Clear Your “Life Clutter”
Clutter: a disorderly heap or assemblage.
In today’s fast-paced, highly-connected world, some may say we are living in clutter. There is material clutter in our homes, role or task clutter at work, news clutter from media outlets, and social media…social media is clutter. Everyone is living distracted!
By clearing out some of the clutter in your life, you can focus on your goals and aspirations. (Or at least you could focus on a more important task.) So how can you do it?
Mental Inventory
First, you have to take a mental inventory and understand the desired outcome of your clutter clearing project.
- What are you trying to declutter and what is its main purpose in your life?
- What are you really going to need?
- What do you have that can be used to improve the current state?
Organize Like Items
Once you have a steady grip on what you are trying to do, organize the like items. Whether you are separating high heels from spin shoes or W-4’s from I-9’s, you have to put things that go together in the same landing spot.
Reduce and Reuse
Now that you have palpable goals and semi-organized clutter at your fingertips, the next thing to do is reduce your inventory. You may find duplicates or outdated items that can be purged from your collection of clutter. Also, things that will not be used can be removed and placed somewhere more functional, be recycled, or even trashed.
Examine Functionality
Finally, in order to prevent future clutter-ups, you must analyze the functionality of your current processes that caused the clutter in the first place. Do you have a system in place for organizing new items? If not, you need one. When you get your kids 5 new coloring books, the older ones with mostly colored pages get tossed, right? Use that same principle and apply it to your clutter!
Now wherever clutter was causing chaos, you can have a relaxed and functional environment. You can apply these steps to your junk drawer, closet, pantry, desk, and your career.
P.S. If you’re a hiring manager, apply these steps to your HR tasks by utilizing hiring software. ExactHire Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), employee onboarding software, and various integrations make the hiring process practically clutter free– it’s paperless HR!
Image credit: High Efficiency 
by Sean MacEntee (contact)
