Most of us have more stuff than we need.
Our stuff fills our homes, our workplaces, and our brains. It takes time and energy to manage all this stuff.
Managing stuff can actually make us miserable. It can be exhausting to tend, store and organize a lot of stuff.
Andrew Mellen’s book “Unstuff Your Life: Kick the Clutter Habit and Completely Organize Your Life for Good” provides a remarkably simple framework for reducing the stuff that can fill up our lives and waste our time. Time that could be better spent with loved ones, in the service of others, or learning something new.
He begins with the simple corollary that “we are not our stuff.”
We are, Mellen says, a collection of values, feelings, and experiences, not objects and apparel. He suggests a few exercises to help us determine our core values and most important experiences:
- Imagine the end of your life and looking back on your most meaningful memories. What are they, what did you learn, and how would you pass along these lessons tothose you love?
- Write down 15 words that describe ideas you value like humility, wisdom, teamwork, abundance, candor, compassion, fun, humor, etc., etc…
- What do you want to be remembered for? Your stuff or your sentience?
Mellen has created a model he calls The Organizational Triangle. The application of these three simple rules practically guarantees organizing success:
Rule #1: One Home For Everything. Every item has one home and only one home. No ifs, ands or buts.
Rule #2: Like With Like. All like objects live together. And we do mean all.
Rule #3: Something In, Something Out. Once you reach stuff equilibrium, when something comes in, something goes out.
Decluttering doesn’t happen overnight, but keeping the above rules in mind ensures that nothing ends up in a random pile, stacked on surfaces, or shoved in a drawer awaiting a future decision.
And best of all. You don’t have to use valuable time and brainpower thinking about it.
Have a great week.
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