Eight Clutter Clearing Tips You Can Start Today

Use the vibrancy of Spring as motivation for cleaning, organizing, and de-cluttering your home or office. If you’re like me, you may put off de-cluttering your desk or organizing an over-stuffed junk drawer for as long as possible. Then, when I finally do it, I feel energized and happy.  I wonder why I waited so long.  Every client I’ve worked with has reported feeling more energetic after decluttering, and happier with the way things look and feel.

Here are Eight Tips to Help You Get Started:

1. Decluttering Your Closet.  If your bedroom closet is packed with stuff and you can’t see much of the floor, it’s time to declutter. According to Feng Shui, having too much stuff in your closet keeps you blocked from opportunities. And it just feels better when look at an organized closet.  Saves you time and stress getting dressed too!

First, make three piles of things – Yes!’s, No’s and Maybe’s. The Yes!’s will be things that you can eliminate today.  The Maybe’s will be things that you think you’ll eventually give away.  And the No’s will be things that you want to keep.  Revisit the Maybe’s every so often or until you get tired of  looking at the items. Gradually move the Maybes to the Yes!’s  Whenever you feel that you can give away something, do it immediately. The goal is to have a closet full of things that you want and will use regularly and not full of things that you haven’t worn in years.  Make it a tradition to do this at least once a year.

2. Kitchen Pantry. If every time you open the pantry you think “I really need to organize this” it’s draining your energy.  Instead, schedule a block of time and clean it out – or start simply with just one small area in the pantry and do another part tomorrow.

3. Desk Drawers. It’s easy to build clutter here.  Remember that if you can’t find what you need easily, it negatively affects your peace of mind. Try to discard unneeded items consistently throughout the year.  If you’ve got junk drawer, shedule thirty minutes for the initial clean-out, and extend the time if you need to.

4. Computer Clutter. Don’t forget to clear out the clutter in your computer…emails, old documents, old applications.  Again, start in small increments of time like 15 or 30 minutes. You may be surprised at how much you can discard in just a few minutes.

5. Refrigerator. Clean out your fridge regularly and it won’t turn into a big project when you don’t clean it for a while. I recommend setting a specific day each month like the 1st or the 6th and take just a few minutes to clean it.

6. Kid’s Rooms.  Model conscious stewardship for your children.  You can give your kids the gift of loving themselves for who they are and not what they have. Don’t allow toys to take over your home. Every few months, ask your kids to find things that they can give away to children that don’t as much.  Guide  them in the experience that giving feels good.

7. Break projects into manageable pieces. Simply say work for 30 or 50 minutes on whatever project most inspires you then stop until the next time.

8. At the beginning of each month, find at least three things in your home that you can give to friends, donate, or throw away. Then do it!  Make it a game. For motivation remember that as you create space in your home new opportunities will be drawn to you.  Remember the adage, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

Are You a Clutter-Clinger?

Are you clinging on to too much stuff in your home or work environment?  Is it difficult to begin eliminating your clutter?  The vibrancy of spring makes it the natural time of year to revitalize the energy in your environment. According to Feng Shui, clearing clutter allows energy to flow easily which can restore your energy and well-being.

Having a lot of stuff naturally develops into clutter.  Some people have so much stuff that they use any space they have to store it – frequently keeping their cars outside so they can use their garage to hold their stuff. The storage  industry is booming.  Isn’t it amazing that we actually pay people to keep our stuff for us! 

When stuff fills up your home you’ll spend energy trying to live around it. Clutter keeps you unfocused and anxious.  From an energy perspective, clutter creates stagnation in your life.  And seeing clutter in your home each day creates negativity in your mind – either because you’re not happy with yourself for having the clutter or you don’t like looking at the clutter.   

The truth is that you are not your stuff.  But it’s hard to hear that message over the clamour of advertising messages which tell you that buying things is the key to happiness. We’re bombarded with messages that tell us we are our stuff.  So it’s easy to be hypnotized into believing that our stuff is part of who we are. Don’t judge yourself harshly if you’re a clutter-clinger. You can change with one small step at a time.  Simply realize that when you think of your stuff as part of your identity it’s not the truth.

Clutter clearing necessitates a change in consciousness. In order to make a change in your home you have to make a change in your thinking.  It’s not simply about cleaning out your closet, it’s about letting go of who you think you are.  You have to wrap your mind around the concept that you are the same person without those boots you love or that sweater from Neiman’s that you haven’t worn in decades.

