Cleaning vs. Shuffling – It’s all about decisions

As the Extreme Cleaning project rolls on, I’m finding myself hitting a common problem: shuffling.

Anyone who has studied any sort of organizing book or system has come across this problem.  Ever heard of “touch it only once”?  This is a common office organizational tip.  The trick is to make sure you only touch a piece of paper once.  In other words, make a decision about what it means and where it goes the first time you run across it.  Often you’ll find stacks of papers on the desks of many people, and you can be assured that these people are not using this as a fancy organizing system.

The difficulty in making decisions can be a frustrating problem.  Not only that, but in the mostly digital age we are living in, it is overly easy to shuffle your digital junk from one undecided folder to another.

Where does shuffling come from and how can this be solved so we’re not shuffling our crap around from one place to another?

Solving the Shuffling Problem

To solve this problem, we need to figure out what it really means to make a decision.

Making a decision about your stuff is coming to a conclusion about what something means to you.  It’s as simple as that, but can complicated beyond belief.

To solve the decision making problem, we need to address our Life Purpose.  I will address the critical aspect of deciding a Life Purpose in an upcoming post, but for now we need to address the reason why this is so important.

If you don’t have a direction in your life, a purpose, or something to flow your energy towards, the resulting confusion can show up in many ways.  Common ways are varied: watching too much TV, overeating, depression, messiness, boredom.  This all stems from not having a true purpose that fulfills the core of your being or at least gives a direction to point towards.

Let’s see how this applies to our little shuffling problem:

Let’s say that you have not given serious thought to your Life Purpose and you have a vague sense of “what you like” in life.  You know something isn’t the way you want, so you sign up to certain mailing lists online that provide excellent articles on a particular topic like starting a business.  These emails come in frequently and are chock full of amazing tips and resources.  Each time one comes in, you get excited, read it, and then you either leave it in your inbox or file it in a folder called “Starting a Business.”  Then you go about your day.

What happened here?

This was done incorrectly and will ultimately lead you to probably never act on starting a business.

This happens to a lot of raw hopefuls out there.  They sign up to blogs, mailing lists, buy recipe books, but they are not serious about being a raw foodists.  Maybe they’ve made a few recipes, but their growing collection of raw information isn’t helping them go raw because they have not made the decision to actually do it.  They are still in the “someday” phase and it’s almost like a drug.  They get satisfied when the latest raw email comes into their inbox, thinking they are doing something for their health when dinner time comes they just go out and eat dinner like always.  They will probably feel a little twinge of guilt while eating or a lot of guilt afterwards, and then resolve that this won’t happen again.

But of course it does.  The cycle continues.

This cycle can be broken by making a decision.

Decision Making is a Muscle

Just like anything in life, decision making is something you must work at.  You’re probably going to fail once you make your first few conscious true decisions, but once you get a few under your belt, you’ll understand a little more about what it makes to truly make a decision.

Start small and follow through.  Build that  muscle.  But you will need to come to a point where you can trust your decision making abilities 100%.  Once you get to that point, you know for a fact that when you make a decision, you will stick with it no matter what.

Once you have this decision making muscle in full-swing, you can then use it to tackle other parts of your life, like during Extreme Cleaning or some other process you keep finding yourself shuffling things around in.

Just learning to make decision isn’t going to solve shuffling.  You need to turn your awareness on to catch yourself when you are doing shuffling instead of making decisions.  We humans have a tendancy to shuffle and not even notice that we’re doing it.  In this age of information overload, this decision making muscle is going to become more and more important as more things vie for our attention on a daily basis.

Now, don’t just file this article away in a  “cool ideas for later” folder.  Act on it now.  Work on a Life Purpose, strengthen your decision making muscle, and catch yourself red-handed the next time you are shuffling.

Related Posts:

• Join the 24 Hour Cleanup Project! – Extreme Cleaning Update 3
• The Biggest Mistake People Make When Trying to Get Organized – Extreme Cleaning Update 2
• Extreme Cleaning FAQ

What is the 24 Hour Cleanup Project?

