Declutter Your Home

How do you manage to live with clutter? We all seem to have at least a little physical clutter in our lives, whether in our home, the garage, or workplace.

Do we live with clutter because we accept it as inevitable? Do we walk by some clutter every day, which is a way of accepting the clutter? By walking by it every day, we give credence to the clutter. Do you have some clutter in your refrigerator? Many people push some items to the side or take “clutter items” out of their refrigerator to find what they need. After finding the item they have looked for, they put the “clutter items” back in their refrigerator. If you do this, you are working around the clutter rather than addressing it. This means you have accepted clutter; you view it as truth, and with this acceptance, you will be living with this clutter forever (my goodness!).

If these scenarios resonate with you, it’s time to apply the one-touch rule to help reduce the clutter in your home.

What is the one-touch rule?

The one-touch rule was conceived by Ann Gomez, a productivity consultant and the founding president of Toronto-based organization Clear Concept Inc. (https://clearconceptinc.ca/)

Clear Concepts Inc. specializes in business training and ways to improve productivity. Ann’s one-touch rule can also be applied to your home.

Her concept is deceivingly simple. When it comes to clutter, then simplicity translates into effectiveness. Also, her strategy is to focus on building a decluttering habit. Organization of your home is not a one-off approach. Like anything worthwhile, it must become a habit.

The rule is: Put away things immediately. Avoid handling them more than once after you have used an item.

That’s it!

If your system sets items aside to deal with later only creates clutter. To deal with something more than once is what we want to avoid.

Here’s an example that many of us have experienced.

Do family members arrive home and leave their coat, backpack, or purse in random places around your home. Sometimes the backpack is left in the mudroom; other times, in the kitchen; perhaps even in your family room. This requires items left randomly around to be moved more than once.

You end up with a scenario where items that should have a good home keep getting shuffled around like they do not have a place. This leads to clutter.

When the owner of these improperly stored items eventually needs them, they will waste time searching for items that could have been put away in a designated place.

Here is how the one-touch rule can help to declutter your home.

The one-touch rule is simple, and this makes it powerful. If you have a somewhat disorganized home, as you get better at applying the one-touch rule, you will find clutter and the general “mess” significantly reduced. Perhaps even entirely eliminated.

Hang coats on a rack or in the closet and store backpacks, the mail, and other belongings in a well-thought-out and designated place as soon as you walk into your home. With this approach, you will minimize clutter and be more organized. Remember, one thing leads to another, and a little bit of clutter leads to a bit more, and before you know it, there is simply too much clutter.

The one-touch rule can apply to so many other areas of your home:

• Sorting your mail right after bringing it home.
• Put dirty clothes in a laundry hamper or bin instead of on the bedroom floor.
• Hang up clothes in the proper place after wearing them.
• Put away yard tools in the garage once you’re done with them.
• Wash dishes (or rinse them and put them in the dishwasher) as soon as you finish a meal.
• Fix broken items right away instead of leaving the task for later.
• You can even apply it to your email inbox as you can reply to emails immediately after reading them instead of replying later.

You can also make the one-touch rule easier with effective home storage solutions.

After implementing this rule, you might realize another issue needs to be solved. You may conclude that certain items don’t have a good home.

An item without a proper designated place is a problem that needs to be solved. Otherwise, the one-touch rule will be too challenging. Consider some effective home storage solutions.

The one-touch rule becomes much easier to commit to and maintain by enabling your home with sensible storage solutions.

With some practical front entryway storage solutions like a closet organizer, letter holder, key rack, or shoe rack, an area of your home highly prone to clutter accumulation will be more organized.

A custom closet solution or wardrobe in other areas of your home, such as the bedroom, will also prove to be beneficial in reducing or eliminating clutter.

Add a laundry hamper to your bedroom. Keep your dirty clothes organized (add multiple hampers to keep your dirty clothes sorted by color).

For the garage, develop a tool hanging system to store your yard tools easily.

Give It A Try!

Give your household a week or two to try the one-touch rule. Committing to the one-touch rule will take effort, especially for your household’s “clutter-challenged” housemates.

Give your home a week or two, try the rule and make refinements to make using it easier. You and other family members will be encouraged by the results. Younger children can also adopt this philosophy.

It’s unrealistic to expect any home to use the one-touch rule 100% of the time. Sometimes fatigue and time constraints may make it too challenging to use daily.

Allow yourself and your family members a little leeway when using the rule, but strive for as much consistency with it as possible to obtain your decluttered home objectives.

Call us at 802-295-6065 if you live in the Upper Valley and need extra support to keep your home clean and tidy. We can help you to reduce the stress in your life. We have been providing homeowners of the Upper Valley with top-notch home cleaning services since 1993.

