Blog » Inspired Everyday Living - Transform Your Home and Life

May 18, 2012 by Laura and Alison

Happiness, Flow, and Cleaning

In part five of our spring clutter-clearing series, we’re focusing on cleaning. Now that you have removed the clutter, it’s time to create a fresh, clean space. Now some people may find this surprising, but cleaning makes us happy—and no we don’t mean just the end result, we actually mean the process! When we get into the flow and rhythm of a good cleaning session, we enjoy ourselves.

Researcher and positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, described flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” (Geriland, 2006)[1]. Flow is well known to “produce intense feelings of enjoyment” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988)[2].

A lot of athletes experience flow when participating in their sport of choice. Musicians experience it when playing and artists when creating. And sometimes you can experience flow at work, when you’re fully engaged in a project. I know I’ve experienced flow when I’m in a challenging vinyasa yoga class or when I’m really in a groove when writing. But I recently realized that I also experience flow while at home doing something very simple… cleaning. Believe it not, I find I can get into the flow when washing dishes, organizing, vacuuming, clutter clearing, etc…

Now I don’t think Csikszentmihalyi was referring to housekeeping when he was talking about flow… he talks about great composers composing music and professional athletes excelling at their sport. He even says that flow usually happens when experiences transcend the everyday and I can’t think of anything more “everyday” than cleaning. Yet, how wonderful if we can bring the experience of flow, even just a taste of it, to our everyday lives. At Inspired Everyday Living we believe that the ordinary can be extraordinary. With intention, we can elevate the everyday moments.

For me there is something similar between flow and meditation. When in a meditative state or in a flow, our minds quiet and all the babble that constantly runs through our heads, disappears—at least for awhile. Our busy minds get to rest and we allow something else to takeover. When I’m doing dishes (especially by hand), making the bed, or doing laundry, I can actually zone out—especially when I play great music and just focus on the task. Now not at all tasks are fun—I’m not a fan of putting dishes away for example—but I’ve learned that many of the tasks can be enjoyable. And when you get in the flow of cleaning, you will emerge as fresh and renewed as your space.

How to get in the flow when cleaning:

Set aside/schedule time so you don’t feel you have other things you need to be doing and can focus on the task at hand.

Conventional household cleaning products contain harsh chemicals that can irritate your skin and lungs, cause headaches, and are the leading causes of indoor air pollution. So replace chemical-laden cleaning products and get great, healthy, all natural cleaning products in a scent you love, such as lavender, lemon or orange.

Open windows and let in the fresh air. By opening your windows to ventilate your home on a regular basis. Many of the products we use to clean and the materials we use to decorate and build contain toxic chemicals that off-gas and pollute the air we breathe. A study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that pollution inside a home could be two to five times higher than outside the home, even in large, industrialized cities. Opening windows creates a way for chemicals released from common household items to exit and fresh air to enter.  In addition, sunlight can uplift our spirits. It is also is an effective way to cleanse linens and blankets killing dust mites. So open curtains and blinds during the day to let sunlight into your home and hang carpets, sheets and blankets in the sun occasionally.

Play great music. A friend of ours once suggested making a clutter-clearing or cleaning soundtrack with her favorite songs—she used it as a timer as well as inspiration and would clean or clutter-clear until the music ended.

If you like this blog, you may also like:
The Joy of All Natural Cleaning Products
A Dozen Must Haves for a Healthier Home
Redefining Homemaking

[1] Geirland, John (1996). “Go With The Flow”. Wired magazine, September, Issue 4.09.

[2] Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988), “The flow experience and its significance for human psychology”, in Csikszentmihalyi, M., Optimal experience: psychological studies of flow in consciousness, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15–35

Clutter–Free Habits

Last week in part three of our clutter series, we shared our step-by-step plan to clear your clutter. If you were able to take the time to follow the steps, you have probably experienced the joys of a clutter-free space and now want to keep it that way!

This week, in part four of our clutter-clearing series, we’re focusing on how to maintain a clutter-free space. Clutter is really just a symptom of our habits or beliefs. We need to get to root of the problem by changing the habits that create clutter. If we don’t, we often just continue an endless cycle of accumulating and then clearing clutter.

Here are a few tips to change the habits that create clutter:

Raise your awareness and develop a new mindset. We need to take a good, honest look at how much of our valuable energy and time is spent being a consumer. Take a moment to think about how much time you take out of your day that involves your material stuff. An easy way to do this is to look at your to-do list and see how many of those tasks involve being a consumer or taking care of items you own. How much time and energy do you spend thinking about what you want to buy, researching products and prices, buying, returning, or exchanging, learning how to use, organizing, cleaning, maintaining, fixing, storing, dry cleaning, or altering… your stuff?