I have a problem.

I’ve been going strong on my Extreme Cleaning project for the past few weeks, only to hit a roadblock.

I found myself constantly putting off the deeper, more meaningful physical cleaning that I want to do because of the stuff around me that needed constant, immediate attention:  dishes, laundry, the boxes sitting out, etc.

Since it’s going to be quite a cold day tomorrow with a possible storm tonight, Heidi and I are planning to hole ourselves up in our home and turn off all access to everything.  We are going to take the next 24 hours to focus all of our effort and time to completely and utterly clean up our surrounding area until everything is spotless, in its place, and ready for the deeper cleaning we both have planned…

Preparing for Extreme Cleaning is Just as Important as Extreme Cleaning Itself

If you choose to join me, you can use the opportunity to prepare for a more conscious, deeper cleaning of your physical environment (like Extreme Cleaning), or you can use it as a way to prepare for any New Years Resolutions you may have.

The problem with most New Years Resolutions is not that they are difficult to maintain, but that we are not prepared for them when they come.  Do you think that after a whole day of drinking and partying that you are going to want to start on a resolution the next day?  Maybe, but you probably won’t stick to it.  I know I wouldn’t.

So use this as a time to get ready for a real New Years Resolution, one you will actually keep.  Find out what it is, what you need to do to plan for it, and you can then hit the ground running on January 1st, fully prepared and ready to go.

If you are ready to join me, then log off the Internet starting at midnight tonight, get a plan together to tackle your mess, and get ready for some Now Cleaning.

If you are going to join me, go ahead and Tweet or blog about it, announce it to the world!  Make yourself accountable!

Do it now.

Oh, and make sure to turn off your phones, prepare your food, and get anything else ready so you have no excuse to be distracted.

Happy cleaning,

~ JS

Related Posts:

• Making Decisions – Shuffling vs True Extreme Cleaning
• The Biggest Mistake People Make When Trying to Get Organized – Extreme Cleaning Update 2
• Extreme Cleaning FAQ

With Extreme Cleaning comes Extreme Circumstances.

I knew, from experience, that cleaning out my life always brings unexpected changes, but now that I am diving deeper than ever before, I’m experiencing some incredible events.  Painful and pleasurable.

One thing for sure is happening:  growth.

The Biggest Mistake Most People Make When Organizing

After years of cleaning out my life I’ve realized one very important lesson.  It took this exercise of Extreme Cleaning to really “get it”.

Before I tell you that lesson, I want to mention that I’ve read, taken notes on, and categorized just about every single book on organizing your physical and informational life imaginable.  I’ve tried all these tricks, tips, and techniques…with minimal to moderate results.

I’m no organizational newbie.

Even though I did receive certain positive results from each of these books and articles, the biggest single oversight that these organizational “experts” are missing is that organizing is more than just shuffling your crap around.

Some books and philosophies are better than others.  Some are smart enough to tell you that you have to really go through all your stuff and make some tough decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of.  Emotions will come up.

But after years of monkeying around with these organizational tools and techniques, it’s taken me this process of Extreme Cleaning to realize that you should never have to truly organize your life very often, if done properly.  If you do this process of Extreme Cleaning properly, the rest is just maintenance…better known as “shuffling stuff around”.

Extreme Cleaning is a life changing process.

If you really get into the heart of this, you’re going to start asking the tough questions.  Questions like “What does this thing I have say about me?”  “What am I organizing for?”  “Who do I want to be?”  “Who am I, really?”

This is really about digging through the crap that society has programmed you to purchase and “own” and finally getting down to the core of yourself.  That’s right folks, modern society is doing everything it can to prevent you from discovering your true self and making sure you keep buying and using and buying and using.  No, this isn’t some grand conspiracy theory, it’s capitalism.  Nothing wrong with a free market economy, but you’ve got to be smarter than the people selling you the things you want.  Ask yourself:  “Will this item truly enhance my life?”

