This subject was a special request from a frustrated friend who asked for some simple ways to organise her fridge so she can stop wasting food. Yes, we do need to declutter and organise our fridge and pantry on a regular basis. Here are a few reasons why:

– Most foods have an expiry date and can become unpleasant past this date.

– It can be frustrating when you plan a meal, convinced you have a certain ingredient in the pantry or fridge, only to find you either don’t have it, or it’s expired and turned green!

– Conversely, we can also overbuy if we think we don’t have an item and then find we actually have plenty at the back of the pantry [I helped one client organise her pantry and we found six packets of pasta! She kept thinking she didn’t have any so went out and bought more].

Obviously there are many scenarios around food and our storage mishaps. Better though that we look at some simple ways we can store food in our pantry and fridge to make our lives easier:

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Now this may sound a bit strange, but think about it for a moment:

Is the clutter making you procrastinate, or do you have clutter because you have a habit of procrastination?

This is how I see it – if our home or office is in disorder, or a bit chaotic, then it can lead to overwhelm at which point you’re going to find it hard to move forward – hence procrastination sets in.

Conversely, if you have a habit of procrastinating about all sorts of things, then this will show up in various ways, such as not putting items away after using them, or getting them out because you think you’re going to do a job and then ‘put it off for another day’ but don’t put those items away until you’re ready to use them. Another example is going shopping and not bothering to put your new purchases away.

And of course, we can’t forget how we procrastinate about the job of actually decluttering a room, cupboards and drawers, or indeed the house… Easy to procrastinate about this one as it can be daunting if you look at it as a whole, rather than breaking your decluttering down into bite-size pieces.

So what does this not moving forward with your decluttering look like:

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I’m going to talk about decluttering our mind this month because I want to reassure people that just because we may be a ‘certain age’, and we forget things, it does not mean we are heading towards dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. I’ve had clients and friends alike who have mentioned that they are becoming forgetful; and if there is a family history of dementia then this forgetfulness can take on a more frightening aspect. My darling mother had Alzheimer’s disease for about 13 years before she peacefully passed, so I have been up close and personal with this disease and it’s terrifying. However, I choose not to worry about it, I’d rather concentrate on today and keep my mind healthy and ‘clutter-free’.

I read an excellent article recently in the NZ Herald online on the topic of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and concern around forgetfulness: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/print.cfm?objectid=11429562

I love what the article says in one part: “It’s not necessarily forgetting where your keys are – in fact, I don’t know where my keys are right now – it’s forgetting what keys are for. Or not knowing what a key is for until you put it in your freezer.” It puts our concerns around forgetfulness into perspective.

What I’ve found is that our mind will select what we need to remember and discard unnecessary stuff… that works for me. In other words, don’t worry if you don’t remember every single thing that happens or that you read or hear, it’s probably not important enough to be bothered with. Now having said that, I actually don’t ‘try to remember’ anything – we all know those people who say ‘I keep everything in my head…’ Yikes, why would you? The more I don’t try to remember anything the more my memory works beautifully.

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Although we often think of compartmentalising as a mental construct – as in compartmentalising different areas of our lives; I also think of it when organising multi-purpose rooms in a house.

Here are a couple of definitions of the word:

– to put or divide into (compartments, categories, etc)
– the act of distributing things into classes or categories of the same type

I believe the most important room where this comes into play is the home office. This is very often a multi-purpose room, doubling as a guest room, kids’ playroom and/or homework area, or a crafts and hobby area. I’m using office and crafts/hobbies as an example because both of these activities utilise a variety of items which need to be organised and stored.

While it is very possible to create a workable office area in such a room, life becomes much simpler when the diverse activities that may take place in this room are compartmentalised. Flow is good, but overlapping can be tricky and can fast become chaotic.

The ideal scenario is to be able to segment the room into specific areas and functions. Using a standard guest room as an example:

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Do you know anyone who has an abundance of money and time at their disposal? I can’t think of such a fortunate being off the top of my head. For those of us who may wish to benefit from more money and time, I believe that one of the most effective ways you can do this is by decluttering your home and working environment. Follow that by setting up processes and systems and you’ll quickly establish more flow and control in your everyday life.

Here are my very simple tips, and systems, on how you can do this.

– Paying penalties on bills paid after their due date? Set up your regular bills on direct debit. You still get to check the billed amount before it’s deducted from your bank account, and you will in many cases earn a small discount for paying on time.
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