Another Way to Destress

One of the major causes of stress, is clutter. The ability to be able to reduce clutter can, simultaneously, also reduce the amount of stress in your life. Since this is a daunting task for many people, I have come up with a list of strategies to help you eliminate some of the clutter, and hopefully, will also help reduce some of your stress as well. Forget about cleaning out your closets first. Instead pick a highly visible area, like your dining room table or desk and focus on that first. If you need incentive to keep the area clean, take before and after photos and keep them handy so that you can stay motivated to keep the area clean. Finish each project before starting another. While you are cleaning up your clutter, sort everything into empty cartons. One would be for the stuff that is to be immediately thrown away, while the other box will be those items which you want to save. Make sure you set aside a separate pile or box of things that need to be addressed immediately, like bills that need to be paid. Make sure you follow through with these items as soon as possible. Unpaid bills are a great source of stress and attending to these immediately is important. Make up your mind that you will use these places for their original intentions. For instance, the dining room table is for eating, not for storing your unread mail and unopen bills. Make separate areas for those things or immediately discard or recyle that which has no place in your life. Keep the area continuously clean by surveying from time to time. I recently redecorated my office and cleaning and reorganizing my desk gave me such a huge relief. Not being able to find things like my address book or my checkbook was making me crazy so using these techniques really did help reduce stress in my own life. A little hint....I went to the dollar store and bought a few small plastic bins which I store in a cabinet in my office. I put things in their like my kids' school calendar, address books, stamps, envelopes, stapler, tape and various papers I need for the different jobs that I do. This was a great way for me to personally organize myself.