Ask before you buy. To help stop the cycle of accumulating clutter, ask yourself the following questions before you make a purchase:
Will I use it
Do I love it?
Is it beautiful?
Is it functional?
Is it healthy for me, my home and the earth?
Do I have a place for it?
Do I need it all the time? Could I borrow from a friend?
Do I have time to learn how to use it?
Is there something else in my house that already fulfills the same purpose?
Will it replace something? Do I have time to find a home for what it is replacing? i.e. drive to the charity/ mail it/ special recycling etc.

Keep a someday/maybe to-buy list. Write down what you want and then wait one month before you buy. Writing it down on your list will help pacify that “I have to have it” need.

Find a home for everything. Have a place for everything in your home and put things away. Develop the habit of always putting back what you take out.

Make it easy. Make sure the place you find for each object is accessible. Don’t go against your nature. For example, if you are a pile person don’t try to make yourself a file person. If you’re not going to file your paperwork, get baskets or boxes. If you don’t take the time to hang up your coat, get hooks. If you can’t stop dumping the mail on your kitchen table, put a basket on the table to house the mail. If your kids won’t put their shoes away, get a shoe rack or place a big basket next to the door.

Let your stuff find you, rather than seeking it out. Don’t page through catalogues, cruise online, or shop unless you are looking for something specific. If the information or product is important enough or necessary, it will present itself to you.

Listen to your body. Your body usually lets you know if you made a good purchase. Do you feel good when you buy it? Do you walk out of the store without hesitation? Or do you have a sinking, nagging feeling that you made a mistake, it’s not in your budget, or you don’t need it? A telltale sign of regret- if you wait to cut off the price tags or keep your purchases in the shopping bag. If you do, you’re probably not 100% sure it was good purchase.

Bring something into your home, let something go. It’s simple and retains an equilibrium of stuff.

Schedule time. Make clearing a habit/practice by scheduling time for clutter clearing regularly. Just like any other part of maintaining a home it takes time and needs to be done consistently.

Make a choice. Deal with things as they come into the house. At the root of the pattern of accumulating clutter is indecision. Get in the habit of making choices. Namely, do you really need it and if so, where will you keep it?

Stay well rested. Often we create clutter (I know I do) when I am too tired at night to put things away.

Don’t over-schedule. Rushing often creates clutter. Moving too fast to put things away properly or clean as you go, not giving yourself time in a store to think clearly about what you need, all add to the clutter.

Limit toys. Make it a policy to buy toys only for holidays and birthdays.

Know your type. Think about what kind of clutter you tend to accumulate and see if there is a habit you can develop to avoid it.

Keep your storage systems simple. Don’t let your organizing systems become clutter. An overly-organized home with too many complicated systems, labels, and containers can feel like clutter too.

Focus on the now. Be present and if you catch yourself thinking I may use it someday—stop right there. Unless you know you will use it, it probably isn’t worth keeping or investing your time and energy.

Trust that your needs will be met. Hand in hand with the above is to trust the universe and that your needs will be met on time and in time. For example, you do not need to store all the research you may use someday. That information will present itself to you with ease and grace when and if you need it.

Connect with a higher purpose. Keep your attention, energy, and focus on things that really matter. Ask yourself what will matter more six months from now… having some new, great item and a perfectly ordered space or having accomplished a meaningful goal, or spent quality time with your spouse or children, etc.?

Process your inner clutter. We often feel overwhelmed not only because of the amount of stuff we have to do, but because we don’t know what it is we need to do. Clear you inner-clutter and unburden yourself by writing it down on paper so you can decide what is truly important and needs your attention/energy now as well as what you may choose to do later or not at all. Getting it down paper, helps get it off your mind!

Be realistic. Home decorating magazines can make us feel as badly about our homes as fashion magazines can make us feel about our self-image. The goal is live to freely and that means a degree of mess. Let go of perfectionism. Find your “good enough”—it would be a shame to miss out on the fun and time with loved ones because we are overly attentive to keeping things in order.

Make peace with the process. Accumulating stuff is natural, so clutter clearing is an ongoing practice. It’s not really about achieving an end result, so learn to enjoy and/or appreciate the process. Clutter clearing gives us the chance to check-in with ourselves, reflect on choices we have made and make new choices, if appropriate. There is no perfect, end state- we are always evolving—therefore our surroundings are always evolving. If you put the meaningful things on hold until you are organized and clutter free- you may never get to the meaningful things.