Finding Balance When You’re Stressed and Busy

You budget and care for how you spend your money. It is equally important to care for your time as well.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but many of us still have trouble saying “no” when someone asks us to commit our time to a worthy cause.

All these worthy commitments can add up to a lack of balance and excessive stress for you. It may be challenging to say no to commitments that benefit others, that speak to our ideals, or that may get us ahead in other areas. Indeed, those are commitments we should say yes to, but too many of these can cause an excess of stress.

The following tips are strategies that you can use to find balance, pare down your schedule, and relieve daily stress.

Declutter Your Life

Decluttering has some very definite benefits. First off, your environment will be cleaner. A cleaner environment prevents pests from wanting to share your space with you. If your space is cleaner, this will help reduce dust, mold, and mildew. Too much dust, mold spores, and particles in the air you breath can trigger asthma and allergies.

Decluttering will lead to an improved lifestyle and a sense of well-being. It’s easier to prepare healthy meals in an orderly kitchen. Also, most people sleep better in a neat room with a tidy bed.

Tips for Decluttering Your Spaces

You’ll enjoy the mental health benefits of decluttering more if you make the process low-stress.

Start small. If you pick one drawer or cabinet to organize, you’ll be less likely to get discouraged. The pleasure of seeing and using a well-organized space will serve as positive feedback, prompting you to do more.

Don’t strive for perfection. There’s no need to hide items that you use a lot. Also, try not to judge your spaces against those of other people.

Collecting clutter is associated with a certain mindset.

Characteristics of Clutterers

People who have trouble with clutter often:

• Struggle with time management and stop tasks before finishing
• Have perfectionist tendencies and trouble stopping and starting projects
• Are easily sidetracked, such as those with attention deficits
• Are “people persons” who spend a lot of time doing things with and for others
• Make a habit of putting things off, also known as procrastination

Remember That A “NO” Also Means A “Yes”

Usually, when we’re presented with requests on our time, we think about whether we can fit this new activity into our already-packed schedule and whether or not it’s worth it. This often leads to an even more packed schedule. When deciding what to say yes and no to, we find it extremely helpful to remember that every ‘no’ is a ‘yes’ to something else and vice versa.

Learn To Delegate

Never underestimate the importance of delegating effectively. How well you delegate is directly reflected in how empowered the people around you feel. Delegate properly and enable people (and, of course, children) to learn new skills and strengthen the skills they already have. To delegate helps people improve their decision-making abilities and, ultimately, their productivity.

Coordination, communication, and plentiful trust are the keys to effective delegation. The result is a win for everyone. The first rule in effective delegation is finding someone with all the prerequisites. These include strong collaboration, an appropriate level of authority, and reliability.

To start selecting who to delegate, first make a list of tasks you wish to delegate. Then, gather people who you think can take on one or some of these tasks. Show them the list. Let people select tasks themselves based on their strengths and interests. This is a great way to demonstrate trust and inspire action within the group/team.

Do a Good Job

Everything does not need perfection. Live by the 80-20 rule, where you identify the 20% of work that yields 80% of the results, and focus mainly on what’s important, letting the rest slip if necessary. Remember, sometimes focusing on perfection isn’t as important as focusing on speed, especially when looking for balance in your schedule.

Live In The Now With The Future In Mind

Here is a beautiful example. When choosing whether to exercise or watch television, thinking about the long-term benefits of each makes it much easier to skip a moderately entertaining show in favor of getting moving. Both activities can relieve stress, but one contributes to an overall plan for better health, while the other doesn’t.

Stay Organized

A good plan and a clear budget for your time are invaluable in maintaining balance in your life. Being organized is vital to finding balance in life. If you have a schedule where everything fits, you’ll be more efficient with your time.

Add In Some Fun

It is essential to get your errands done. You may need to do laundry, wash the dishes and pack lunches for the next day. However, it can be helpful to include fun things in your life and not load up your day with stressful things.

Give us a call at 802-295-6065 if you live in the Upper Valley and need extra support for keeping your home clean and tidy. We can help you to reduce the stress in your life. We have been providing homeowners of the Upper Valley with top-notch home cleaning services since 1993.

This is known by people who study human behavior as temptation bundling. It works. But before we dig into the actual process and result, let’s review some background information.

Your brain has far more neural circuitry associated with wanting something than liking something. The wanting centers of our brains are much larger than the liking centers. The liking centers are smaller, but they are not concentrated – they are distributed like small islands throughout your brain.

The human brain has evolved to crave and desire something. The simple observation that the brain has evolved to allocate significant space to the regions of craving and desire is evidence of the crucial role a craving process plays. Desire is a considerable engine that drives behavior and performance. If you have no desire to do something, then there is a high chance you will not do it or will not do it to the best of your ability.