Each thing that you bring it requires your most precious asset:  attention.  Not time, not money, not space…attention.

You must decide what it is, where it goes, how to use it, how to maintain it, how it should be stored, cleaned…the list goes on and on.  Multiply this by the thousands of items you have and your true life and purpose can easily get buried in just paperclips and forks alone!

Stripping it All Down

I’m going to leave it at that for now, but realize that this procedure is designed to strip you down to the absolute base of who you are.  Most people may think you are crazy and run screaming from the idea of questioning every single thing they own, every single thought they still hold, and every single thing that is a part of their lives.

Don’t trick yourself into thinking you’re going to “get organized” someday.  That will never truly happen.

Strip yourself down, Extreme Clean your life, and get ready to Live the Best Life Ever.

~ JS

Action Steps You Can Take:

• Get your immediate surroundings cleaned up now.  Don’t get caught up in maintenance mode quite yet.
• Throw or give something away that makes you uncomfortable.  Strengthen that part of you.
• Create a Life Purpose statement.  More on that later.

Related Posts:

• Three Keys to Start Your Extreme Cleaning and Update 1.
• Making Decisions – Shuffling vs True Extreme Cleaning
• Life Alchemy – Designing Your Life Like a Mad Scientist

Extreme Cleaning FAQ

I’ve been having a lot of people write in and ask some questions about my current Extreme Cleaning project.  I thought it would be best to answer them in a FAQ format instead of answering them individually.  This way, all of my readers can benefit from the answer to these questions.

Are you really going to go through every paper clip and piece of paper you own?

Yes.  This is one of the most ambitiousi t projects I’ve ever undertaken.  What a lot of people don’t understand, is that they actually own a lot more stuff (physical, digital, and emotional) than they realize.  I’ve been very astute at cleaning out my life from time-to-time, and the amount of “stuff” I still own that does not contribute to my life is astounding.  I have a Clear Vision of my life after this project, and it excites me like nothing else I can describe.

When do you plan on finishing all of this up?

My goal is to get all of it done by January 1st, 2009.  I realize that this may not be realistic, and with my current time constraints I may not be able to accomplish this goal, but that doesn’t bother me.  The fact that I am setting a goal is more than enough to keep me satisfied.  I will work on it until it is done, however.

Don’t you think there is no end to something like this?  Can you ever truly be ‘Extremely Clean’?

Yes, there is no end.  I realize that and I’ve been i that trap before.  There needs to be an end goal in sight here, otherwise more stuff will come in and I’ll never be able to get to that magic point.  The way to solve this dilemma is simple: the stuff that’s been hanging around is on my list, new stuff is not.  If new stuff comes in and I can clean it, cool.  If not, no worries.  It’s the older stuff that’s on my list that’s in my sights.

What’s your plan after this project?

I’ve got a lot of plans after this project, but this is the foundation.  I don’t want to get into anything too specific, but I will for sure be starting the Public Album project I launched a while back.

How can you clean out emotional stuff?  I don’t get it.

‘Emotional  Stuff’ are things we mentally hang on to that don’t serve us: fears, negative thoughts, past experiences that were painful that still pain us, etc.  There is no room in my life for these things anymore.  They are unnecessary, harmful, and dangerous to my goals.  While I’m not sitting in a room thinking about these things all day long, some of them are in my consciousness and others can be opened up easily when thought about.  Whether or not they are directly affecting my life right now, I am on the path to resolving them emotionally.  Or as EFT practitioners would say bringing them down to a “zero”.

