Unclutterer

1. Posted by Laetitia in Australia - 12/10/2009

   I don’t do New Year resolutions but as I’m in the throes of packing for a move I’m vowing to not let the random bits and pieces get this bad again! (Famous last words, eh?)

   I think the tricks will be to (a) not get things out of boxes unless they are going to be used pretty much straight away or (b) there is a place for it where it won’t be forgotten and (c) use more of the stuff I have tucked away or ditch it.

   In relation to (a), as a demonstrator for a direct selling company, I will have to have some stock out on display otherwise I’ll forget what I have and reorder things I don’t want.

   I keep thinking that this move would be easier if I had less stuff and if I dealt with stuff as I got it out of the box in the first place. I think I’ll try scanning a lot of the paper things so I can ditch the physical paper…hmm, might need a bigger HD.

2. Posted by Barbara Tako@ClutterClearingChoices - 12/10/2009

   Resolutions often wind up looking like and being treated like vague intentions rather than things we have actually “resolved” to accomplish. I think resolutions can be handled better if we admit that it is really personal goal setting that we are talking about.
   If resolutions (goals) are specific, measurable, and doable, we can get them done. Vague: I want to lose weight. Specific: I want to lose 15 pounds by April. Measurable: Yes, we can weigh in weekly on a scale. Doable: Lose 15 pounds, not 60 in the time frame above is achievable.
   Now, if I could only really resolve to lose some weight!

3. Posted by Alix - 12/10/2009

   There’s always email bankruptcy! How urgent can any of those messages from August/September be?

4. Posted by Erin Doland - 12/10/2009

   @Alix — My thoughts are that very few of them are valuable. However, I know that some are from family members congratulating us on our adoption and I want to save them in a folder along with the cards we received (that I scanned and saved to a folder already).

5. Posted by mbs - 12/10/2009

   At least the fitness resolutions worked great. Got my BMI down from 26 to 20 in 2008 and wanted to keep it under 21 in 2009 – where it still is today. Signed up for my first marathon run and finished it. Plus I kept my 2008 invention, the non-negotiable tuesday, where a visit to the gym is non-negotiable, no matter what, unless sick or out of town.

   What really helped me stay motivated was keeping a log of my activities plus weight in a spreadsheet. By combining the good (fitness) with the bad (weight) in one page keeping a log wasn’t that painful and now I’m really happy to have this data as a written proof that I can motivate myself any time I need to.

   When I started getting fit, a co-worker said, we talk again in three years so see who’s fit then… so my resolution for 2010 include more of the same…

6. Posted by kbfenner - 12/10/2009

   I don’t do resolutions–it’s un-Zen and I’m trying to heal my inner German Romantic (always striving!)

   but I so relate to your backlog issues. I can be the most organized person in the world until there’s a logjam–and then I loathe the situation so I avoid it, which only makes it worse….

   I was out-of-town for 5 weeks this summer, and somehow in hitting the ground running when I returned, never quite stowed away all the stuff in my bathroom. My vanity still is so cluttered (I did finally empty out the big tub.) Okay–today’s the day! Just do it!

7. Posted by Cheryl - 12/10/2009

   I’m about 50/50 on my resolutions. I vowed to get out of debt, build some savings, organize our condo (It was a clutter catastrophe because two homes became one.), become a punctual person, and lose 10 pounds.

   – I am completely debt free! Yay!
   – I have savings! It will disappear shortly because I will be paying for a wedding. I still think it counts as a win, though.
   – I lost 10 pounds. Kinda. . . .

   I’m still constantly late and our condo is somewhat organized but not where it needs to be to function efficiently. However, I’m hoping to change that because I just bought your book. I love it, by the way! I’m hoping your wisdom will be just what I need to finish my resolutions.

8. Posted by Dawn F. - 12/10/2009

   My husband, my son and I each had resolutions/goals for 2009. We just reviewed them recently and I realized that I had helped both of them achieve their goals and plans while almost completely neglecting my own. I wanted them to be able to mark off their resolutions from the Family Goals list all while I ignored mine. This has happened quite a few times over the past few years.

   I know I need to make myself a priority, too because my yearly goals, plans and projects are very important to me. 2010 will be an equal opportunity goal-achieving year!

9. Posted by Kate - 12/10/2009

   All of my resolutions are “in progress” — but for next year I plan to make them a little more specific, so that I can better measure my success.