The release of dopamine is fundamental in creating a desire. Dopamine is released when you experience pleasure and when you anticipate it. This is an important observation.

Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback look. Every highly habit-forming behavior is dopamine-driven.

Here are a few examples:

• Taking drugs to get high
• Eating junk food
• Playing video games
• Browsing social media

These activities are associated with higher levels of dopamine.

How does this relate to anticipation? Glad you asked.

• Studies reveal that gambling addicts experience a dopamine spike right before they place a bet. There is little evidence of a dopamine spike after they win.
• Drug addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see their drug of choice and anticipate taking it, not after they take it.
• An adult thinking and anticipating a vacation can find this to be more enjoyable than the actual vacation.

When your dopamine rises, so does your motivation.

Let’s now apply this to keeping a clean home.

Examples

You want to clean your home, but there is no pleasure associated with cleaning. Let’s think about how to link it to something that you do like.

Netflix – You want to watch something on Netflix. This is a big want, and anticipation makes you feel good. Therefore, after I clean the one room I need to clean (name any room), I will watch Netflix. If you link a need (cleaning) to a clear desire (Netflix), the need will be accomplished.

Social Media – You love using social media to see what friends and family are doing. You love to comment on their activities. This increases your dopamine level. You feel good about connecting with friends and family. However, you need to organize your home office. Connect the organization activity (need) to the desirable action (want).

Cleaning and organizing (your needs) and now connected to something you desire. The anticipation of the want and desire and the associated increase in dopamine will motivate you to complete your cleaning and organizing tasks. Needs and wants are now combined for a successful outcome.

If you do need some help with cleaning your home or office, give us a call at 802-295-6065. We can relieve the stress of cleaning, save you some time and help to make your home or office a more pleasant place to be.

There was a problem at the airport. Men were missing the urinals. This was creating a need to increase the cleaning budget to keep the bathrooms clean. The cleaning department decided to try an experiment and created a small sticker that looked like a fly. They placed this sticker in the urinal and located it where when to aim at the bug men created less splash-over as their aim was significantly better. The spillage around the urinals was reduced. The stickers reduced bathroom cleaning costs by 8% and increased cleanliness.

This story is significant in that a visual cue triggered a positive reaction.

Here are a few ways you can create positive actions with a visual cue.

You sometimes forget to take your daily medications. A visual cue could be to place your bottle pill in a special place next to your toothbrush in your bathroom. You brush your teeth every day and then take your medication.

You have made a commitment to practice the guitar more frequently. Instead of putting your guitar away in the closet where you do not see it consider getting a guitar stand and placing your guitar in a convenient place where you like to study or relax.

You have committed to sending more hand-written thank you notes. If so, then keep a box of thank you note cards right on your desk.

You have decided to drink more water. You can establish some visual cue by filling up three or four bottles in the morning and placing them in strategic locations you frequent each day.

These visual cues are designed by you and placed in your environment. You can design your environment so that you create good habits that lead you to accomplish your objectives.

You can alter the spaces where you live and work to increase your exposure to a visual cue. You can also reduce your exposure to a negative cue. I know a smoker that likes to smoke while sitting on her back deck. In fact, just going out on her back deck triggers her to smoke a cigarette. This is a bad habit. A visual cue may be to rearrange the furniture so that it is different (it helps to break the pattern of smoking). Another action could be to remove anything associated with smoking (the ashtray for example). She makes a cup of coffee and sips it on the deck while smoking. Another action could be to never bring a cup of coffee out to the deck (until the pattern has been broken).

If you create cues for doing positive things, then also think about cues for negative things that you do (or don’t do). Doing both will be very positive for you.

Be the architect of your life. Take back control. You can design your life.

Implementation Intention

I want to start with an experiment that was performed with three groups of people.

There were 248 people in total and each individual was assigned to one of the groups.

The objective of the experiment was to gain insights into how people could commit to doing something and in the case of this experiment the “doing something” was to exercise.

• Group One: Control
• Group Two: Externally Motivated
• Group Three: Externally Motivated and Internally Committed

Group One was told to simply track how often they exercised.

Group Two was provided with reading materials on the benefits of exercise and each also attended a presentation on the benefits of exercising.

Group Three also received the external motivational items (reading materials and presentation) but were also asked to define specifically what day, when, and where they would engage in a minimum of 20 minutes of exercise.

Results:

• Group One: 35% exercised at least one time per week
• Group Two: 38% exercised at least one time per week.
• Group Three: 91% exercised at least one time per week.

Observations:

There was essentially no difference in performance between Group One and Group Two. There was a substantial increase in the exercise level with Group Three (more than two times) when compared to groups one and two.

