during the day, you’ll have trouble getting off to sleep. If your brain doesn’t have enough time while you sleep to process all the information, thoughts, feelings and emotions it’s had in one day, you won’t get the deep sleep you need for your body to maintain a healthy immune system, clean the brain of toxins, reduce anxiety and repair cells.  So could see your general health deteriorate as well.

10 SIGNS YOU’RE AN INFO-JUNKIE

  1. You pick up leaflets to take home / download information because you think you might read it / it might come in useful
  2. You spend a total of more than one hour a day on social media – and it’s often one of the first things you do in the morning when you wake up
  3. You try to make the ‘perfect’ decision by researching all possible options and outcomes – and consequently procrastinate at making any decision. Also known as ‘paralysis by analysis’
  4. You’re overwhelmed by your to-do list. You spend more time reading to process the information than taking specific action to get you closer to your personal goals. The list rarely gets smaller
  5. You make copious amounts of notes about any course you do, you rarely refer back to them more than once, and you keep most of the notes and information indefinitely ‘just in case’
  6. You have a fear of missing out on something important if you let go of notes, magazines, books etc in your clutter. It’s also why you watch or read more than just the headlines of the news
  7. You spend more time reading, watching TV, videos, listening to podcasts etc. than you spend working on and ‘Doing the Doing’ towards achieving your personal life goals
  8. You are a course junkie. You’ll take courses online, in person, on any topic that you’re curious about, regardless of whether or not it’s related to your current priority life goals
  9. You like to learn so want to know and research as much as you can about a particular topic
  10. You rarely trust and accept advice without researching and double checking the information first

If you need to start putting you and your Clutter Clearing head of other people, find out how Clare can help you do that in her free help centre: https://www.clutterclearing.net/clares-help-centre/

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