What do you feel if you see the interior of your place? When you sit down in your home and look around, is that what you look at energising, inspiring or calming you? Or does inspire you to procrastinate? In this post I will explain why you should declutter and set intentions to become more productive.

In this article you find a quick way of getting more intentional. If you want to dig a bit deeper and set intentions for the rest of your life I suggest to read my article ‘Don’t waste your life’. If you just strive to get a bit more productive in one area of your life, you are reading the right article at the moment.

Everything you see in your place can trigger a thought

The items you see trigger something. They make you think. And what you think has a consequences in how you act. Here are some examples. Do any of those apply to you?

The items I see in my place remind me of what I:

• could be doing now
• you should be doing soon
• could start now instead of the other more important task which is less fun or makes me tired or stressed only thinking of it
• rather do now instead of the job I should do
• should do before I do this more fun thing

Clutter destroys calm and productivity

‘Working hard is good.’

I have learned somewhere in my life that working hard is more important than doing fun things. First work, than fun. You are a good person when you work hard. I believed in that too much. This believe made me experience a cluttered place as a place where you have excellent opportunities to work on being a good girl.

Me in a cluttered place

This is what happens to me in a cluttered place: I want to do something fun like walk, paint, read but I will always get distracted by something that seems more ‘important’ : a clean house, a tidy cupboard. But my mind can always find more work to do. Consequently I am in danger of spending my whole life working ( tidying up/cleaning/..). As that is not what I decided to be the most important activities I want to do in my life.

The most important in my life is not having a clean and tidy home. It will not give me the most fulfilling life. This way I would end up feeling empty, disappointed, tired and unhappy. When I set my intentions for my life I decided that creating ( art, writing, gardening) was important. Being in nature. Health. And more.

Decluttering as a requirement for calm and productivity

Having a tidy and clean home was for me the way to get there. A requirement to make my life intentional. I had to tidy up otherwise I would never do what I intended, really wanted, to do with my spare time. Conclusion:

Be more productive: Declutter and Set Intentions.

1 Declutter to get calm and productive.

2 Set intentions and stay focussed on your intentions.

1 Declutter

Is your clutter ordering you around?

Consider the following questions to find out a bit more about how you chose your activities, and what your home has to do with it.

Reflect on your decision making

Think about how everything that there is in your home /office influences your decisions. Does the interior of your space:

• Cause you to procrastinate ?
• Set you up do tasks you know are not the most important in this moment?
• Make you do tasks that will not be important in 5 years time. ( Will you regret not having done those tasks in 5 years time?)
• Do you always/often start doing something different than you were supposed to do?
• Do you always pick up a task when you had planned to just rest and relax?
• Does seeing your homes interior clutter keep your mind busy non-stop?

I used to say yes to all of those questions. Except I would not regret not having done this vacuum clean in 5 years time. (Click here if you want to read tips on how to stop procrastinating)

Distractions

When I see something it activates my mind easily. I get distracted by stuff I see from what I am supposed to do. My thoughts go like ‘I should do this with that’ : I have to read that book, I should finish that project.

Distractions result in procrastination

As a result will choose to do things that will not make me feel content afterwards as I would not finish anything. I would do lots of little bits here and there, without a visible result. Therefore end up feeling unproductive and unsatisfied at the end of the day.

Instead of relaxing with my book (or craft, paint, bake, write) I would be cleaning something.

I did not do what I wanted to do. Painting was my chosen priority. But this intention got lost in the clutter.

Declutter to get calm and productive

That is why I started to declutter. (Click here if you want to start decluttering, or here if you want to learn more about decluttering.)

I finally had figured out that I was ‘wasting’ my time on activities that were not fulfilling. (Mostly cleaning )I had to find out what was important to me, set my priorities and act as they were my priorities.

Later more about how you can become more intentional. First an example of how I was not able to focus on my intention:

A chaotic art studio

Not getting started

Whenever I wanted to paint, I could not get myself started as there was always something that needed to be cleaned or moved or tidied away, or do something else with it. At the end of my days I had no idea what I had been doing and did not feel I had achieved much at all. But I was tired at the end of the day of doing random things and having chaotic thoughts during the day. That was not a fulfilling way of spending my free time.

The intention was there ( I wanted to spend time painting) but I did not stick to it.

Declutter to get calm and productive

I started to see the cause in the clutter and that is why I started decluttering. Clutter distracts me from what I find important in my life, it makes my mind busy, it makes me procrastinate.

