You Create Clutter By Not Making Decisions: Let’s talk about why I say that all clutter accumulates because of unmade decisions. And don’t just think physical clutter in your house, garage, office, or car, but also: paper clutter, digital clutter, mental clutter, emotional clutter, and social clutter.
Don’t have time to read? Listen to this info on the go on my podcast here.
Let’s take a closer look and start with physical clutter:
If you have a lot of things, physical clutter, in your home and or office, it is because you haven’t made a decision. Either, you haven’t made the decision that this is an item you love and use and you found a home for it and got into the habit of putting it back there.
But what more likely happened is that you haven’t made the decision to let those things go even though you are not using them, they are just taking up space.
I you hard disk on your computer is completely full to the point that the computer isn’t running smoothly anymore, it’s most likely because you have a lot of digital clutter,
My experience is that most people have no proper filing system and therefore have files double and triple and also in various versions. Often, they also have no idea what the majority of those files even are, but it seems easier to just buy extra cloud storage or an additional external hard drive to store these files than to go through them and make decisions of what is important and needs to be kept and what can be deleted to make space.
Discover COMMUNITIES hosted by our PLW experts and surround yourself with like-minded individuals looking to live a peace infused, healthy life.
The same happens with your phone with photos, apps, text messages, unlistened podcast episodes, eBooks and so on. It’s all digital clutter if you’re not using it, or if you can’t find it when you need it. The more you don’t make a decision what to keep and file and what to delete to make space.
All this might have a negative effect on your finances, you don’t find things so you buy them again and end up having doubles. You pay for cloud storage or external hard drives to store files you never use and have no idea what they are.
Another way your finances are cluttered because of unmade decisions is for example you are paying for subscriptions or services you never use and haven’t made the decision to cancel them yet. Or maybe you don’t even remember that you are paying for them, a lot of people don’t really look over their credit card bill in detail and just pay the minimum each month.
That means you might pay for stuff you don’t use or you don’t use stuff because you don’t remember you are paying for it.
I could go on but I think you get the idea. This is all clutter, physical, digital, and financial clutter that stems from mental clutter, not making a decision, which often leads to emotional clutter in the form of suppressed feelings, stress, overwhelm, anxiety, all because we are not willing to make a decision.
But here is the truth: not making a decision is making a decision,
It’s the decision to not deal with this right now, to leave it for another day. We just push it to the future to some undefined better time when we think we will be more equipped to deal with it. Mental and emotional clutter also comes from the big pile of unmade decisions we are pushing forward from day to day because we don’t feel like making a decision.
I talked about it in last month’s blog “How Your Brain Keeps You Cluttered” that not wanting to make decisions happens because our brain seeks pleasure, avoids pain, and wants to be efficient. It doesn’t think of you in the future, it only thinks of right now.
And making a decision right now is the opposite of pleasurable, it is painful and needs a lot of energy which is not efficient, that’s why it’s so easy to procrastinate on all the things.
What you and your brain doesn’t realize is, all these unmade decisions also cost a lot of energy, it’s not efficient to not make decisions. Actually we often use more energy procrastinating than making a decision or taking action would.
Unmade decisions are weighing on us, making us feel heavy, they can feel like a big boulder to push through the day. Sometimes you come across something that you would need to make a decision on but you can’t because of something else you haven’t decided yet and until you have decided that you can’t really decide this, and so you put that to the side too and so the pile gets bigger and heavier
The longer you don’t start making decisions and start dealing with these things the bigger the problem becomes to deal with.
Stuck in the cycle of busy hoping that one day there will be time for your and what you want?
You are not alone. PEACEFUL LIVING COACHING is here to support you!
Remember how I said sometimes we push it to the future because we think it will be a better time? Well usually that ‘better’ time never comes, instead what sometimes happens is some sort of emergency, where something or someone from the outside forces you to make a decision (or let go of something), most likely at the most inconvenient time or in a very unpleasant form.
What I suggest you start doing is small but consistent steps. A few minutes a day does keep the clutter and chaos away, and it trains your decluttering muscle and your decision making muscle. If you follow my 3 principles from “Principles not Rules” it means you would start with
- small manageable chunks –> in terms of decision making that means, start making decisions on small things that don’t have huge consequences if you are worried to make a wrong decision
- start with the least personal area –> again, start with making decisions in areas that don’t matter to you that much
- get into the habit of making decisions every day, get into the habit of not postponing decisions, especially the ones that fall into point 1 and 2 that are considered small and not too personal decisions.
Don’t just read this blog post, please go take action, start today, start right now, and create space, calm and ease by getting into the habit of making decisions and clearing your (physical, digital, social, mental and emotional) clutter in a few minutes a day.
CONNY GRAF
Conny Graf is a Swiss certified Expert in Finance & Accounting, a certified Clutter Clearing Practitioner, Astrologer, Coach, Podcaster and the founder and owner of From Chaos to Peace Consulting Inc.
She’s helping people create supportive, clutter-free environments in their home, office, files, and finances but more importantly, she helps them develop habits and systems that prevent clutter from creeping back in. Clutter Clearing is not just about purging and organizing, it’s about exploring and releasing the limiting beliefs we tell ourselves and the stories that keep us stuck in the past. Dealing with clutter brings us up-to-date with who we are right now and where we are heading in your life and business while being organized is simply a side-effect.
Her mission is to help people understand that decluttering is self-love, and a few minutes a day keep the clutter away. Come on a journey from chaos to peace with ease.
▪ WEBSITE ▪ INSTAGRAM ▪ FACEBOOK ▪ LINKED IN ▪ YOUTUBE ▪ PINTEREST ▪ THE PODCAST▪
