Hasta La Ideas

Choosing to become an unclutterer doesn’t take much effort. You decide you want to get rid of the distractions that get in the way of the life you desire. That aspect of the process is simple — but what comes next isn’t necessarily a walk in the park.

Actually becoming an unclutterer requires a good amount of energy and willpower to purge the distractions, set up working organizing systems, consistently maintaining the order you’ve established, and pursuing the life you desire. It’s not hard, but after a full day at the office and tending to other responsibilities, your energy levels may be spent. It can be more tempting to plop down in front of the television and turn off your brain or to escape into a good book than it is to sort mail, put away folded laundry, file important documents, take a load of your child’s out-grown clothes to charity, and spend quality time with your kids, favorite hobby, or whatever you have deemed truly important to you.

In the recently published book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, authors Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney explore the science behind willpower and self-control. They analyzed findings from hundreds of experiments to see why some people are able to keep their focus and determination for extensive periods of time and others aren’t. Their book also looks at how David Blaine can complete incredible acts of endurance, how to predict which graduate students will become tenured professors, why some anti-smoking and anti-drinking programs are more successful than others, why David Allen’s Getting Things Done method works for so many people, and other case studies that personalize the research. Best of all, they report on proven methods for strengthening these skills, so readers can increase their willpower and self-control.

There is so much valuable information in this book that today will not be the only time I write about it. However, I do want to mention a few of the strategies they provide for increasing your willpower:

• Physically remove the temptation and/or distraction. For example, if you want to stop watching television during the week, remove the power cord from your television and stick it in a drawer. If you’re tempted to jump on Facebook instead of working on a report, install a program on your computer that bans you from looking at Facebook for a set amount of time or reports to your boss if you’re looking at Facebook. One of the reasons Baumeister and Tierney say AA is effective at getting people to stop drinking is because the attendees are at an AA meeting and not in a bar.
• Take on a seemingly unrelated improvement in behavior. Working on your posture or using complete sentences every time you speak (“Yes, I would like a drink of milk” instead of “Yep”) will help to increase willpower and self-control in other areas of your life, as well as in the area of your attention.
• Set routines and stick to them. The book’s authors report that people who floss their teeth every day tend to have more willpower and self-control than those who don’t. Initially “… use your self-control to form a daily habit, and you’ll produce more with less effort in the long run.” Stated another way, start by using your willpower to create positive daily habits and routines. In three to six months, you’ll simply do these regular tasks without much effort and you can use your extra energy on larger tasks that require more self-control. Tasks on auto-pilot don’t use the same stockpile of energy as one’s you have to consciously complete.
• Surround yourself with people who can help you build your willpower and self-control. This might include getting an accountability partner to help keep you on track when you’re uncluttering or hiring a professional organizer to guide you as you tackle the mess on your desk. If you want to start exercising, it will benefit you to work with a personal trainer or to join an online forum to talk about your progress with other people using the same exercise system. It’s easier to not smoke when you’re surrounded by people who aren’t smoking and it’s easier to be organized when surrounded by people who are organized.

As mentioned previously, this book is stocked with scientific research that provides a wealth of tips and strategies for improving your willpower and self-control. While reading the text, I was constantly amazed by how much of it was directly linked to uncluttered living and creating what the authors call “orderly cues.” To learn this information for yourself, check out Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Also, continue to check back to our posts as I plan to refer to the text a few more times over the next couple weeks. The section of the book on teaching self-control strategies to children was incredibly helpful and I definitely want to share the information relevant to uncluttering with you all. I highly recommend this book to all of our readers, regardless of where you are on your uncluttering and organizing journey.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

My August resolution to update my “In case of …” file turned out to be one of my favorite resolutions of 2011. I didn’t enjoy thinking about someone else needing the file, but I love the sense of calm I’ve been experiencing since finishing it. It’s nice knowing the file is up-to-date and I won’t heavily burden my family in case something awful happens (which I hope doesn’t happen).

