Jackie’s Success
On 16th March Jackie completed Step 2 of her Journey.
This means she has learnt all about her clutter conveyor belt, she knows where her biggest challenges are, she has learnt about habits and routines, how to deal with paperwork, e-mail and computer clutter AND she’s cleared a lot of physical paperwork, e-mail and computer clutter.
Step 2 is where we start to make decisions about our paperwork, e-mail and computer clutter so we have the experiences to use as we learn how to make decisions in Step 3 of our Journey.
As we start to physically clear our paperwork, e-mail and computer clutter In Step 2, we start to get facts and evidence of what is coming off our clutter conveyor belt i.e. what we are letting go of.
During the 11 weeks of Step 2, Jackie’s stats are:
- Reduced her e-mail inbox by 48%
- 71% of all the paperwork she categorised and sorted came OFF her conveyor belt
- She has found (so far) £626 of un-banked cheques, gift cards, dividend cheques and cash amongst her paperwork clutter going back to 2009.
- She found her marriage certificate that she couldn’t find when her husband died.
- Thanks to the weekly shopping challenge she is now saving MORE every month than the cost of her Private Journey Membership.
- She has ‘let go’ of one of her freezers (she had 3) as she now accumulates food based on NEED, not bulk buying what is on special offer and just gets stored and never used.
Her goal for the end of Step 3 is to ‘let go’ of another freezer so she only has one.
Jackie shares:
‘I’m getting into a much better routine of ‘doing the doing’ than I did on Step 1. Because I work full time I’m doing my 5 days of 2 hour Journey video sessions 3 evenings a week and 2 at the weekend.
It’s taken me this long time to find a routine that works for me, and it took me until now to be able to complete a week in a week, but when I compare the photos of how my office looks now to when I took my daily photos in Step 1 I can see how many piles of paperwork have gone – and actually GONE, not moved this time! My colleagues have noticed it too in our zoom calls.
The decision making is definitely getting easier. Some things I can’t believe I’ve found like old store vouchers that people obviously gave me as gifts for Christmas or birthdays and I never used. Even one for BHS – a store that closed in 2016!
I can laugh about it now, but if I’d had a blitz and found that it would have made me feel so bad I would have given up straight away. But because I’ve been on my Journey for a while, I think that’s why I’m not beating myself up when I find things I know I’ve wasted. I clearly don’t NEED them.
I can see why Clare says we have to do this slowly and gradually, even though I imagine I’m like everyone and impatient to get it done!
When I started my Journey I struggled to focus and do my 2 hours of Journey videos a day, I got so mentally tired so fast and I struggled to concentrate – my urge to flit was strong. But now I look forward to doing my Journey videos and ‘doing the doing’ because I can see it’s working.
I’m looking forward to learning how to make decisions in Step 3 and I’ve decided that I’m going to clear a particular corner of my room that is full of piles of paperwork by the time I finish Step 3. I think that will be at least another 20 bags of shredded paperwork or 4 more trees planted in my name for the paperwork reward challenge!
Find out more about the Clutter Clearing Journey that Jackie is on here: https://www.clutterclearing.net/7-step-journey/
