Decluttering

My first Life Club went well, despite initial nerves and getting a little mixed up at one point. Decluttering was the main theme, and in the wake of leading it, I've been doing some decluttering myself. Once I got into the subject I realised that although I always thought of it as basically clearing out the wardrobe and doing a charity shop run, decluttering's actually a very powerful and versatile tool you can apply to anything. Indeed, it's an almost essential first step to giving your life a makeover.

The thing is though that the stuff you don't want could be anything. Clothes no longer worn and half-finished work on desks are obvious examples, but there's all sorts of things that take up space and energy that could be used for other things. I think what I could most do with decluttering is all those calls to people in my life I haven't made, allowing them instead to pile up on my 'inner desk'!

What's great about it is that the energy seems to be transferrable. My girlfriend Kat moved in a few months ago, and we recently finally got around to hanging pictures. The place looks a whole lot better and the piles of yet-to-be-dealt with stuff have all but disappeared. Rooms look bigger, and are easier to move around in. All that's great, and what you might expect. But there's more, the really interesting stuff. It actually feels like a home - our home. I feel like we're closer now, and that when people visit us here, what they see speaks to them of that closeness. I like that.

I also feel 'called forth' in a curious sort of way, like it's summoning up a hitherto unfamiliar organised version of me. My desk is tidier, and I feel the urge to clear out my in-tray. I even got a computer consultant in for advice about how to sort out my IT requirements properly, instead of continuing to thrash about feeling stupid because I can't figure out how to get software to do a task it isn't really capable of.

It all makes me think of my friend Neil's house. He's a wonderful graphic designer, and has one of those homes most of us would call minimalistic (and possibly not mean it that kindly!) But the thing is everything's there, and it all has a place to be. If a house is a machine for living, it's simply that his is a very efficient and ergonomically designed one. And what I find fascinating is that that makes it very easy to keep tidy - putting things back where they belong seems somehow to be the easy option, unlike in my office. In Neil's home office there's a bike hanging on the wall and a massive Scalextric set all over the floor - but it's still easy to work there.

My coach recently asked me what one thing I'd like to pinch from Neil and his home. I think it's the momentum towards peace that I feel there, that feeling of 'everything I want, nothing I don't want'.