The process can be uncomfortable. The truth is that your authentic self is perfect and doesn’t need any thing to be happy.  Using things to be happy is fleeting and you’ll find that there’s never enough. Instead, when you connect with your inner self and not the outer environment you’ll find true contentment.

Next time…Tips for Clearing Your Clutter.

Feng Shui 101 -Three Ways Your Home Affects Your Health

Your home directly influences your health. Like vitamins, annual exams, and exercise, a home has a significant impact on your health. Addressing the following three attributes of a home can act as insurance against ill-health.

1- Too much clutter. Clutter creates a blockage which restricts the flow of energy in your home. Clutter is life-deadening rather than life-affirming.  It inhibits your ability to feel vibrancy in your life. Like “too much clutter in your head,” too much clutter in your home weighs you down physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Clutter comes in many forms – too much furniture, accessories, paperwork, and clothes. 

The solution?  Clear the clutter!  Take to a thrift-store, give away, donate, dispose, or re-purpose.

2- Inadequate natural light in your environment.  The quality of light affects the quality of life you feel in your home.  When a space is dark, it creates Yin energy. Yin energy translates into quietness, constriction, and lack of movement. (Its opposite is yang energy which creates movement). If your home is too dark you may suffer from a lack of energy and/or motivation to engage with the world.

The solution? Open your drapes and/or blinds, install a skylight or a French door, place mirrors in dark corners facing windows to reflect light, paint walls in soft white or yellow, remove outside screens, and ensure you have enough man-made lighting in each room.

3. Lack of a balance of colors in your home.  Having too much of one or two colors creates imbalance. When energy is imbalanced, you can feel the results both immediately and long-term. Short term, you may feel irritation. Long term, irritation can develop into disease.  A balance of colors and shapes will create Soul, the key to feeling comfortable in a space.  And when you feel comfortable, you are naturally more relaxed and focused.

The solution to bringing balance in a space is to ensure there’s a variety of colors and shapes. (You may not realize it but shapes, like colors, transmit energy.  For example, a triangular shape creates a vibrant, fire energy and a square shape creates a more grounded, earth energy).

You can paint the entire space just one color as long as you balance it with by adding color in other ways. Think of how you’d feel in a beige and white space and then how you’d feel in a beige, white, green, and red space. Odds are you feel more comfortable when imagining a space with a variety of color. To create a space which supports health, use a moderate amount of fire colors such as red, orange, terracotta, or pink in your color palette.

The one key to maintaining good health through your home, is creating Balance!

Eliminating Clutter Creates Better Focus

The most prevalent issue I see in clients’ homes is clutter and its partner – disorganization. Simply put, most people have too much stuff.  And the more stuff you have, the more difficult it is to keep all the stuff organized.  Couples with children suffer from trying to organize lots of “kid-stuff”.  Clients without children are prone to accumulating too many books, accessories, clothes, shoes, paperwork, collectibles, and/or things they just can’t part with on an emotional level.  

It’s important to understand that creating order and simplicity in your environment allows you to better focus and feel centered. Clutter produces chaotic and draining energy. 

For example, take a look at these photos and notice how you much peace you feel ~

There’s harmony and symmetry in nature which creates a peaceful experience.  The same principle translates to your home.

The biggest negative about clutter is that the more stuff that fills up your home, the more emotional energy you’ll spend in trying to live around the clutter.  Clutter keeps you unfocused.  And with the unpredictability of the world “out there” it’s important now more than ever that you feel centered at home.  Being organized allows you to experience a healthier quality of life.

Here are Easy Tips for Preventing Clutter in your Home

1.  Avoid places that may activate your particular clutter “trigger”.  These could be thrift stores, bookstores, outlet stores, garage sales, and sales in general.

2.  If you can’t stop a “clutter craving,”  make sure that you buy something that you can return.  Keep the receipt. Sometimes, just driving around with the item in your car for a couple days will enable you to see that you don’t really need it and then you can return the item but DON”T use it as an opportunity to do more shopping.

3.  Be proactive and dispose of clutter on a daily basis.  Don’t let mail, laundry, dirty dishes, shoes, or paper on your desk pile up.

4. Stop your unsolicited extra postal mail. Stop by  http://www.newdream.org/junkmail  to opt-out of email lists.  Virtual clutter is still clutter!

5. Stop accepting freebies.  Don’t take home everything you’re offered from party, a trade show, or a grocery store.  Don’t bring home travel samples from hotels or events.  Leave them there! 

