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Transcript

Clear the Clutter: Office or Work Area · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're continuing our Clear the Clutter series.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you listened to Tuesday's episode, hopefully you followed through and you cleaned the dust and the dirt from your workspace.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're tackling knickknacks, odds and ends, and random junk that finds its way into our lives.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think we all hang on to certain things longer than we probably should.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to hang on to cords, cables, technology, and sentimental items a lot longer than I need to.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the guy who still has Huey Lewis cassettes from 1985 back in his closet, along with a broken Walkman to play them.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been kind of a pack rat, but the problem with being a pack rat is that these items clutter up your life and your work area.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: As I approach 50 years old in the next couple of years, I am much less inclined to hang on to this stuff than I used to be.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I am downright ruthless these days when it comes to cleaning.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I challenge you to be the same way and to go through your work area and get rid of any items that are no longer serving you.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: For example, as I look around my home office right now, I see several things that need to go.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I see a random stick of chapstick on my bookshelf that somebody gave me for Christmas.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I never use chapstick, I don't really like it, but I felt kind of guilty throwing it away, so I just put it on my bookshelf and it just is kind of sitting there.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um on another bookshelf, I see a pencil sharpener that I have used a grand total of one time.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it doesn't even work very well, but again, somebody gave it to me and I felt kind of guilty throwing it away.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: On the same shelf, I see a Kindle Paper White tablet that's about seven or eight years old, and I used to use it, but I don't use it anymore.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was fine.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just got an iPad a few years later, and the iPad to me is a much better experience because it's in color, it has a bigger screen, etc., etc.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I felt kind of bad throwing away the Kindle Paper White tablet.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: On the same shelf, also I see a small drawstring bag that held a small gift that I ordered for somebody a couple years ago.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I might use the bag because it's kind of a nice drawstring bag with a company's logo on it.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I again I felt bad throwing it away, so it's set on my shelf untouched for the last year or year and a half.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Across my office on the wall, I see a high-quality lanyard that has my old college's logo on it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And on that, actually on the nail on the wall, I have all my medals that I've gotten from running 5K's, 10ks, half marathons, that kind of stuff.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a couple lanyards hanging on the same nail.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that lanyard is one of those.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It has my college's the my old college's logo on it, the college where I used to work.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I wore that lanyard around my neck every day for the last few years that I worked there.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those really high quality ones.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: It has, it's like this woven lanyard.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It has the logo printed a bunch of times on it.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I kept it.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I just felt kind of bad throwing it away.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So out of sentimental reasons, I kept it.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there, again, there's no reason for me to hang on to it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see a pattern here.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I feel a tinge of guilt whenever I think about the idea of throwing these things away.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a problem with hanging on to things that we don't need anymore.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is this each one of those unwanted items contains just a little bit of emotional energy that we have invested into that thing.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: We hang on to it for some reason.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have that energy invested into it, and we could use that energy for other things that are actually relevant to our lives right now, but because of guilt, we hang on to those things that are just cluttering up our lives and our offices and our bookshelves.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm going to do is either throw away each of these items or find a new home for them.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you could probably identify lots of items in your workspace or your office area as well, just like I have.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot more in my office besides those things that I named.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Physical items are not neutral.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a really key point.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Physical items are not neutral.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your relationship with those items either adds positive energy to your life because they're helping you in some way right now, or those items are draining energy from your life because you feel guilt whenever you look at those things.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And because you don't want to remove them out of the guilt, you're continuing to invest emotional energy into those items that, again, you could be using for other things.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm the same way.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you relate to anything that I'm saying, know that I'm not an expert in this.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I struggle with this because I'm kind of a pack rat.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother, God bless her, she was the world's biggest pack rat.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Her house was just crammed full of stuff.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: She wasn't a hoarder, it wasn't quite that bad, but she was the kind of lady who, you know, she grew up in the depression and she just hung on to stuff.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think many people who grew up in the depression were in times where things were kind of scarce and whenever people hardly had any money.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think people who grew up in those kind of situations tend to hang on to things.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that you and I probably are not in that situation.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if we need to buy a small item from Amazon or at Walgreens or at the store, we can probably just go buy it.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't have to live with that scarcity mindset.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So as you can see, this exercise and really this whole series about cleaning is not just about being neat and organized.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's really about getting our emotional lives in order.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, writing requires a lot of emotional energy.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can free up more energy in our lives by getting rid of random junk, odds and ends, and other knickknacks that we don't really need, if we can get rid of those things from our offices and our workspaces, we'll have that much more energy to give to things that actually matter to our lives right now.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So here's today's challenge.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Take five minutes and get rid of some random stuff in your work area.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you hesitate or you feel ambivalent about keeping it, you know, if you pick something up or you see something on your bookshelf or in a drawer that you see and you go, well, I don't know if I should keep it or not, that's probably a sign that you should get rid of it.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of that idea that unless it's a really strong and exciting yes, then it really should be a strong and exciting no.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So only keep the stuff that is truly relevant to your life, that excites you, and that has some kind of useful function.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friend, I hope this is helpful to you and that you actually take action on this today, just like I'm gonna do.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.