If you want to create an “In case of …” file, check out “Creating an ‘In case of …’ file” and “Including instructions for handling your online identity in your ‘In case of …’ file” for more information.

My goal for September is to finish up one, BIG, unfinished project that I have been procrastinating. I currently have four big unfinished projects hanging over me. In a perfect world, I would resolve to complete all four. However, I am not perfect and I only have so much willpower. When it comes to being organized, really knowing yourself is an important factor.

First, I need to pick the one project to finish. Three are possible in the one-month timeframe, so that helps to limit my choice. Second, after picking the project, I need to break it into action items and then schedule those actions on my calendar. Third, I need to obviously do the work. I’m relatively certain that the third area is where I am most likely to start procrastinating again. As a result, I’m adding a fourth step to this process — Reward myself. I’m not one to typically reward my efforts, as the sense of completion is usually enough for me. In this case, though, I think I need a tangible reward of some kind. I need a proverbial carrot to tempt me into finishing the project.

Do you have an unfinished project that you can resolve to finish in September? Has something been hanging over you that you’re ready to complete? If so, join me this month in taking on that one, BIG, unfinished task.

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Erin’s 2011 monthly resolutions: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and August.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Continuing on the theme of letting go of fear from yesterday’s post, I wanted to provide some strategies for how to let go of your uncluttering fears. Most of us have them — I certainly do — but they shouldn’t keep us from achieving our uncluttering and organizing goals.

1. The fear that you’re making a mistake. Mistakes are a part of life, and you’re going to make them. As long as the mistake isn’t fatal, you can recover from it. Thankfully, very few mistakes related to uncluttering are life-threatening. It’s okay if you get rid of what you think is clutter and then later realize you need it. Borrow the item from a friend the one time you need it or rent it or buy it used off Craigslist. With one-of-a-kind items that you don’t know if you’ll be able to easily replace, consider long-term loaning these objects to close friends or family members who are interested in using the objects. Then, borrow the item if you find you ever need it.
2. The fear that you’ll fall on hard times. You may actually fall on hard times at some point in the future. Unfortunately, a smooth path through life isn’t guaranteed for anyone. Owning clutter, though, isn’t going to help you through those difficult times. Clutter can keep you from being able to quickly respond to a problem or handle it well. Clutter can sometimes make the problem worse. The fewer things you have to clean and maintain during a tragedy will allow you to focus on what really matters during those times.
3. The fear that people in your life won’t understand. This is going to happen. Someone in your life will be confused by your desire to live without clutter. Don’t worry, though, you’re confused by other people all the time. It doesn’t keep you from loving them or being friends or enjoying their company — and the same will be true for other people who are confused by you. Life would be boring if we were all the same.
4. The fear that someone else in your house will just clutter it all up again. Once again, this is a real possibility. It’s also a real possibility that you’ll be the one to clutter up the space again. The risk that the space might become cluttered again isn’t a reason not to unclutter. There is also a big possibility that the space won’t get cluttered again. Uncluttering and organizing take practice, just like all skills. Michael Phelps didn’t win an Olympic gold medal the first time he jumped into a swimming pool.
5. The fear that your life will change, and change is hard even when it’s good. Your life will change. You won’t ever know how amazing an uncluttered life focused on what matters most to you is until you give it a try. It’s your choice, however, and you should only make the change if you really want to. No one can unclutter your life except for you, other people can help, but you’re the one who has to do the majority of the work.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

One of my former students died a few years ago, yet her Facebook page remains. Her page has turned into a shrine, and her friends come and leave messages every once in awhile, whenever they miss her.

I’m not sure if her parents left the page up on purpose, or if they didn’t know it existed. For a teenager, though, the Facebook shrine seems appropriate, especially since all of her friends grew up using the service.

However, if something were to happen to me in an accident, I don’t want my Facebook page to stay active. Same applies to my personal Twitter account and Google+ account. Without someone regularly monitoring these pages, they could easily be hacked and the hacked content could be very upsetting to the people who are close to me.