Hope this helps and I’d love to hear your suggestions for keeping clutter in check.

The Five Best Feng Shui Tips Ever

Feng Shui is about balance and flow in an environment.  Balance refers to balancing your environment using furniture, color, lighting, and accessories.  Flow means energy flow – allowing energy to flow easily throughout your environment like a gentle waterway.  Having too much stuff in your environment or blocking energy flow can make you feel blocked in your life.  As a certified Feng Shui consultant, I ensure that my clients follow these basic Feng Shui principles before we do anything else.

 1. Your front door is considered the mouth of your home and a focal point.  Keep your front door clean and keep the front porch free of clutter.  Replace your door mat if it is worn out. Thick door mats with vibrant designs or colors add soul and uplift your energy. Place potted flowers or greenery on each side of the front door to create an inviting feeling.

 2.  Clear your clutter.  It not only gives you an immediate energy boost, but it alleviates stagnation in your life.  Anywhere that clutter accumulates over a period of time results in causing you to feel stuck – professionally, emotionally, or financially.  Keep your closets organized and discard things that you don’t need or haven’t used in a couple years or more.

 3.  Allow fresh air to circulate throughout your home when weather permits. Turn on fans occasionally to circulate air.  Don’t let air stagnate.  The very best Feng Shui tip is simply accomplished by allowing energy to circulate.  Open floor plans allow for this easier than compartmentalized plans. Also – dust, sweep, vacuüm, and clean your home regularly.

 4.  To add balance and warmth to dark rooms use vibrant fire colors in pillows, artwork, area rugs, and accessories.  Fire colors are red, gold, orange, and yellow, and will energize your space.  Dark areas are perfect areas to put mirrors to reflect light and create energy.

 5.  Remove all furniture, artwork, or accessories that you don’t love, or at least like a lot.  Just because it is a family heirloom, give yourself permission to give it away or “store” it if it doesn’t make you smile!

Want more energy? Declutter!

Your home’s condition and its state of organization often mirrors your state of mind.  When I’ve gone through challenging periods in my life or simply a week of the flu, things in my closet find themselves in a clump and everything gets just a bit more cluttered.  Temporary messes are simply part of life.  However, chronic disorganization and clutter can negatively affect your life. 

Disorganization of “stuff” creates disharmony in your life.  According to Feng Shui, allowing energy to flow smoothly is vital to feeling balanced and harmonious in your life.  When things are disorganized, so is the energy around them.

What comes first, the chicken or the egg?  If your closet is clean, then you’re probably in a good frame of mind.  But if you’re not feeling so great emotionally, cleaning out your closet will help change your attitude and will lift your energy.

Want to feel better emotionally and psychologically?  Here are five “hot-spots” for cleaning out clutter and allowing energy to move in your life :

1.  Bedroom closets – if you have a lot of stuff here you’re liable to feel stagnation in your life.  Make a commitment to clean out closets and give away items that you haven’t worn in a while.  Keep your closet as organized as possible.  Not only will more energy flow in your life (in the form of opportunities) but practically speaking you’ll feel more balanced when you walk into your closet.

2.  Kitchen Pantry –  it can be easy to let things get disorganized in the pantry and to overlook cans that’ve been sitting around for years.   Re-organizing your pantry will uplift your spirits. If every time you open the pantry you think “I really need to organize this” then it’s draining your energy.  Instead, schedule a block of time and clean it out.

3.  Desk Drawers – it’s easy to build clutter here!  It may simply be impractical not to have a bit of disorganization here.  But if everything is just thrown in the drawer it affects you psychologically, feeling more “out-of-control.”  It can help your peace of mind and thought process to have a reasonably organized desk.

4.  Refrigerator – I still remember my shock when I opened the refrigerator in the home of a Feng Shui teacher at a conference I attended.  She was a well-respected teacher, yet her fridge had a lot of decaying food in it.  Definitely not good energy to have in your life.  I lost a little confidence in her credibility after that.  Clean out your fridge and wipe it off debris for an instant energy boost.

5.   Under the bed – having lots of stuff under your bed can interfere with sleeping.  If you have clothes or neatly packed items that don’t give off sharp, chaotic energy don’t worry about it.  Mirrors and sharp objects are the biggest culprits for causing chaotic sleep patterns.  Remove dust bunnies  because they’ll cause stagnate energy and you don’t need to absorb that type of energy when you’re sleeping.  Cleaning under your bed will keep the energy healthy.