Tera Warner

Get the Junk Out of Your Trunk With These 7 Easy Steps to Clutter-Free Living!

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de-cluttered welcoming roomGet the Junk Out of Your Trunk With These 7 Easy Steps to Clutter-Free Living!

~ by Tera Warner

Now is the perfect time to get rid of the stuff you no longer need or love and make space for something better in your life. How do you feel when you look around at the stuff in your environment? Do you have broken dishes? weird mugs given to you as gifts that you’ve been holding on to just to be polite?

When you open your underwear drawer, do you see granny panties with worn out elastic bands? If so, prepare for purging!

Abundance is the big buzz word these days. We all want it, whether it’s an abundance of happiness, love, time, or money. But in order to make that happen, you’re going to need to commit to getting rid of some of the stuff you don’t want or don’t need that’s cramping your style! That means getting the junk out of your trunk and spiffing up the place a bit!

Here are a few tips from Vanessa Stewart, our Clutter-Free Living Consultant, to help you make space for something better:

1. You Can Do ANYTHING for 15 Minutes!

Marla Ciley, a.k.a. “The Fly Lady,” was a participant in our 2012 WISH summit, and she is most know for her “baby steps” approach to clearing out clutter and keeping your house looking neat and ready for guests at a moment’s notice!

Get yourself a kitchen timer and just invest 15 minutes a day in clearing out a zone of clutter, mess and confusion. I guarantee you everything in your life will start to shift when you do that. If you’ve lived with clutter in your home for a long time, getting started on the “De-Cluttering” process can be overwhelming. You do not need to be perfect, you just need to get started! Small consistent steps , celebrating the “wins” as you go, is the best way to tackle and handle your clutter!

2. Sharpen Your Ninja Mind and Stay Focused

I don’t care if the phone rings, the dog barks or the kids complain, do everything you possibly can to give yourself 15 minutes of uninterrupted de-cluttering.

One of the most disruptive patterns women get into is “incomplete cycles of action.”

We start a cup of tea, then decide we should call our mothers, and while on the phone with Mom, you remember you have laundry to fold.

You fold a few items of clothing, then your daughter yells because she can’t find her school shoes, so you start helping her look for the school shoes, at which point you find a mess has been left on the kitchen counter, so you start wiping that up and then feel a bit hungry so decide you’re going to just sit right down and have a snack, and that is when you remember your cup of tea.

But you’re too late. It’s cold.

As multi-tasking women, we are constantly being bombarded by distractions and the fact that most people keep their cellphones on them at all times means it’s almost expected that you drop what you’re doing and communicate with whoever wants your attention whenever they want your attention.

Clutter is a sign of an inability to decide. You need to practice your ability to start what you finish, to do one thing at a time and then move on to the next, or you’ll find yourself constantly surrendering to chaos and disorder.

3. Start With One Small Area

This is NOT the time to go through all your childhood pictures and finally put them in order. Sometimes the emotional weight alone of clutter can keep us from handling it. Pick doable targets and choose something that you know you’ll see some improvement in after 15-minutes. Alphabetizing a box of business cards might not be your first choice.

Start with something doable that will allow you to see noticeable improvement at the end of your 15-minute blitz.

4. Start With Today’s Mess First

The best place to start is with “today’s mess”. You can start with today’s mail before you start to tackle last week’s or mail from past months. There will always be older piles that will need to be de-cluttered. You can get sucked into that “OLD STUFF”, and get lost in the backlog. Sometimes I find when you go to the old clutter first, it can derail you, especially if it holds any grief or sadness , as in past relationships or a death of a loved one.

I was just working with a friend today who had gotten bogged down in paper clutter. A lot of it had to do with the finalizing of his recently deceased mothers estate. It made perfect sense to me that this would be a difficult place to start. So, we gathered the papers that had become scattered in various locations in the house. We went to a nice cozy table & sitting area, and just started to sort. We started with the last couple of days mail, then in no time at all, we had moved through all the piles! My friend found ALL those misplaced and important papers that were needed to settle the estate with the least amount of stress and anxiety, as well as be all up to date with his current mail. It was fast, it was easy, it was a totally freeing experience. And we got it ALL done in a little over an hour! Days & weeks were spent on just the worrying about it, and now all of that is behind him!

Begin by de-cluttering the most recent, easiest and most visible clutter first! It will be much more motivating if you can quickly create noticeable results.

5. Just Do It!

We spend more time thinking about getting things done than actually doing them. Get busy and just GO, Woman! Keep your ninja focus and do not stop until your 15 minutes are up! You’re going to feel like an absolute champion and you’ll be amazed at what you got accomplished in only 15 minutes.

NOW is the time to:

6. Book It In Your Calendar For Tomorrow!

You schedule your dentist appointments and visits to the relatives, so make yourself important enough to be scheduled, too! Pick the 15-minute window of your day where you’ll do another clutter busting blitz, and make it happen!

Commit and follow the steps as above.

7. Consider the Big Picture

Good ol’ T. Harv Eker said, “How you do anything is how you do everything!”

Consider looking at your environment as a reflection of your life!You may not think a messy counter is such a big deal in the scheme of things, but what the clutter on your counter is cluttering up your thoughts, your communication, your ability to make money. The world’s most well-known money coach for women, Susy Orman said in her book, Women and Money, that cleanliness is one of the most important qualities a wealthy woman possesses.

If you keep this up, you’ll be clearing out the old junk and making room for your most abundant, organized and inspiring life ever! Here’s to getting rid of your granny panties and making room for something better!

Tera

be_hp_banner610x239_beclean_v2‘Tis the season to detox and de-clutter. Starting up on March 20th, we’ll be hosting our be clean program. If you’re feeling the spring cleaning bug, this is the perfect program to help you clear out the old and make space for something better. You can read all about the program here: