Last week, I wrote a blog post in which I confessed that I hide my own business dreams and life dreams under stacks of paper.
Now I’m trying to dig through all those piles and figure out where the good stuff is.
Decide what I can finally give myself permission to let go of.
It’s not easy letting go.
Information Hoarding is My Clutter
I’ve always been an information hoarder, that’s my personal form of clutter.
Perhaps it’s better than buying gadgets I’ll never use, or shoes I’ll never wear.
But it’s still clutter that weighs me down. It doesn’t “Spark Joy” as Marie Kondo would say.
My clutter is not in my closets, it’s all over my desk.
Which is often worse. It can overwhelm me as soon as I walk in my home office!
What to do with the business and creative ideas I generate?
I keep generating marketing ideas for my home staging business, or new course ideas for teaching home stagers, or ideas to add to one of my many websites, and they get added to one of the piles.
I know if I took everything and put it into organized files, I would lose all the ideas that are hiding inside the piles.
Last year I organized all the paper on my desk into 3 folders:
- A Priority (red)
- B Priority (yellow)
- C Priority (blue)
Trouble was, I never looked inside them again!
All that stuff I told myself was “A Priority” either wasn’t, or I already had it in my mental inventory of items I really needed to do.
I got to those items and ideas anyway without even referring to all the paper hiding inside that red “urgent, pay attention to me right now” folder.
I’m a visual person.
While I crave order, when it comes to my ideas and work, I have to see everything I plan to act on.
If it’s buried in a folder, it won’t get my attention anymore.
But I’m realizing that hiding something inside a stack of paper has the same problem. It’s still no longer visible to me.
A Life Changing Realization
The other day, I had a realization. All the little “To Do” items that are represented by the stacks on my desk are of my own making.
That’s probably obvious to you, but to me it was a bit of a revelation.
My To Do’s are only To Do’s because I made them so!
I can just as easily make them Don’t Do’s and sweep them all into the recycling bin.
It’s not like “my boss” will come in and ask me why I haven’t gotten to any of it.
I have no boss and I have been self-employed since 1989.
You’d think by now I would have mastered my own negative self talk that says, “Why aren’t you doing this?”
To be honest, I used to have that under control most of the time, but these last 6 months it’s really got away from me.
Hence the need for a massive “Fresh Start” clearing of my desk.
There will never be enough hours in a day to achieve all the things we hope to accomplish.
Keep a vigilant eye on the things we put on our To Do List is critical. Otherwise, we crowd out the stuff that will really build our business or enrich our lives!
Home stagers, how do you deal with this?
What methods have you found for keeping track of the ideas you REALLY want to act on? How do you avoid burying them inside a pile of “should” items that drain your energy and inspiration?
Please share your ideas by adding to the comment section.
Hi Debra,
I too am an information hoarder. Dare I say some how it gives me a kind of comfort. I am constantly using it to inspre me of a new idea for my own home staging business. The result is that I now have a ‘to do list’ as long as my arm. Where do I draw the line? As a sole trader, I’m not flushed with employees I can delegate at least some of this stuff to. This is something I’m going to have to get real about. Thanks for bringing this up.
I do several things. 1, Clean out all the “stuff” and throw it out. 2. Get a beautiful small journal I can fit in my purse to write down the most important stuff. 3. Use Evernote (an app for your iphone) to keep notes, files, pictures, anything really for a paperless filing system that is always available. At least that is my perfect system but unfortunately often still end up with a big pile of papers so am working to get better at it:)
Thanks so much for sharing Mary Ann. I too have been experimenting with Evernote. I don’t think I’m using it to it’s full potential. And, I always forget to go looking there for stuff I’ve saved there. Someone when it’s in the pile on my desk, I’m more likely to remember to find it.
Me to a tee! Just yesterday I literally cried with overwhelm – too many great ideas. Multiple projects on the go, many “almost done’.
So I made a table with the following headings: IDEA / POTENTIAL REVENUE / TIME NEEDED / EFFORT LEVEL NEEDED / INVESTMENT NEEDED.
The funny thing was my subconscious kind of dictated the answers – when it was something I deep down wanted to do I ended up inputting a low ‘EFFORT LEVEL’ score. This way I got 20 possible avenues down to 4 and didn’t feel bad about discarding the rest.
I also now realize that I need help (the small business killer – trying to everything yourself!).
Gill I love that idea of sorting ideas under those headings! Thanks for sharing.
I’m afraid this is the curse of the entrepreneur! Most entrepreneur’s have staff that are delegated to investigate all that stuff on your desk and report back on the next action. As independent owners we don’t have this luxury and as a result some fabulous ideas are lost only to be spotted by a competitor who has launched it. Indeed it is a very hectic life and after 15 years in the staging business I have found the best way to handle new ideas is to either take the time to implement them immediately or dump them in a file or garbage bin. My husband calls this ” the little head” syndrome. Too much for this brain to handle.
Thanks for sharing your experience Sarah! Though, I have to point out that you can still get help through “Virtual Assistants”. And if you have a defined task you want someone to handle, you can even go to a site like https://www.fiverr.com/
I like you’re idea of immediate implementation or trash/file rather than leaving sitting on the desk forever 🙂
I think we all have too many piles of stuff! I was keeping all my design magazines in a large file type box thinking I would revisit them for ideas. Finally pulled the most 6 recent, tore out any useful ideas or rooms, color combos and so on and threw the rest out. Now I do that as soon as the magazine arrives and I read it. I have a big leather binder that I have sectioned off and put the “keepers” in a clear page.in the appropriate section. Emails get overwhelming so I am clearing out everything older than 2 months. Deb I love yours and appreciate being able to see these newsletters!
Love those ideas Leigh Anne! Thanks for sharing and relieved to hear my monthly newsletter “makes the cut” or not, as it were 🙂 Thanks for commenting!
Hi Debra,
OMG you just described me to a T, only my pile is notebooks. Each notebook is designated for whatever the idea/thoughts are about. I have more notebooks, half empty with a few ideas & thoughts than I know what to do with.
I just recently attempted to go through them, with the intention of stopping this clutter bug of mine. No such luck.
I’m still taking notes. If I don’t write it down, my thoughts are gone. One of these days I’ll take more time to figure out a more organized process.
Debi Roskam
Hi Debra,
It was like reading myself described…I, too, jot down ideas on any piece of paper that is handy at the moment. I have to – I know that if I don’t capture that thought, it could disappear forever, and I just have to try it at some point, lol.
One of the things that I’m doing to try to keep it all under control – is a Word document I’ve created, called “Home Staging Ideas.” When that stack of quickly scribbled ideas gets a little too out of hand, I add to the list on that document. It helps me to write it down, which clears my mind & allows me to focus on the to-do’s at hand, yet leaves me a written list that I can refer to if I find myself stymied by a design problem.
Ticia Barnicki
Ticia, I tried that too… dropping all the ideas into a word file. But then I’d often find I wouldn’t really look at it again because it was just one more document in a sea of them on my computer hard drive 🙂
Do you find you use yours?
I agree your method is a great way to get unstuck when you’re fresh out of ideas. Just read the list and get re-inspired and hopefully take action on some of them.
Thanks for sharing your idea!
I, too, felt like Debra was “singing my life with her words”! So many ideas are coming into my mind as I finish my Staging Diva training and launch Peace of Mind Designs, I keep my phone set on a “Memo” app, and when inspiration strikes, I just whip it out, hit the mic and speak my words of wisdom (or direction, reminder, whatever). I have been very good about going into it and checking it regularly, which also keeps me moving forward toward my goals.
Jamie, so glad you commented! I love your idea, thank you for sharing!
Hello everyone,
This is exactly me as well. Even the books from courses I take are littered with side notes and thoughts (which seem too good to not write down at the time). Every time I try and ‘organize’ I get inspired by the first few things I read and they lead to – – – yes, another list – of ideas from the ideas. I have discovered that writing it down, leaving it, and then coming back to it later allows time for the idea to either become great, or fizzle.
One way I have found to organize this is with an index card file or a rolodex. I create categories (like marketing ideas, design tips, newsletter article topics, wants, etc.). Each idea gets its own card. Then if I get an offshoot of the idea, I can add it to the card.
This way, the ‘list’ is no longer a list. It is a set if cards, that I can quickly sort through, reprioritize, discard, or reorganize easily. And it is portable. I can grab a stack and take it with me. Its great when I have down time or feel overwhelmed. I can simply ‘sort’ cards and get back a feeling of organization.
I also clip pictures from magazines, and attach to the card (if its bigger than the card, I fold it up and make it easy to open up bu attaching it at the top. I can also add subcategories (like by room or item) if I get too many things in one group.
Its kinda fun to see all the ideas in a box, and know that if I ever get bored (ha!), I can always grab a card and take action on it. 🙂
I’d love any suggestions to improve upon this too!
Thanks!
Theresa, I LOVE your suggestion, thanks for sharing it!
Gosh, can I relate to this post! I spent months before Christmas doing biggest spring-clean ever and the last and most cluttered space of all is, you guessed it, my office! With 3.5m of desk space you would think I had ample room, but ideas are the bulkiest things ever 🙂 I have started scanning documents and saving them on my PC (AND tossing the original) – that way I can find them via searching for key words if and when I ever need them. I find the biggest drain on my energy and time is feeling I have to read all the interesting stuff in newsletters, as they invariably contain links to other newsletters, products, reports etc that all seem terribly important at the time. So many businesses email EVERY DAY – I have ones in my inbox that I flagged 2 years ago and still haven’t read! So now I go through my subscriptions regularly and unsubscribe. Ah, relief!! Not from THIS newsletter though – the good content and helpful articles are priceless.
Jeanette, thanks so much for popping by and sharing your experiences. I really appreciate it. Glad to hear that as you’re pruning your subscriptions you’ve decided to keep Staging Diva!
Turning your piles of paper into something searchable is an excellent start to getting organized and having things able to be found. Make sure you back everything up regularly however!
Thanks again Jeanette and happy new year!
So happy to read your post, Debra. I was really getting down on myself. Every day I looked at and pushed aside many scraps of paper with quotes that caught my attention, products I saw on tv that I wanted to check out the price and reviews, as well as the websites that promised to share information I surely needed. Heck, I claim to be a professional to guide others on how to pull it together.
Each time I actually picked up a wad, I likely found a nugget of value in my debris. Good to know I’m not the only one hoarding possibilities.
Thanks for commenting Karla, glad to know I too am not alone in this 🙂