Most of us wish we had less clutter and more order in our lives. There are many compelling reasons to release clutter. In this series I will be looking at some of those reasons and inviting you to examine your own motives and incentives. Then there’s that resistance thing. Today I will start with the most common complaint or resistance I find in working with organizing - both in my own home/office as well as my organizing clients.
“What if I need it?” or “I’m keeping it just in case.” Sound familiar? How do you work with that one? As I’ve struggled with that resistance I’ve found that:
1. We don’t trust our own resourcefulness. Not only will we find it (on the Internet, at the library, calling content experts…) when we need it, but we will have the most current iteration!
2. If what we need is buried in or hidden by our clutter, what difference will it make if we have it when we need it? We can’t find it. It’s taking up space and wasting our time looking for it.
3. Or even better, we don’t even remember that we have it. Then, as fate would have it, shortly after an event or circumstance or problem, we stumble on something and think - “Now, I could have used that last week/month….”
I also believe that thinking “just in case” in this circumstance is confining. Sure, some things we can count on needing - insurance information, lab reports, warranties, etc. But that thinking doesn’t apply to *all* information, records, etc. It’s limiting, narrowing, somehow. As we look to the future how can we know what we’ll need, where our path will take us? Rather, let us keep a wide angled lens to the future and look for possibilities!
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