Tidy-up!

Here are the first 3 strategies to this 8 part cleaning system:

Let go of perfection

Cut the clutter

Get things organized

"Out of clutter, find simplicity." ~Albert Einstein

    After a morning spent sifting and sorting through the beautiful, the useful, and the useless, I glanced around our living room floor. It resembled an archaeological dig with small stacks of artifacts all separated according to their domestic categories. I wondered what a late-twentieth century anthropologist considering the juxtaposition of junk and precious mementos (such as my daughter's last pacifier) would tell the world about the woman whose life was now reduced to a series of neat and pleasing bundles.

    Soon it became time to return everything to where it belonged. This, believe it or not, was a source of great contentment. As I wandered through the rooms of the house, I began to search for the common thread in the lives of the world's great spiritual teachers and traditions: Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Budhha, Lao-Tzu, The Hebrew prophets, The Muslem Sufis, The Catholic Saints, The Hindu Rishis, The Shakers, The Quakers, The Amish. None of them have junk drawers. That's because all embraced simpicity. Spirituality, simplicity, and serenity to be a sacred trinity; three divine qualities of the orderly soul. Henry David Thoreau believed "our life is frittered away by detail." I disagree. I think our lives are frittered away by lack of focus. But how can we focus our attention on what's truly important when we're half-crazed because we can never find anything? However, Thoreau's remedy for the frittering frets still works today: "Simplify, simplify, simplify."

    This week, consider that with a little bit of courage and creativity you can find the breathing space you crave. You may think you're only clearing clutter from a junk drawer or juggling commitments to find a few hours to get your house in order. But your soul knows better.

Sometimes an energy shortage is due less to the years you’ve lived than the space in which you’re doing it. Clutter is the number one environmental energy-zapper. For starters, it’s depressing. It’s possible to wake up feeling refreshed and open your eyes to the piles of paper and clothes and mountainous miscellany, and immediately feel as tired if you’ve never slept. Since clutter isn’t going anywhere you don’t take it, but it’s got you too tired to deal with it, because you’re in catch-22. This catch-22 calls for solution-27: picking up twenty-seven items in your house or even in a single room.

In feng shui, the Chinese art of placement, twenty-seven is a magical number. signifying completion, putting a problem to rest. The teaching is that you can change your life by moving twenty-seven objects in your home. Feng shui practitioners mean furniture and paintings and the like, but I’ve found it works beautifully when applied to clutter, the left overs of daily living. When you pick up twenty-seven items and put them in their rightful place, you will make a visible dent in the clutter level of any room. I’ve made solution-27 a regular part of my morning routine. Right after I meditate, shower, and dress, I pick up twenty-seven things that either are out of place or otherwise require attention. For example: 1. The teacup on the end table. 2. The dog's bowl. 3. The cat's dish. 4. The bed: make it. 5. The towel on the bathroom floor: hang it. 6. The paperwork I was doing on the couch. 7. The basket of laundry to put away (sometimes that gets extra counts: sheets and towels are number 7, socks and underwear 8, everything else 9). And on to 27. 

I promise that if clutter is a problem for you, solution-27 on a desk, a closet, or any other space. The great thing about it is that once you've tended to the twenty-seven items, you can be finished for the day. If there's more, and there may well be, just come back tomorrow.

REJUVENATE YOURSELF WITH ACTION: Give solution-27 a try In some clutter-prone part of your environment. (If you have no clutter, take the day off.)