We are all lazy people, and don’t you dare deny it! When it comes to security on the computer hardware we keep lugging around with us, we often forget about the most basic levels of data security. If we don’t see an absolute necessity, are forced to do it, or are particularly obsessed with security, this is the kind of thing none of us are particularly aware of, yet sort of worried about.

Maybe it’s time to take a good look at this issue.

Whenever you clean our house, or you prepare things to be put into the washing machine, or look in that ‘just for a moment so it’s out of the way for now’ drawer, you will come across things we didn’t expect to find. Sometimes those are eye-opening finds, even shocking ones. But some of them turn out to be lovely surprises that make your day!

At first thought you’d assume that any such surprises are limited to neglected households, hoarders (as seen on tv), people living in squalor, etc. From personal experience I can confirm, though, that the unexpected can happen anywhere…

Unless there is a clear and pressing reason to downsize, letting go of the stuff you have been living with for a long time is usually a challenging process. Unfortunately, letting go is far more than simply deciding what stays and what goes!

The reasoning for keeping something can come from all kinds of different directions: sentimental attachment, not being aware of the presence of something, (perceived) monetary value, sense of obligation, shame for having bought something in the first place,… the list is endless and this is just the top of the iceberg.

However, there is a more tangible reason for having a hard time making decisions.

Usually, decluttering is all about the nitty-gritty of things sitting in our living spaces: small trinkets sitting all over the place, an overload of paperwork, overfull drawers and wardrobes… that kind of thing.

What we usually overlook are the larger items that hide in plain sight: furniture, large paintings, white goods, bicycles/motorcycles, garden equipment, remainders of past DIY projects like piles of bricks, sheets of plasterboard, long pieces of wood, etc. What do you do with those?

Sometimes it is hard to focus on the task at hand, or even on whatever is waiting ahead of you to be taken care of. Our minds often do what they want and we need to find ways to keep them centred on what matters most at this time.

In many cases, that lack of focus is the result of a mindset that is bent on external things and has all but forgotten that there is an internal part as well.

Who hasn’t heard that cliché: A moaning woman in front of an overflowing wardrobe, proclaiming “I have nothing to wear”? It’s a cliché, of course, but there seems to be some truth to this strange occurrence. And believe me, it’s not limited to women at all, I have seen men’s wardrobes with exactly the same comment from their owners, if with a slightly different intonation and background.

What is this all about? I can imagine several reasons behind this strange behaviour.

Pretty much exactly a year ago, I have published a blog post on the subject of accounts and passwords, and boy, oh boy! never has the content been more relevant than in the times of GDPR compliance.

Last year’s post was all about supplying information when setting up accounts and using online services (and that includes facebook, linkedin, Instagram, snapchat, twitter, your online bank, subscriptions to groupon, amazon, ebay, asana, podio, … basically anything you sign up for) and the subject of password security (remember: use complicated passwords, different ones for each account and change them regularly). Let’s have a look at where we find ourselves today…

When I started out being a declutterer & organiser, I actually was more of an organiser, because I quickly focused on dealing with all manner of administrative things as a self-employed agent. Why? Because I got stuck in my comfort zone: ‘all things administrative’ was exactly what I had done as an employee for many years before and I felt confident enough to do this on my own (with added responsibility for finding my own clients, of course…)

Over time, I realised that I had lost sight of the residential decluttering side of my business and when I developed that side of my business, I found that I was uniquely suited to doing this as well, and my confidence started to soar. I also realised that I my involvement in personal development over the years had handed me a number of tools that came in handy for this line of work.

After all the theory, I thought I’d go with a little more practical for once. If this works, I might just do more of those little projects for you to marvel at. Yes, indeed, these are very small projects that take no more than maybe 15 minutes, but each of those may just make a huge difference to you.

Last week, I opened the cupboard under my kitchen sink to take out a measuring tape from the DIY bucket and thought to myself that this space could need a bit of updating. Quite apart from the fact that I have a DIY bucket, that is!

You have a read a lot about the subject of habits, how they affect your daily life, how hard it is to change them, what tools you could use to make changes, not the least on this blog. However, whenever you read about habits, it’s usually written to point out the bad ones and how to replace them with good ones, right?

This may come as a bit of a surprise, but many habits are good ones, and while they rarely get addressed, they are much more part of your life than you would ever have imagined…