Posted by admin | Posted in Model Railway | Posted on 01-12-2009
Tags: clutter, gtd, organization, organizing, productivity
Looking For Clutter Piles ? Then This is Where You Want to Be
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 DERELICT SHANTYwith some serious abandoned Junk Clutter Piles HO FINISHED $24.85 Time Remaining: 6d 14h 17m |
Clutter, Declutter - Living With a Hoarder?
The sheer disarray insults my eye, my intelligence and my being. I feel buried under piles of paper, tools, computer parts, building materials and discarded furniture. It overwhelms me - I feel paralysed by the clutter at times.
Is that how you feel? Do you live with a hoarder?
You may have lived day to day for a lifetime and not given it a second thought. Keeping your head down and focused on your own interests it is possible to operate in a less than optimum environment. That's how we manage to put up with clutter in our lives.
To the hoarder they are our lifetime memories, our treasured possessions - our nostalgia. Past experiences instil the behaviour to hang on to those memories - it is not enough to carry them within yourself. These experiences set up behaviours in which they feel compelled to gather and collect. They are seemingly the sum total of our lives thus far.
What need is satified by owning (among so many other things) 25 electrical extension leads and 300 assorted pens and pencils in this compulsive behaviour? Chances are that the extension leads are at the bottom of a huge pile of assorted jumble in the spare room and most of the pens are so old they have dried up when you come to use them.
The preferred scenario, to my way of thinking is a spare extension lead in the 'emergency spares' cupboard/closet and a few writing implements in the office drawer or desk.
The fact is somewhere inside each of us I suspect there is a hoarder - and yet somehow we claim that our own obsessions are different.
Reading around the subject of clutter, psychologists sort and classify these behaviours in to personality types. These personality tendencies are labelled as the Perfectionist, the Sentimentalist, the Deferrer and the Rebel. Thankfully suggestions are offered as to how to lead each type to your desired result.
My question would be: What to do when 'they' appear as all four rolled into one?
Hoarding, it seems may be attributed to a lack of something in childhood or emotional support in adolescence. Leastways it connects with a need to build up a reserve of resources in case of times of lack.
When we come up against conflict in our thinking we can try to understand the other person’s viewpoint. However, had it been framed as storing the harvest for the winter, would that not be prudent?
When you get down to analysing and searching for an answer to 'their' hoarding tendencies, you might end up turning the spotlight on yourself too.
What do you struggle to part with?
What do you easily throw away?
What decision making process do you employ?
What might your ability to 'throw things away easily,' say about you?
Do you need more order, space, clarity and energy in your environment …or your life? Then you need to adopt the right mental attitude to get the job done and take action.
I am well on my way to decluttering my space, my life and my thinking. It is part of maintaining my goal of being happy. Why not join me?
Do it. Declutter and BE HAPPY.
About the Author
Pauline Oliver is a retired specialist teacher and SENCO. She trained in Educational Kinesiology and NLP LIfe Coaching alongside her teaching career and used it extensively in her work. She is now committed to being happy. By sharing her experiences, tools and reources she hopes to encourage others to achieve their goal of being happy.
Pauline can be contacted at www.happinesspages.com