Letting go of things is hard because they evoke memories of times past. That sounds like a pretty important reason to hang on to a lot of things, but is it really?

We all have items in our collection of things at home that we keep only for sentimental reasons: they remind us of places, situations, adventures or friendships long past. To a certain degree that is a good thing, of course, but some of them could contain an unhealthy element of being tethered to the past when that is not really a positive thing.

Vague terms are your worst enemy: they allow your mind to hang on to things without ever expecting a clarification what you really mean.

If you use words like “someday”, “someone”, “something” for your considerations about keeping something in your home, try hard to replace those words with concrete terms. If you can’t, it’s time to face reality and maybe let go!

How’s your memory doing these days?

There is a good reason to ask that question with regards to any communication you conduct over the phone. Most of us are so ensconced with social media and online communication that it sometimes feels that is all we are actually doing.

I have recently been confronted with a client I quickly pegged as disorganised and troubled by anxiety and attention deficits. Sadly, that first impression persisted and we never managed to get into a stride before he stepped out of the organising process. This is not an unusual state of play: it’s sometimes hard to gauge what the client actually wants and needs, and to ascertain if what they think they want is actually what I need to provide.

In this particular case, I believe I went in a little too blue-eyed.

It’s been shown over and over again that multitasking is pretty much a myth. That does not take away that there are circumstances when we can do two things at once, but only if we focus totally on one thing and the rest is happening more or less on autopilot. Walking and eating works because we can walk without thinking about it, while watching TV and listening to someone is a lot harder, if not impossible.

Multitasking only barely works under very specific circumstances involving different input/output channels. Otherwise, what you end up doing is serial single tasking. So why won’t you stop multitasking already?

When you hear about decluttering and organising, it’s often on the subject of getting more organised and letting go of things, and that is – of course – a huge part of the conversation. However, we rarely hear anyone speak about what their understanding of “organised” actually is.

At which point does disorganisation become cluttered? A similar question applies to organisation: when does an organised space or schedule or life become a disorganised one?

Do you often feel as if time is running away from you? The day is over and a long list of things to do has only shortened by a small margin? When you take a look at your to do list you often end up realising that a lot of the items remain unchecked, making you feel like you haven’t achieved anything on that day?

Why is that?

Most of us are under the impression that we need things to remind us of whatever adventures and experiences we have been through. Besides, all of us have that rather annoying tendency to collect things and find more of the same.

What does this add up to? A growing collection of memorabilia, of course.

Have you ever watched any of the decluttering or hoarding programs on TV? Here’s an interesting question you may not have considered yet:

“What happens after the big declutter?”

When we think about decluttering, and especially while we are at it, we tend to think about what we are about to eject from our lives. Maybe there is benefit in reminding yourself of the reason why you are doing it in the first place.

That reason, almost always, is that we want to move on.