As part of my August resolution to create an “In case of …” file, I’ve decided to include specific instructions on what to do with my social online presence. I really, really, really have not enjoyed thinking about all of this, but I’m putting on my big girl pants and bucking through it. And, my hope is that no one ever has to look at this file.

My friend Craig and I were talking about this subject recently, and he explained to me what he plans to do. Before I get too deep into his explanation, you should know Craig is in his 20s, single, no children, doesn’t own property, and doesn’t necessarily trust his family to carry out his “In case of …” plans exactly as he wishes (although he wholeheartedly trusts many of his friends to do so). He and I are in two very different stages of our lives, which speaks to why our solutions are so varied. Craig doesn’t have an “In case of …” file, but he has something that is close enough. He uses the service Dead Man’s Switch.

The way Dead Man’s Switch works is every few months they send you an email asking you to click on a link. If you click on the link, you’re verifying that you’re alive. If you don’t click on the link, they’ll send you a second email and then a third. If you don’t respond to any of the emails (you choose how much time lapses between the initial and follow-up emails), the service assumes you are dead. At that point, emails will be distributed to people of your choosing with specific instructions on how to carry out your post-death requests. In Craig’s case, he wrote all of the emails in one afternoon and then encrypted them before passing them along to Dead Man’s Switch. He said they are mostly related to shutting down his online presence.

As we were talking, Craig made some very good points about shutting down one’s online identity, which apply to “In case of …” files and services like Dead Man’s Switch:

• The people reading your file or your email need to be receptive to what you’re saying. If you’re making any kind of requests about how you would like your things handled, it’s important that the recipients be people who are likely to honor your requests.
• You then have to have a couple of awkward conversations telling folks you will want them to read your file or to wait for an email after you die. It’s a very bad idea to not tell someone, unless you want to scare them with unexpected email from beyond the grave. Thankfully, these conversations are only a quick unpleasantness.
• Updating passwords and logins in your file or emails is crucial. This information can’t ever be out of date. Personally, I [Craig] have a number of websites up, and there’s at least one that I’d like to think should stay up if I were to die tomorrow. People need to have the ability to log into my hosting accounts and renew domains. People need access to my email. People need access to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, either to take them down entirely or at least update them to reflect my new status. Essentially, any login I have needs to be passed on to someone. If you use something like a password manager, giving the main password needed to access that might be a good way to deal with all of the passwords and logins at once.

Have you thought about your online identity and including instructions for dealing with it in your “In case of …” file? Would a service like Dead Man’s Switch work for you? Are you excited for August to come to an end so you can stop reading such morbid topics on this site?

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

One of the best ways to create an effective organizing system is to know who you are. If you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses, you can’t build a system that reflects your abilities.

Someone who is easily distracted shouldn’t have an intricate paper filing system based on numbers and codes. Someone who takes his shoes off at the front door shouldn’t have a shoe organizing system in his bedroom. The more a system reflects how you live and your preferences, the more likely it is to work for you.

• Are you a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic processor? Find out in “Understanding how you process information to help you get organized” and then learn how to take action on those strengths.
• What time of day can you focus at your best and when are you easily distracted? Keep a log and then “Plan and execute a productive work schedule” that best reflects your energy waves throughout the day.
• How long can you effectively focus on something? Scientists have concluded that 40 minutes is the average time span for most people. Check out the Science Daily article “Are you really paying attention” to learn more.
• What do you really like? I don’t mean what are you supposed to like, but what do you sincerely enjoy? Is there a way to integrate these passions into your organizing systems? If you love watching television, can you find a way to watch television and straighten up the house during commercials? If you love birds, can you use bird labels on files in your filing cabinet so that doing filing is more joyful for you?
• What do you despise? If you can’t stand putting away laundry, can you swap the chore with someone in your house and take over a chore she can’t stand but that doesn’t bother you? Can you hire someone to take over this organizing task for you?
• Do you know why you want to be organized?

There are hundreds of questions you can ask yourself to learn about who you are and what are your preferences. Once you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can build an organizing system that will be easy for you to maintain and help keep your life less chaotic.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.