Practice self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is the ultimate simplicity. When we live from a place of self-acceptance and we are at peace with ourselves, our lives naturally simplify. Whether our goals are material or spiritual, we are not striving for “more.” We are content with “enough.”

You may also enjoy:
The Key to Clutter Free
Our Not So Simple Truth
When a little Mess is a Good Thing
On Simplicity

How to Clear Clutter

Each week this month we have been sharing a new post focused on ways to clear your clutter.

We began our series by defining clutter as anything you don’t love and suggested the fifteen minute clutter clearing challenge to get the process started. Last week we defined all the different types of clutter (and reasons we hold onto it) from broken, unused items to mental and energetic clutter. Now you’re ready for the big clean! So this week we’re focusing on how to clear the clutter step-by-step.

We know that may sound like a big task, but don’t be put off as we promise the benefits of clutter clearing go beyond just cleaning your home. You may find you’ll recapture time and energy previously spent by taking care of all your stuff or perhaps you’ll experience a shift in consciousness or gain a new perspective about how to live your life. Don’t rule out the surprise, and often profound, benefits of “cleaning house.” Clutter is notorious for delaying our dreams and keeping us stuck in the past, so who knows what great things will now be free to emerge from the space you’ll create—a new relationship or opportunity may come your way. As the saying goes, out with the old and in with the new!

Tips for clearing:

Set a date. Look at your calendar and choose a day to clear clutter. You may even want to plan a party or vacation and then pick a date to clutter clear right before. Have you ever noticed how productive you can be before a vacation or big event? All of a sudden things that you have put off for months get done.

Have a plan. It helps to have appropriate receptacles and containers ready for your clutter. Trash bags, recycle bins, bags for items you plan to donate or give away. Also, before you start take the time to locate the non-profits or recycle stations where you can donate/recycle your stuff or even schedule a pick-up time in advance.

Leave yourself a realistic amount of time. It is bound to get worse before it gets better. Don’t begin de-cluttering your kitchen an hour before you plan to make dinner.

Have a Camera Ready. Sometimes it is much easier to let go of objects if you save a picture of it. This works especially well for sentimental objects like children’s art projects.

Go room-by-room. Once you’ve picked a room, stick with it and complete it before moving onto the next.

Start small. Begin with one drawer, one shelf, or one cabinet. Successful completion of one area will motivate you for the challenging areas.

Take everything out first. Everything! Completely empty out each drawer or closet and then decide what to put back in. This step will ensure that you see and address each item.

Clean the drawer, shelf, or cabinet before putting things back inside. You will be less apt to place anything that is less than excellent in your now clean and fresh space.

Give each item the useful, beautiful, or loved test. If the item matches one or more of these criteria—keep it. If it doesn’t, it’s time to let it go. Give it away, throw it away or sell it. Generally it is better to live with empty space knowing that something better will be coming your way than it is to live with something that brings you down, unless it is extremely functional.

Give it a voice. Pretend each item in your home has a voice. What is it saying? If it is less than loving and/or not in alignment with what you want in your life, let it go.

Touch. Hold each possession and tune into your body. How do you react? Does it bring your energy up or down?

Clear first and organize later. Don’t try to organize clutter. You will save time and money by focusing on clearing first. Once you have pared down and simplified, you may find you don’t need to organize. A closet with few possessions is inherently organized. Also, by clearing first you will save money that you may have spent buying containers, baskets, and files for things you no longer want. Don’t let your organizing systems become clutter!

Pretend you are moving. Ask yourself if you were moving would you take it with you? Is it worth the time and expense to pack it and move it? Would you want it to be part of a fresh start?

Don’t deliberate while clearing. If you can’t make up your mind whether to let something go, don’t waste too much time deliberating. You don’t always need immediate follow through or completion. You can “put it off” in a conscious way by putting those items in a box labeled “TBD.” We suggest a clear plastic box so items you’ve marked TBD, aren’t forgotten.

If you are overwhelmed:

Break it up. Keep working in fifteen-minute spurts, rather than one long clutter clearing session. Get a timer, set it and collect as much stuff as you can before the clock runs out. Do this daily.

Get support. Just like we sometimes need a trainer at the gym to cheer us on and offer guidance, sometimes we need a little support to help us clear. Hire a professional or ask a friend.

If you like this blog you may link:
Getting Unstuck: What are Friends For?
Simplifying and Organizing Your Home Transforms Your Life