This speaks to the concept of implementation intention. If one truly intends to do something then that individual becomes specific as to what, when, and where.

Have you ever had this conversation with a friend? You say, “it’s been a while since we have gotten together let’s get together soon”. Your friend agrees. You say it and it sounds great to both of you but the get-together does not happen. If instead, you said, “let’s get together at the Skinny Pancake in Quechee for breakfast, next Tuesday, at 9:30 AM”. To be clear and specific makes this get-together very likely to happen.

The same goes with the cleaning of your home.

When will you clean out the garage? Be specific. State which day and what time and for how long. Write it down tell your partner. Make it clear to yourself that you are committed to cleaning the garage (perhaps only for two hours but committed).

If you are going to call a cleaning company and schedule an appointment for them to come and discuss their service with you then define when you will call and follow through. Also, when you speak with the cleaning company you would never say come over some time and we will review the situation. Both parties would never allow this. You would agree to a specific day and time and both parties would know the place.

Specific commitments count!

Don’t say, “I’m going to exercise more.”

Don’t declare, “I’m going to eat healthier.”

Don’t simply state. “I’m going to keep my home clean.”

Be specific about what you will do. Write it down to make it more substantial. Formulate a plan with details defined.

Then, go do it!

It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, or how successful you are; you will have times when things do not work out as planned or imagined. However, you need to execute with a position attitude.

Do No Become Overwhelmed – Put Things In Perspective

When problems arise and know that they will, do not play the victim and do not allow yourself to feel as if there is no solution. Take a step back and maintain a positive attitude. Also, it is worth noting that many people tend to make more of a problem and exaggerate it. You turn what is often a minor problem into a large problem by doing this. When you encounter problems and then seek to resolve them, remember that it’s essential to look at the larger picture. Keep it in perspective.

Mark Twain once said: “There has been much tragedy in my life; at least half of which actually happened.” Take a step back and lighten the load. Don’t let problems take on a size and magnitude greater than what they are. Even in your most challenging times, there are still positive things happening. Ask yourself if this will matter a year or three years from now.

Also, it helps to maintain perspective to think about other problems you have faced and how you have worked your way through them. You’ve gotten through issues and challenges in the past, and you will get through this one too. Good and bad things happen to everyone, don’t be surprised by difficulties. Instead, embrace them with an intent to find a proper solution.

Problems are part of life.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

When facing problems, the last thing you need to do is beat yourself up. However, many people do precisely that. Nothing good comes from chastising yourself or wallowing in self-pity and guilt – playing the role of the victim.

Perform to find a solution and do this with a “guilt-free” approach. A guilt-free approach will allow you to respond with your best self. Your thinking will be clear, you’ll have more energy, and you will see options and viable solutions that just are not visible when you are steeped in blame and shame. You can’t change the past, but you can learn from it and improve upon it.

As someone once said, problems are opportunities in work clothes.

Focus On What You Can Control

It’s important to be clear on the outcome you want as you work through your challenges – define your ideal outcome – determine what you want to have happen. Once you are clear on the outcome, it’s equally important to define what you can and can’t control. You don’t control outcomes.

While defining the ideal outcome is essential, you will need to focus your energy on the things you can control. What you can control are your actions. If you put too much emphasis only on the outcome, it can become paralyzing. Know the outcome you desire and focus on the steps you can take to get there.

Start & End Each Day In Gratitude – Be Appreciative!

There are many things you can be grateful for even in times of adversity. Whatever you focus on and think about will be magnified. Therefore, be intentional about magnifying the positive. Use a routine daily activity to trigger your gratitude. As an example, as you are looking over your to-do list at the start of each day, state what you are grateful for. When you are preparing to end your day consider what happened that day for which you are thankful.

It’s important for your well-being and for how you address any problems that you fill your mind with positive thoughts. This will be especially meaningful in tough times.

Stay Connected To Your Vision & Goals

When you are in the middle of problems and feeling stressed, it is easy to focus on the short term. It is difficult but necessary in these times to not lose track of your dreams and aspirations. You need to push yourself to imagine a better future.

You can’t put off working on your goals until all your problems have been resolved. There will always be some sort of problem. Connect with your goals every day.

It doesn’t matter how you feel; times of difficulty are precisely the right time to connect with your best self and aspirations. View the present in the context of your longer-term vision and your goals. Remember that the problems you are currently experiencing are temporary and will not hold you back from your destiny.

Summary

What has been presented are five things you can do to stay positive in challenging times. We all face challenges. Learning to stay positive during problems will position you for not only a faster, more productive recovery but also a more joy-filled life.

If you need some help with cleaning your home or office, give us a call at 802-295-6065. We can relieve the stress of cleaning and to have a clean and tidy home or office also helps to keep things in perspective and to maintain a positive attitude.