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Have you ever noticed how easily you can distract a small child? For example, if you don’t want them to touch something, distract them with something else! Well, as adults we aren’t much different, and it’s hard to stay focused on tasks …especially hard ones like decluttering.
In this little community, I get a lot of questions about how to stay on task or stay focused on decluttering. I get it!
Today I’m going to share 5 tips to stay focused on decluttering.
I’ve done all 5 of these tips for various projects and tasks I do, and they totally work.
Make a decision
Nothing prevents me from getting things done more than indecisiveness. It’s like going on a trip without deciding where you’re going or what you’ll do. You end up wasting gas and getting frustrated. (True story …this happened to my family a couple of weeks ago.)
Choose one thing to do and plan out your time to do it. Here are some posts that can help you with this process:
- How I Use My Day Designer Planner for Weekly Organization
- One Tip That Changed How I Prioritize My To-Do List Forever
- Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy for Focused Attention
Here are two books I recommend in helping you prioritize and make decisions:
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
- The One Thing by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan
Cut down distractions
Life is full of distractions but many can be temporarily ignored. The biggest distraction that I know I can ignore is my phone.
To make it less distracting, I turned off all notifications from email and social media and set up screen time limits. When I really want to work, I leave my phone far off in another room. If I really want to look at it I have to work to get it.
iPhone now has a “focus” feature to temporarily turn off notifications for calls and texts. (Unless it’s a call from someone on your favorites list.)
A big distraction when trying to work on a large project can be your kids. I love my daughter, but it’s so hard to concentrate when she stands next to my desk every 3 minutes! Ask for help with babysitting from family or swapping with a friend.
It’s difficult to ask for help, but people truly understand because they’ve been through it (or are going through it) too!
Set up rituals and routines
Rituals and routines are what help many successful people gain success. It gets you into the right frame of mind to do the next thing.
For example, after I complete my morning ritual I’m ready to get to work on my priority for the morning.
Learn more about the importance of rituals and routines in these posts:
Develop a process
I think back to learning formulas in my college statistics class. If I knew the formula and could recognize the situation for when to use the formula, the rest was a breeze.
Similarly, I use a process for decluttering and organizing that’s the same every single time. There’s no wondering what to do next, eliminating indecisiveness that often sabotages focus.
You can learn about my decluttering & organizing process in this post.
Measure your progress
Seeing that you’ve made progress can help you stay focused and motivated. When you’re decluttering, take a “before” picture to compare to what you have after. This kind of progress is extremely exciting …so exciting that you might even share it with others!
Another way to track progress is to write it down on a tracker of some sort: a goal planner, a habit tracker, or simply marking an X on a calendar. There’s something so instantly gratifying about marking an X every single day!
Use these 5 tips to stay focused on decluttering:
- Make a decision
- Eliminate distractions
- Set up rituals & routines
- Develop a process
- Measure your progress
If you can’t decide where to start decluttering your home, the Where To Start Decluttering Guide will help you make a decision! Get the guide here.
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