~ JS

Related Posts:

• Making Decisions – Shuffling vs True Extreme Cleaning
• Join the 24 Hour Cleanup Project! – Extreme Cleaning Update 3
• The Biggest Mistake People Make When Trying to Get Organized – Extreme Cleaning Update 2

You Need These Three Things to Effectively and Massively Clean and Clear Your Life

If you are just starting out on your Extreme Cleaning adventure, I recommend the following Three Keys to Start Extreme Cleaning as a way to start on the right foot:

1. Immediate Surroundings – Clean up your immediate areas first.  Get the dishes done, pick up your room, clean out your inbox, go get your headlight fixed.  There is no way you are going to want to or be able to get deeper without cleaning the surface areas first.
2. Make a List That You Can Refer To – Start a document on  your computer or a page in your journal or a notebook.  Just brainstorm and write down all the areas you can think of off the top of your head that you’d like to go through or that you know need some work.  I like doing this on a computer because you can keep updating it as new things come up and then take things off as you complete them.  You can also keep this as a long-term document for maintenance.
3. Imagine Your New Life – What is your life going to look like when you only own what you truly use and love?  How will you build your new life, your new self after this intense project?  You always here about having a Clear Vision before starting any endeavor, but you may never realize how important it really is unless you give it some serious effort.  Don’t get too hung up on it, though, you need to start taking action soon.

I quickly noticed that without #1, I had no desire to go deeper.  I could spend the rest of my life always getting to those dishes and never getting to the important stuff.  Clean up your surroundings first.

Without #2, you’ll never know where to go next.  You need it detailed out in front of you.  You need to see how much work you have ahead of you and a place to capture new ideas and areas when they come to you.  Once you clean one area up, ideas for further cleansing and refining come out.

And #3 is probably the most important.  You will have no motivation if you don’t imagine a better life.  Without improving your life in a massive way, what’s the point?

Haven’t Started Your Extreme Cleaning Yet?

Get it on.  Now.  I’ve also dubbed this Now Cleaning over at Raw Food Right Now because this is something you do now.  You can never do anything later.  I don’t care how many times you’ve heard some self-help guru say this, it’s true.  Just get it done.

Being a regular reader of JSOhlander.com, I will constantly call my readers to action.  If I don’t get you to do anything to improve your life, then this is just another pointless self-promoting site that adds nothing to your life.  I could wax philosophical on thousands of self-help theories and ideas like many other authors, but unless I give you concrete, real-world steps to take that actually help you immediately, I have failed you.  So please, take some inspiration and action from what I’m saying.

I will continue to use my life and stories as further inspiration and to offer real-world examples of someone applying action steps to continually improve their lives.

How Is Your Extreme Cleaning Going JS?

Even though I’ve found little time to really get into it (a common excuse, I am aware), the massive changes I’ve felt and had from the little I have done are incredible.  My Clear Vision for this project is getting clearer and  my excitement and expectations for this keep ramping up.

I do find a little resistance for the deeper cleaning I know I have ahead of me, but my Clear Vision is what really keeps me going forward strong.

I am noticing that with each layer of cleaning and clearing I am doing, my diet is automatically becoming more ideal for me.  I am craving some of the heavier and more processed things less, and my desire for more simple foods (and their effect on me) increase.  This connection between internal (bodily) environment and external environment is not just some New Age bullshit.  Try it and see.

To The Best Life Ever,

~ JS

Related Posts:

• The Biggest Mistake People Make When Trying to Get Organized – Extreme Cleaning Update 2
• Making Decisions – Shuffling vs True Extreme Cleaning
• Life Alchemy – Designing Your Life Like a Mad Scientist

Yeah, it sounds like some new crazy sport that 21 year old energy-drinking, over-the-top men are currently all enraged about.

But no, I won’t be diving off any cliffs while ironing or anything like that.  This is something a little more deep.

Clean Yourself, Your Home, Your Life…Leave No Stone Unturned

I’m no stranger to life simplification.  I’m not even a stranger to throwing everything out and starting over.  I’ve done it before, and I’m sure I’ll do it again.  When I feel like my life has stagnated in any way, I get this strong urge to get rid of everything and start from scratch.  It’s sort of a hobby of mine.

I’ve been feeling the pull again recently, and while I’ve done some Life Cleaning lately, I knew something was missing.

