I often come across clients who appear to be stuck in a vicious circle. They feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things they are surrounded by and that leads to a level of distraction that makes it impossible to focus enough to take action and remove some of the items that create the overwhelm in the first place. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place!

These blogs are often about organising subjects and they tend to be rather more step-by-step than some of you may prefer to see, especially if you are more creative/visceral than technically inclined. There is indeed a difference between the ways a creative person would approach certain activities and those of a more organised nature.

Even if you are acutely aware that things need to be sorted out in your home on occasion, there is one spot you probably overlook: the kitchen.

Don't worry: I’m reasonably sure you do your best to keep your kitchen clean and putting away your dishes once they are clean.

I have mentioned the notion of guilt in the context of clutter on many occasions, but never really elaborated what this means in practical terms. Guilt is a powerful reason for us to hang on to items that would be better served with letting them go.

Our mind is a powerful tool to help us get through life, but it also is strong enough to influence our behaviour and make us do things that are not in our best interest. Just think about obsessive compulsive disorder or addictive behaviour – yes: addiction can have physical elements that keep it going, but no addiction is complete without a mental element to it, right?

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?