Things To Consider Today

Do Not Let Less Important Things Clutter Your Life

We all have various things that fill our lives. Some of these things are more important than others. And in our daily efforts to do what we should and need to do, it’s easy to let the less important things take time and energy and other resources away from more important things. As this happens, our priorities are not always clear and even if they are, we do not always follow them in a strict manner. We can become too focused on today or this week and perhaps this month. In the process our long-term perspective allows our short-term perspective to govern. Then as we look back in time, we see that we focused too much of our efforts or allowed too many of our resources to be utilized on things that were not really that important in the long run.

Each of us have a random selection of little things that uses up time and energy and money. If we are not careful, these little things can increase in number and have more impact on our lives. The end result is more disorder, confusion, the frustration. Priorities are harder to maintain. If goals have been set, less of them will be met. A limited number of these little things is normal. But too many of them began to work against us or become clutter in our lives. The work clutter, as used here, refers to filling our lives with too many small and less important things that take away our attention and efforts from more important things.

Let me give some examples of typical clutter. How many of you receive a lot of junk mail and find yourselves spending time reading it? You should be able to sort through this mail fast and throw away most of it. But if you spend too much time reading through it or dwelling on it, then it changes from a necessary task that you have to do periodically to more clutter in your life.

How many of you daydream a lot, or let your mind wander off what you should be focusing on? You may be in a conversation with someone and thinking about something else. You may be in a class and thinking about an event outside of the class. In these and other common ways, your mind is not focused, but has more random and disorganized thinking going on. There is more mental clutter and you cannot really do your best with the task at hand.

Many people buy more and more material goods. Pretty soon their homes and garages are full. Then they get a storage unit and put more goods there. How many of these material goods are really necessary? Some of these goods are probably nonessential. Extra goods require effort and money to buy them, maintain them, and store them. These goods represent additional clutter in our lives.

Sometimes we take upon ourselves more duties and responsibilities then we should. We then feel overwhelmed and dissatisfied because we can’t seem to do everything in a satisfactory manner or to the degree of quality that we originally intended. We are essentially operating in overload. The answer is to simplify. Are all these duties and responsibilities really essential or necessary at this time? If some are not, then get rid of them because they are merely additional clutter in your life.

Some people place too much emphasis on a responsibility, activity or relationship. This commits them to doing things that are not necessary. For example, a parent has a child who joins a soccer team. The parent somehow gets the idea that to show proper support for the child’s activity, the parent has to attend all the soccer games. This is not true. Attending a few games is all that is ever needed. The time spent in attending additional games could be used in doing something more important. The attending of additional games becomes more clutter in the life of the parent ,who has a variety of other responsibilities and duties where this time could be spent more effectively.

As the above examples illustrate, there are many ways that each of us can have clutter in our lives. The amount of that clutter can vary over time. The important thing is to recognize that clutter exists and to keep it under control. It we don’t, it will rob us of time and money and energy. We will be less effective in doing what we should. There will be less organization or structure in our lives. Ultimately, less will be accomplished.

I challenge you to look at your life today and identify the clutter in it. One suggestion is to monitor what you think about and the little things you do for a week. This will help you become more aware of the type and amount of clutter in your life. Then you’ll be in a better position to do something about it. Depending on what you observe after one week, you may want to go another week or even wait until after one month of monitoring. When your monitoring is done, determine what is a reasonable amount of clutter for you. Then make an effort to replace unnecessary clutter with more important things. If you’ll do this today, in the future you will be able to look back in time and see a more productive and fulfilling life for yourself.

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Copyright 2009 Leland Pulleyy