So I sat down and did some journaling.  Why did I feel like I was suffocating in stuff, ideas, and unnecessary goals?  What was at the heart of my desire to purge again?

I’ve Never Really, Totally Cleaned My Life Up Before

It then hit me like a ton of bricks…I’ve never really cleaned my life up the way I’ve wanted to before.  I mean really cleaned it up.

For example, in 2004 Heidi and I made a quick decision to sell everything, pack up and move to another part of the country:  Philadelphia.  While we only lasted there about 9 or so months before we got the itch to come back, we did some major selling and purging before we left.

I spent weeks at a time on eBay, selling everything that I could think of; not because we needed the money, but because we needed the space, the freshness.  The newness was what we were really looking for.

We even ended up selling both of our cars.

But when we got back to Minnesota, I realized that I really ended up just packing up a lot of my past junk into boxes that just ended up in storage.  Not only that, but we somehow managed to accumulate a whole lot of new stuff that amazes me when I look at it…do we ever use this stuff?

It’s Not Just the Physical Stuff

I believe that your physical stuff mirrors your inner “stuff”.  Your inner stuff also mirrors your physical stuff.  That’s why when a lot of people first find out about raw food, they become obsessed with internal detoxification and cleansing; they want that old crap out as quick as possible so they can feed themselves only the best stuff to rebuild their bodies from.

Years of mistakes can go away in a matter of minutes with tools like colon cleansing and a body can be rebuilt from scratch by a simple Juice Feast.

At the time I moved to Philadelphia, I was just in the beginning stages of my raw food journey, and neither Heidi nor I had done much cleansing besides experimenting with raw foods.  Raw foods in itself is a very cleansing diet and many people use it specifically for that purpose.

But I never really gave myself a good internal cleansing physically, besides my short Juice Feast earlier this year.

At that time, I was just discovering the world of personal development.  I had yet to come across tools like EFT that are designed to clean out your emotions from past memories and current fears.

I had also let go of a lot of my past relationships, goals, and life.  I wanted to just be for a while.

After Over Four Years with Raw Food, I’m Ready For More

I’ve decided to do some Extreme Cleaning.  Break it all down, power wash it, and build it back up from scratch.

Don’t get me wrong, there are so many amazing things in my life right now that I would never want to get rid of.  This is an opportunity to further appreciate those while eliminating many unnecessary things and activities in my life…and also a time to build new things.

Perhaps you have heard of Zero Based Thinking.  It’s a process where by you start from nothing, and ask “Would I do this again if I was starting over?”  Or my favorite way of doing this in my mind “If I had nothing and was standing in a black, empty space, how would I build my ideal life from scratch?”

Ahhhh…such clean, new thinking, eh?

So, here is the breakdown of how I am going to be using Extreme Cleaning to cleanse, wash, scrub, and rebuild my life:

JS Ohlander Does Extreme Cleaning on JSOhlander.com

• Physical Stuff – Every last scrap of paper, every pen, every cardboard box will be gone through and determined if it needs to stay for any reason.
• Emotional Stuff – Using EFT and other emotional processes to cleanse and rebuild my psyche up to the highest standards possible.
• Bodily Stuff – I still have a lot of weak areas in my diet and health that can be improved.  Still considering doing some more detoxification and cleansing programs.

As the coming weeks and months go by, I am going to do everything in my power to utilize Extreme Cleaning to see what can be done in my life and the result of it.  I have some ideas as to what may occur and how I may feel, but anytime I do anything specific in Personal Growth, I’m always surprised by the outcome, negative or positive.

I already have a lot of ideas for specific things I can do for this experiment.  I may or may not blog about them on here for various reasons.  It depends on if I feel it may help you, the reader, or if I feel comfortable being public about it.

~ JS

Related Posts:

• Making Decisions – Shuffling vs True Extreme Cleaning
• Join the 24 Hour Cleanup Project! – Extreme Cleaning Update 3
• The Biggest Mistake People Make When Trying to Get Organized – Extreme Cleaning Update 2