#29 Postponed Decisions

#29-  It's piled all over your house.  It's taking up space on your counter, the top of your dresser, the corner of the bathroom sink and the table in the foyer.  It sits on the stairs leading up to your room.  It sits on the stairs leading down to your basement.  It's in the trunk of your car and on the floor of the front seat.  It's tchochkes and papers and clothing and gifts you've received (and don't love) and mail and things with missing parts, broken bits or dead batteries.  You walk by it or trip over it or move it endlessly or pile something on top of it or scoop it all up and hide it somewhere so you don't have to look at it anymore because this stuff triggers an emotional response.  It makes you feel guilty that you haven't put it away, guilty that you spent money on it and can't use it, guilty that you don't have the time to deal with it.  It makes you feel burdened because every time you walk by it part of your motivation erodes, just looking at it wears you down.  Sometimes it even starts a fight.

Clutter.  Amazing how we give something so simple, so much power.  You may not be able to completely rid yourself of clutter and eliminate every single pile, but you can change how you deal with it and how you think about it.  Clutter is simply, postponed decisions.  It is the object connected with a choice you'll need to make, but you put it on a shelf while you decide what to do with it.  If you can begin to think about clutter in this way, you can begin to let go of some of the emotion.  Decisions get postponed for lots of reasons. Sometimes we simply don't have the time on that day, other times the decisions are bigger, take a greater emotional effort, but that's still all they are...decisions.

My point.  In one small area of your life, can you stop putting your unmade decisions on a shelf?  Can you begin to think about those objects that erode you and start living with the power of a decision made and not a decision put off for another day.  Clutter is postponed decisions.  If it doesn't do something...it just sits there.