   I am partway there on uncluttering my home more so that I can entertain more. During the latter part of this year, I have entertained a few times and even had overnight guests, but next year am hoping for at least 1x a month.

   Next year’s big resolution is to unclutter the bedroom — it has become the dumping ground for EVERYTHING in our apartment because no one except us sees it. But I really need it to be a more serene environment so I can improve my sleep issues.

10. Posted by Ronny - 12/10/2009

    I was rather successful with my goals this year. Thank to the 5x5p5 goal setting booklet.

    It is always in my wallet and I review it regularly. It keeps me focused on what really matters to me.

    Enjoy and success!
    Ronny

11. Posted by Mary T. - 12/10/2009

    My New Year’s resolution was to really get to uncluttering the “stuff” that was and was not mine (storing some items – for 3 yrs – for nephew that doesn’t even live in the same state anymore!). Got some of my stuff unclutter, unfortunately, new items made their way in before I could complete the project. I tried the 10 min a day idea and I couldn’t stop at just 10 mins and it didn’t happen everyday. Thanks to Ronny’s post on 12-10-09, I downloaded and printed out the 5×5+5 Goals booklet and plan to write down more SPECIFIC goals and to see them through. Thanks Ronny and Erin!!

12. Posted by Mikey's mom - 12/10/2009

    Sometimes life interferes with the whole zen thing. Don’t sweat the mailbox, don’t sweat toys not neatly put away, etc. Paraphrasing someone else, on your deathbed you won’t be thinking about that inbox, you will be wishing you had spent more time with your family.

    I have my five most important jobs: finances, house/car care, family, job, and me (no order there – they are all job #1). Those always come first. If a drawer isn’t exactly ordered perfectly, and the bills are not yet paid, well, the bills come first.

    As we get older, we have more commitments and responsibilities, and I think your inbox is simply reflecting that. You should be filled with joy that you have so much in your life, and let go of the silly inbox zero idea in favor of the truly important things in life.

13. Posted by tammy - 12/10/2009

    I delete like crazy. almost never keep an email. I have less than 25 right now total in all accounts.

    we keep too much electronic stuff, IMO.

14. Posted by shris - 12/10/2009

    Hi.

    I think I probably boycotted resolutions last year. I was probably feeling jaded about the whole thing given how horribly bad my hit rate was on the first 30-odd years of resolutions.

    However, the last resolution I made with myself, or even tried to make with myself was about losing weight and becoming healthier. I finally did something about that in September (continuing now) and I’m making good progress now that I’ve found some magic. I’m well on my way to achieving pre-baby weight, and once that’s done I’ve got more to do to get to a healthy range.

    Next year I may need to focus a little more on the house. We have plans to do some serious remodeling at some point, and the kids are old enough that going over to a friend’s house (and vice versa) is actually going to start happening here soon. Which means I kinda need to be ready for an influx of kid friends at any particular point.

    On the email front, I totally feel your pain. I’m not behind on reading my emails at this point, but I was behind on filing them after I was done with them. My box got up to a thousand messages last week, when I finally gave up on filing by category. I have waaaay too many categories. When I need something I end up using the find feature anyway, so I decided just to put all the ‘done’ messages into the PST and never mind figuring out which subfolder to stick them into. Too much overhead, not enough payoff. So now I’m caught up on my filing and my inbox has only a few things in it that are actually pending action on my part. It feels a lot better to see just the actionable stuff sitting there.

    Personally, my email management makes me happy now. If I ever start working on multiple projects again I might have to revamp, but right now it’s working.

    Good luck with yours.

15. Posted by chacha1 - 12/10/2009

    I don’t really do resolutions (other than resolving to stay a size 8, which I have done for many years now!), but I had a goal of learning to do a walkover this year. It’s basically my goal every year. I doubt I will get there as I still can’t kick up into a handstand without a wall at my back. I think I’ll ask DH to help me come at it the other way, though, from a back bend. I know I can physically do it: it’s a mental block.

16. Posted by Derek - 12/10/2009

    One magic trick I discovered for clearing an email backlog: train yourself to take one off the todo list and handle it whenever your posterior lands on your chair (starting work in the morning, coming back from making a coffee, etc) then get back to the main flow. The flow was already broken by another interruption, so there’s no great loss from squeezing in some backlog-clearing at this point.

