Advice Chief – Eliminate clutter and change your life by Jeff “Chief” Urbaniak

When I was younger, I used to leave stuff lying around almost all the time. I’d pick it up or organize it only when I needed to. As a result, I felt overwhelmed almost every day, even when nothing else in my life was driving me to feel that way. It felt like my walls were moving in all around me, making me almost claustrophobic. My energy was virtually nonexistent.

Jeff "Chief" Urbaniak

This continued until I took the advice from a reliable mentor of mine: Joe Vitale. He basically told me: “The more clutter in your room, the more clutter in your mind.” And my mind certainly felt cluttered. He suggested that I pick up and organize my things and to clean out my closets, garage, office, car, and any other rooms or places I spent time in.

His overriding message was that energy moves when blocks are removed, and that clutter equals blocks. So, wanting desperately to remove my blocks, I gave it a try.

I began gradually picking up and organizing my stuff. I had to do it gradually because the thought of doing it all at once was too overwhelming. As I inched closer to getting my clutter situation under control, I noticed a different kind of feeling from within that gave me more motivation in life.

I started doing more outdoor activities like swimming and hiking. I stopped being a couch potato. I
didn’t feel like hiding from the world. I stopped worrying about trivial things. I was able to think more clearly. And I fell asleep much faster at night as my clutter-free life led to a clutter-free mind.

According to organizational expert Lynne Gilberg, clutter is bad for a person’s physical and mental health. Victims of clutter will often use terminology like “suffocating” and “I can’t breathe,” when they feel overwhelmed. They are more prone to having emotional meltdowns, feeling depressed, or suffering from unexplained weight gain. And medical doctors have concluded that clutter leads to higher amounts of dander and dust in the home; which has been proven to be a major contributing factor to allergies and asthma.

Clutter can even give you a bad reputation. A human resource manager once told me his company did the oddest thing in determining whether new applicants would truly possess some organizational traits they were looking for in their employees. Hiring agents would walk by applicants’ cars and look inside them. If the inside was filled with tons of fast-food bags, empty soda bottles, stray shoes, clothes, and so on, it became a negative check-mark for that applicant. On the other hand, if the car was somewhat neat and clean, it resulted in a positive check-mark.

He claimed those who had neatly kept cars typically maintained or produced neatly kept office spaces, neatly kept files, well organized reports, and easy to follow presentations and they also seemed less stressed on a daily basis.

So if you feel bogged down, scatterbrained, overwhelmed, emotionally drained, or stressed out, try eliminating the clutter around you a little bit at a time and see if things in your life improve. I bet they do!