Common Clutter Clearing Journey Challenges – Poor Health
POOR HEALTH
We’ve all done it. We’ve all tried to convince ourselves that we can achieve more than we ever have before, that ‘this time it’s going to be different’, ‘this time I’ll keep going until it’s all done’.
Whenever and whatever health challenges you – or someone else you care for – face while you are on your Journey, it’s important to know how to manage your health and your Journey during these periods so that it doesn’t sabotage both what you’ve DONE and what you still need to do.
It’s natural that you will want to do nothing while you’re ill so that you can focus on getting better. Some people talk about ‘pausing’ their Journey. However, your Journey isn’t just about clearing the backlog of clutter. It’s about creating new automatic habits so that you can stay clutter free Forever once you’ve cleared the backlog. To create a new automatic habit (and break old automatic habits) you have repeat an action between 66 and 254 times, with no more than 72 hours in-between each repeat. You won’t do that if you only work on your Journey once or twice a week. Also won’t break or create automatic habits if you only work on your Journey at weekends, or you do three consecutive days a week, because you’re leaving more than 72 hours before you repeat the action.
Clearly, if you’re poorly, this could sabotage our success. So, if you experience a period of poor health while you’re on your Journey, here are some guidelines on how to manage your health without sabotaging your Journey.
People who have taken this advice say that spending just a little time on their Journey while they are ill has actually been a welcome distraction. Of course, how you manage your Journey alongside any periods of ill health will depend on how long you expect the ill health to last, and whether it’s your health or that of someone you care for.
Acute / Short term illness:
- Defined as symptoms lasting less than 2 weeks
E.g. cold, flu, infection, injury, mental health episode
- Treat it like the Clutter Clearing holiday / vacation time. You know you can get back into routine after a couple of weeks. It’s not so long that your habit breaking and building is sabotaged.
Chronic / Long term illness:
- Defined as symptoms lasting more than 2 weeks
E.g. cancer (diagnosis, treatment, recovery), diabetes, arthritis, asthma
It’s time to plan and adapt to make sure you don’t sabotage your Journey and your habit formation.
YOUR Health
Acute / Short term illness:
Treat the time as if it’s your holiday / vacation time i.e. simply time off from your Journey. If your illness continues beyond 2 weeks, then treat it as a chronic / long term illness.
Chronic / Long term illness:
Whether you are at home or in hospital, you will need to do 6 things:
- Treat the first week as holiday / vacation time off from your Journey while you – or someone who is looking after you – do the following five things.
In the second week:
- You – or someone who is looking after you – find out what type of help and support is available in terms of healthcare professionals, partners, friends and family. Find out what days people are likely to be available, what they can help with, and for how long so you can make appropriate time for it on your weekly planner. Decide when you want visitors so that you can let them know what your ‘visiting hours’ will be. That will ensure you can manage other people’s expectations and your boundaries whilst also getting the social contact you want, the rest you need (which is a priority), and have time to make sure you keep building your routines and habits with your Journey.
- Read your Best Life card every day.
- Do your weekly planner at the start of the week, knowing that may need to be moved around due to appointments. Make sure you build in 1 hour a day every day for your Journey which is (presumably) a priority to you. That gives you time to work on your Journey on your good days and ensure you can be a minimum of a Successful Snail.
- Ask a friend or family member to be your ‘Clutter Buddy’ and come to your home once or twice a week to help you do a Paperwork and/or Backlog Clutter Clearing Session.
- In your Journey time, depending on which step you are on, you can then do:
- Daily e-mail check-in
- Backlog e-mail Clutter Clearing Session
- Computer Clutter Clearing Session
- To-do list Clutter Clearing Session
If you are at home, your Clutter Buddy can fill a box/bin with clutter for you, so that you can do a weekly:
- Paperwork Clutter Clearing Session
and/or
- Backlog Clutter Clearing Session.
You can make the decisions about which category your Clutter Buddy puts each and every item in. They then physically put the items in the appropriate category and physically action the categories for you. You can deal with any ‘To Read’ items from your e-mail, computer or paperwork Clutter Clearing Sessions In-between the supported sessions.
The Health of Someone You are the Career For
Acute / Short term illness:
Treat the time as if it’s your holiday / vacation time i.e. simply time off from your Journey. If their illness continues beyond 2 weeks, then treat it as a chronic / long term illness.
Chronic / Long term illness:
- Treat the first week as holiday / vacation time off from your Journey while you put other things in place.
In the second week:
- Find out what help and support is available from friends, family or outside agencies and build it into your weekly planner so that you can protect one hour a day, five days a week to continue working on your Journey.
- Do – and follow – your weekly planner.
You can clear your clutter fast, or you can clear your clutter forever, but you can’t clear your clutter forever, fast.
To find out how Clare can help you clear your clutter Forever, without the need for an expensive home visit, click here now: https://www.clutterclearing.net/clares-help-centre/