Organise your home in such a way that you see things that remind you of what is most important to you. What is less important you move out of sight.

To be more productive you will have to declutter and set intentions.

To be focussed on what you find important you need to be less distracted by what is not important, such as all the stuff in your home. Having less stuff visible around makes it easier to focus and be productive because your mind is calm. Your mind can then think about what you decided you find important: your personal intentions.

2 Set your intentions

I did not want to spend my time at home to see a stack of stuff I wanted to read, a corner of little things covered with cobwebs and floors desperately needing a clean. My intention was painting that day.

How to set your intentions

How to decide what you find important in your life. In this article you find a quick way of getting more intentional. If you want to dig a bit deeper and set intentions for the rest of your life I suggest to read my article ‘Don’t waste your life’.

What do you want to use your precious time for?

A craft project you started but didn’t work on for a while? Reading one book a week? Is it trying new recipes? What would make you feel good at the end of the day? What do you dream of spending your free time on? Is there a bigger goal you want to reach in your life, maybe in a year of five? You want to do more exercise? See friends more often? Play with the kids? Set priorities.

What do you want?

Maybe you are just living day by day trying to keep up running around to try and keep up with life. You might not find it so easy to find out what you find important in your personal life. Because you are probably used to just do what is needed. Without thinking about what you personally need, and personally want.

Have a good think about what you want and need. Because if you do not know what you need and want, how are you going to get what you need or want? You have to be able to imagine before you can create…

Some ideas to think about to get you started:

• What small changes would make you enjoy your free time more? Read a chapter a day? Journal ten minutes a day? If you have no idea start small to try out different activities to find out what makes you feel fulfilled and happy.

• What is absolutely needed?

• What do you wish you spend more time on?

• Relax and listen to music?

• Learn something new? Learn about how to fix your bike? About cooking? A language?

• It also can be something outside your home. Going for a run, spend an hour in a gallery, plant flowers.

• Do you need a challenge, a project to focus on?

• What would you like to get better at?

Focus on your intentions

Increase your awareness of what you spend your time on. Focus on what you decide is most important to you and spend less time on the rest. E.g. spend more time on reading, less time on cleaning. Or half an hour more cleaning, watch half an hour less series.

Decluttering as your intention

If spending less time on cleaning is one of your goals, you will find out that decluttering our house will decrease your cleaning time. An empty bench top is a lot quicker to clean than having to lift and move things to be able to clean it. In this case decluttering might be your prioritised intention. Declutter and become more productive.

See and remember your intention

Have whatever reminds you of your intentions you prioritised for the day in clear sight, e.g. the sewing project, the watering can for your new vegetable garden. Remove anything distracting out of sight. What you see makes you think. What you thinks makes you do.

Personalise

Not everybody thrives in a clutter free environment. You might thrive in a very stimulating loud and colourful environment to be able to get inspired to get yourself to do what you find important in your life. Personalise it to whatever are your and your housemates needs. You might need to compromise, some spaces can be busy while other spaces are kept quiet and minimal looking.

Steps to become intentional

Step 1 Choose the important areas

Find out what you find most important. What areas in your life are making up your life? ( friends, work, family, health, self development, learning, traveling,….)

Step 2 Choose goals for each area

For example, when you chose ‘friends as the important area: Call X every month, ask P out for dinner, invite D for coffee)

Step 3 Set the most important achievable goal for the day in the morning

For example: Call my friend X.

Another example:

• Choose important area: Sustainability
• Goals for this area: stop using single use plastic, start composting, learn about circular economy
• Today’s goal: get a reusable cup and a spork and keep them in my handbag.

Be more productive: Declutter and Set Intentions

Maintenance; daily, weekly and ongoing

Every day

Set your goal for the day

• Decide in the morning what goal you are working on today.

Every week:

Review area and goals

• Reflect on how you did. Check on how you have been working on your goals once a week at a set day, for example Sunday night.
• Is your area still the most important area to focus on?
• Decide what you would like to achieve next week. What is going to be your goal next week.

Ongoing

Declutter to stay calm and productive

• Declutter your environment/space, to get more calm, focussed and productive.

The more stimuli around you the more reasons your mind finds to procrastinate the activity you should do, you decided to finish or start today.

Over time you will spend less time on decluttering and more on your intentional, most important activities. Maybe spending more time relaxing on your sofa? Or finally doing up that piece of furniture?