The Key to Clutter Freedom
Written by Barbara Hemphill | Founder, Productive Environment Institute
Here is the one simple principle that can help you escape the clutter trap and remain clutter-free forever: LOVE IT OR LOSE IT
If there is anything around you that you do not know to be useful, believe to be beautiful, or treasure for reasons of your own, get rid of it. Love it or lose it.
Things you do not love have no place in your heart, and should have no place in your home or workspace. That’s the LOVE IT OR LOSE IT Principle.
This book helps you put that principle to work for you as you launch a Clutter Campaign consisting of five steps. These steps are:
1. DESIGN your vision of how you want to live and work
2. ELIMINATE your excuses that undermine that visio
3. COMMIT your time to take positive actio
4. SELECT your tools to match your personal organizing style
5. MAINTAIN your success and keep the process flowing
Each of the steps is expanded into six options, with accompanying examples and stories of people who have put these ideas to work. The options detail actions proven over time to bring lasting results. They are called “options” because you do not need to do every one of them each time you try to clean up or organize your home or office. If it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and you have sixteen people coming to a holiday dinner, you may want to just jump in and clean up quickly. The stories we will tell will help you see how others have used or adapted the ideas, as well as some of the results they created for themselves as a result.
But if you want one comprehensive, unified strategy for transforming your environment and living clutter-free forever, all of the elements in the steps and options will work together to ensure enduring success. The clutter did not arrive in one single day. It will not be gone in one single day!
The Clutter Campaign is three things: a proven process, a declaration of freedom, and a way of life:
- The PROVEN PROCESS of creating a productive environment
- A DECLARATION OF FREEDOM from surrounding yourself with anything that robs you of focus or function
- A WAY OF LIFE that helps you stay clutter-free forever
The GOAL of the Clutter Campaign is to create a setting where everything you are or wish to be, where everything you do or need to do, is supported by everything around you, and nothing extra weighs you down.
Your focus shifts from “making things better” to making things the best they can be. The Clutter Campaign takes one basic idea as its cornerstone: Clutter is Postponed Decisions®. The campaign helps you make the daily decisions that lead to a life that is clutter-free forever.
This campaign is not based on any one secret ingredient for producing instant results. Instead, it is a life-long plan for creating a healthy, productive environment that nourishes your dreams and directions, while promoting the overall enjoyment of your life and work.
As one person told us, “When the surroundings outside me match the picture in my mind of how I want to live and work, it just makes me peaceful and relaxed, yet stimulated. It’s like environmental endorphins.”
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You just read a part of a chapter from the new 20th-Anniversary publication of my book, Love It or Lose It: Living Clutter-Free Forever, which my friend/colleague Maggie Bedrosian and I wrote together.
Get your own copy today at Love It or Lose It: Living Clutter-Free Forever. https://www.amazon.com/Love-Lose-Living-Clutter-Free-Forever-ebook/dp/B0BVXKX27K/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TUGQ45P3WHY8&keywords=love+it+or+lose+it+barbara+hemphill
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If you missed the registration period for this 4-week program, hang in there!
Because of the positive energy surrounding this new program, Home Office for the Business of Life™ 4 Week LIVE Bootcamp, we will be offering it again!!
To be notified when the new schedule is in place, reply to this article or send me a DM with “Send me more info!” Then sign up to take full advantage of the hands-on guidance that comes with this Live program to live your best life!
Here’s what one of our participants had to say after just the first week:
“I'm loving the program! Can't wait to get those goodies in the mail! Energized and enthusiastic for this journey!”
https://www.productiveenvironment.com/hobl-enrollment
Article author
About the Author
In 1978, Barbara took out a $7 ad in a New York City newspaper to advertise her professional organizer business. For 20 years, she focused her business on organizing paper and physical clutter for home offices and organizations. Then the Internet Age came about, and she utilized her principles and expertise to help clients with digital clutter.
Over the past 40+ years Barbara has helped 1000's of companies, and became an icon and top expert in the industry. She has been featured on national media platforms such as Good Morning America, The Today Show and CNN Nightly News. She has also been showcased in publications including USA Today, New York Times, Fast Company, Reader’s Digest, Real Simple and Guideposts.
Barbara and her team teach business owners a 9-step system to go from overwhelmed to optimized. Step 1 is a free Assessment that can be found at https://scorecard.productiveenvironment.com/
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