CHAOS

I’ve been thinking a lot about chaos and how it creeps into life slowly and then one day you look around and Yikes! Surrounded by chaos.

So what exactly is chaos? The dictionary definition is: ” complete disorder and confusion.” I think that sums it up.

What happens is, the office looks like a bomb went off, the calendar has no space for me time and there is a general feeling of being overwhelmed. Sort of like the guy in this picture:

A businessman is trapped in his glass office by a surplus of discarded ideas on paper . His colleague in the next office is working more efficiently and is oblivious to him being trapped .

I worked with a man whose office closely resembles this. Teetering stacks of paper and always the sense of urgency about what might be missed.

This is not fun and it puts a tremendous amount of stress on the body.

If your office or home look like this or even just close to this, it’s time to get help. A friend with organizing skills or a professional such as a coach or a an organizer.

The money will be well spent for the peace of mind.

How do you get to this state of chaos?

First you may be challenged by your decision making skills. You worry about the consequences of throwing paper out, or you can’t make the decision because you lack information to move forward.

Simple steps are sort into relevant piles : keep, need information and discard.From there, you file what you can, seek information on the ones that need it and have the joy of shredding the rest.

If the chaos is in your closet then: there are simple questions to ask yourself:

• do I like it?
• do I wear it?
• am I keeping it because it’s too expensive to throw away?
• does it fit?

Once you’ve answered that then you can sort into 3 piles: keep, garbage,  give away.

This exercise is best done with a friend who will tell you honestly how you look in each item.

So we’ve looked at the office and the closet, now let’s move to the calendar.

It’s full, there are meetings, appointments and social events all crowded in to the point that you hit the ground running in the morning and fall into bed exhausted at night.

Again there are a few questions to make it easier: is this point/meeting necessary? If yes, attend, if no, ask for the minutes after.

For social engagements there are some you can’t or don’t want to miss, there are others that arrived because you couldn’t figure out how to avoid them.

For those engagements the simply reply is “No, I can’t make that right now, it doesn’t work for me”.

Some people  will get pushy and demand to know why? They have no right to do that and you just keep saying: ” that doesn’t work for me right now.”

Life is short and it’s more fun if you are doing the things you want to do and not worrying about the chaos in your life.

And if you are at the point of complete paralysis, drop me a line, I cam help you.