17. Posted by Sharon Anderson - 12/10/2009

    I found that parenting cramped my organizational style for awhile (I kept trying to live the same life I had before my son). Then I re-evaluated my priorities (taking care of my son is higher on the list than those emails) and adjusted my expectations to a live full of my son and emails.

    I second the notion of email bankruptcy to clear the slate and for ongoing email management, consider asking for some help from your staff or from a virtual assistant who can do email triage for you. Executives rely on assistance to stay current, why not you?

18. Posted by Valerie - 12/10/2009

    I kept my New Year’s resolutions down to one – go paperless. Attainable goals seemed to be the thing that worked for me; I bought the NeatReceipts portable scanner at the beginning of the year, have vastly cut down on paperwork and am now looking forward to the day when my huge filing cabinet goes on Craig’s List! Scanning all of my business receipts actually inspired me to scan a bunch of other stuff – clippings, photos (I just got back a $1000 order from ScanCafe and am going to throw away most of the paper photographs except for the ones that are going into albums) and other paper ephemera I have around the house. I adore my shredder with an almost irrational love – it just feels so good to dispose of receipts, etc. and have all my files in digital form. Of course, my 2010 New Year’s resolution is going to be to find and adopt a more aggressive backup scheme!

19. Posted by Another Deb - 12/10/2009

    I started out the year on a roll with my family history and archiving project, but it has snowballed. Once you being digging into genealogy, you suddenly realize how much you still don’t know! On the same note, scrapbooking projects seem to do this, too.

    My husband and I resolved to travel for friendships and music this summer and had one great trip that accomplished both.

    We bought a vehicle in October to serve as an escape pod on weekends and get us into the wilds much more regularly.

    I wanted to get involved in school leadership a bit more and am now a team leader and using some skills I had learned in a prior school to great success.

    Thanks to Facebook, I am able to rekindle friendships that had formerly been “Christmas letter” friends. I’ve also been able to learn more about the people at my job who I usually never get a chance to talk to.

    Thanks to Facebook, I have additional time management problems, however

    Onward to the new year!

20. Posted by Delores - 12/10/2009

    I’m a teacher so I do goals in September rather than January. Each month I choose a specific do-able chunk toward that goal and try to have it done by the end of the month when I set the next chunk. If the goal is completed before May then I focus more on the remaining generally harder to define and chunk goals.

    This has worked incredibly well at work for the last couple years so this year I tried it for my personal life as well. I am now in my third month of trying to get the same chunks done toward my goals at home. For some reason it’s easy to be focused at work but harder at home.

21. Posted by Karyn - 12/11/2009

    One trick I use, if my inbox gets hopelessly full, is to take all of the “old” stuff, create a folder identifying it (say, as stuff from “August09-November09″) and just drag it all into there. That way, at least my current inbox is fresh and uncluttered, even if the past “clutter” remains to be dealt with.

    Of course it does still need to be dealt with… but at least today’s living space lets you breathe.

22. Posted by Vanessa - 12/12/2009

    One year, instead of resolutions, I wrote a letter to myself, to be opened one year later. In the letter, I basically said (to myself) this is where you are now, and this is where I hope you are in a year. It was such a treat reading that letter a year later.

    Also, instead of resolutions, I call my list “Goals and Wishes,” and I actually write down wishes! Some of them are really grand, but some have actually come true, so I keep doing it. I also think it’s important to write your goals in the personal, present, and positive, as advised by Brian Tracy. This means your goals should use the word “I,” be in the present tense, and be positively stated (“I am…” instead of “I will not…”).

23. Posted by Jesse - 12/12/2009

    I would second the recommendation earlier to just stick everything but the last three weeks into a folder and just pull stuff out of there as you need it. If you’ve made it until now without needing any of that email, the likelihood of needing it now is slim to none. Let other people follow up a second time if it’s important. They’ll understand – you just adopted a child. Clearing all but the last three weeks will give you peace of mind for Christmas!

24. Posted by Lisa - 12/12/2009

    I am in exactly the same boat as Dawn F. stated. My resolution has been failing me for years now. I put everyone ahead of myself especially in taking care of my body.

    I “need” to lose about 50 pounds and have “needed” to lose it for 4 years now. I had made a resolution to lose it for my daughters college graduation…did not happen.

    In two years I will be 50 and my son will be graduating from college and I will not be 50 pounds overweight anymore. I am giving myself plenty of time so I do not quit when I do not achieve my overzealous goals.

    I have conquered all other clutter but will now conquer the weight clutter once and for all.

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