The DE-Clutter Connection: When Life Get's Crazy ... Clutter Happens

Jae's Home Office De-Cluttering Journey ~ Part 1

Considering that one of the services I offer through my Life Coaching practice is to help people de-clutter and organize their offices and living space, what I am about to share with you is ironic, surprising, and ah ... somewhat embarrassing. But ~ most of all ~ it's annoying on a daily basis.

This is my home office.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “What is she talking about? That's looks like a nice, inviting place to sit down. Why is this embarrassing or annoying?” But, the real questions that should be asked are, “What's wrong with this picture? Where is the floor? Where is the left wall? Where is the rest of the room?" Let me broaden the perspective for you.

Note the pile of clutter on our left.

Here's a closer look at that pile of stuff.
Not much floor space left, huh?

And here's another viewpoint.
Note the additional mess on the top of
the file cabinet beneath the window.

“But my desk is fairly neat,” Jae trys to console herself, pitifully.

And that fact would be a great relief if I didn't have to turn
toward this other mess in order to exit the room.

Christmas paper in July? Really, Jae!

We won't even discuss the vacuum-in-need-of-a-belt, which sits to the left of that pile of stuff on the floor. I just couldn't bring myself to include it in the picture. But then the Organizational Coach part of me felt guilty about not telling you the complete situation.

Now, anyone who has ever worked with me in my previous professional life as an Administrator can tell you that I absolutely hate a messy workspace.

BVS, who worked with me at the NYS Legislature and later at a lobbyist group, would tell you about the times I would stand up in the midst of a crazy day and declare the next 20 minutes to be a “clean up our space” break.

SAC, with whom I also worked in a couple of different places, would certainly recall a particularly challenging time in a basement office when I needed to organize my surroundings before I could even think about writing a promo piece for a workshop.

And when my old friend LBD ~ who has her own professional cleaning service ~ faced an apartment cleanup that included a home office stacked high with decades of papers and old office equipment, I was the first person she thought to call to manage the clean-out and organization of that room.

After all, having moved 27 times in my adult life ~ four of those cross-country relocations ~ I feel at home when creating order out of chaos. Which leads me to the question that I need to ask myself. This is the same basic question I ask all of my clutter clients.

“How did your space get this way?”

This question is not asked with an accusing, wagging finger to make us feel even worse about our surroundings than we already feel. Rather, the question is meant to help us “Victims of Our Own Clutter” (aka VoOOCs) bring an awareness to how we have been living day-to-day ~ to the life challenges that we probably have been dealing with that have fostered our personal "environmental dilemma" to occur.

These challenges can come in many forms.

They can be Physical. Like an injury, a chronic or long-term illness, or the last months of a pregnancy. Maybe we're under a lot of stress, and thus having trouble sleeping, which affects our energy level and our ability to keep up with household chores.

They can be Emotional. Like a personal loss of some kind ~ the death of someone close to us, the loss of our own job, or a family members', which affects our household income. Maybe there are other unexpected changes in our way of life ~ like having to move unexpectedly, or make room in our home for a family member in crisis. Any of these situations can bring on a depression, which makes physically dealing with even simple household tasks seem totally overwhelming and exhausting.

There can also be Intellectual challenges: Like an unusually heavy workload. Maybe there's a big project at work that's forcing us to do a lot of overtime. Or too many term papers and final exams clumped together at the end of a semester. Or the duress of having to learn a new computer program that's been forced upon us due to a system upgrade.

As I typed those questions that I would ask clients, I realized that there was at least one question in each category to which I answered a resounding, “Yes!”

Hmmm.

And the next question I ask my clients is: How long have you been dealing with these life challenges? Weeks? Months? Years?

Hmmm. I think I need a nap.

But, the point to all of these questions is to help us to give ourselves a break about how the mess got here. Now, it's a matter of how we get it un-messed, so that each time we walk into our particular messy space, we won't have to cringe anymore, or avert our eyes, or simply stop going in there. (I'm typing this on my laptop as I sit on my bed in my nice, neat ~ and thus relaxing ~ bedroom).

So now it's time to make a plan of action. Averting eyes, and avoiding spaces in our homes takes a lot of energy. Might as well use that energy to start the cleanup. As with any journey, it starts with one, simple, first step.

I anticipate this de-clutter journey to my nice, neat ~ and thus relaxing ~ home office space will take at least a few weeks. I'm being realistic here. I know it is a small space, which in a perfect world should take about a weekend to straighten up. But, I have a busy schedule that's subject to change depending on my clients' unexpected schedule changes. So, I'm preparing myself for the worst-case scenario.

And, I don't want to simply clean up the visible mess. I want to make the necessary changes to accommodate how I want to use this space. This means doing a careful analysis of the office's shortcomings and making appropriate changes as I go along. While this approach may take longer, it will help me to avoid a new clutter taking root. (Clutter is kind of like a weed, huh?)

So, friends, I invite you to join me on this de-cluttering journey, to be my witness and ~ if you would like ~ my support group, through leaving some encouraging comments here at Healing Circles.

This is something I always suggest that my clutter clients do ~ to have at least one person that they can turn to for support and/or help when they start feeling like this clean-up project will never end. There's nothing like having company in our misery ~ I mean our organizing joy ~ to keep us moving along the path to our vision of our perfect space.

You may want to start making your own personal space organizing journey. All of us here at Healing Circles can support each other. We'll have our own VoOOC support group.

But, I've talked enough. Now it's time for me to actually begin. I've been thinking about this too long. It's time to do it! And, I begin ... not here ...