organization

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: De-Clutter for Clarity

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This blog was originally published on April 8, 2014 and was written by Brittany O’Malley.

Whether it’s the tradition of spring cleaning, or the demands of our busy chaotic lives, I’ve noticed that the concept of “de-cluttering” seems to be a hot trend lately- websites ranging from Oprah to zen blogs to Buzzfeed are talking about ways to simplify our lives through the process of “de-cluttering.”  But why is “stuff” bad? And in the craziness of our daily lives, who has time to de-clutter?

Why is clutter a bad thing?

organizeDisorganization has been linked to increased stress and decreased productivity, not to mention greater risk of injury (because you are far more likely to trip and fall if your space is a mess!). On the flip side, simplifying your space can help save time and money, decrease germs, and promote focus.

So why is it so hard to get rid of things? 

Even though it seems clear that clutter impacts our emotional, physical, and environmental wellness, it’s still really hard to let go of things. Why is that? A recent study at Yale found that the same area of our brain that fires when we burn our tongues on hot coffee or stub our toes also lights up when we get rid of items. So it feels painful for us to give things up.   Another study showed that just holding or touching an item can cause emotional attachment. So of course it’s hard to throw that item away – you feel invested!

Now, of course this might not be true for everyone. There is a full continuum of “messy” to “neat” types of people out there, which means that tossing stuff is easier for some than others. Overall, though, tidying up your physical, social, and virtual spaces increases clarity in a world full of chaos.

Here are a few tips to get the de-clutter process kicked off:

  1. Focus on one thing at time. Take 10 minutes a day to focus on one de-clutter task: the pile of laundry on the floor, your desk, emptying your backpack. Don’t feel like you have to clean up your whole life all at once- baby steps!
  2. Monitor your social “clutter.” Clutter comes in many forms, including the things we put on our calendar. Be ruthless about saying no or postponing new commitments if your life feels too busy to manage.
  3. Tackle your virtual and mobile world. Take a minute at the end of the day to clear off your computer desktop. Control what phone notifications you receive (do you really want to know every time a celebrity tweets their post-workout snack?). When we are online, we are bombarded with a constant flow of information, so be proactive about setting filters and systems that work for you, not against you.
  4. Don’t worry about perfection. Striving towards simplicity won’t look the same for everyone. Figure out what your “perfect storm” of stuff is and set an attainable de-clutter goal. If you have a roommate, it’s good to talk through what works for them, too- your styles may be different.

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How to Overcome Inbox Overload

Brittany O., MPH, CHESLeave a comment

“Ding,” goes my computer.
“Whirrr,” goes my vibrating smartphone.

Without even thinking about it, like one of Pavlov’s dogs with a bell, I instantly check my email. It might be 9am and I just got to work, or it might be 9pm and I’m watching television with my partner. I just can’t help myself.

When I went to the beach for vacation this summer, I tried something I had never done before. I turned my work email account off on my phone. To some of you this may seem like no big deal, but I’m willing to bet there are others of you out there that understand the terrifying moment when you choose to disconnect from this mega form of communication.

Photo "Dangerous Inbox" by Recrea HQ, Flickr Creative Commons
Photo “Dangerous Inbox” by Recrea HQ, Flickr Creative Commons

For the first 12 hours I found myself checking that little notification bubble, and, I will admit, was actually let down when it remained fairly low. I felt tempted to turn on that Outlook® account again, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important. It was so hard to let go of the satisfaction of being connected and the anxiety of a cluttered inbox. Never mind that this time was supposed to be about relaxing, spending time with family, and disconnecting from the work world- I felt like I still needed to know what was going on.

And why shouldn’t it? The Radicati Group, a technology market research firm, found that the average person who uses email for work (and I would count being in college as “work”) sends and receives about 110 emails per day. That study was conducted in 2012, so I would not be surprised if the number is even higher today. Email is a form of communication we have grown to rely on; it’s a fast and easy way to get answers and pass along information without having to speak face-to-face or over the phone. But the flip side of this convenience is that people are able to reach us at any time, and the lines between school/work life and personal life grow more and more tenuous.

In a global media study conducted by faculty at The University of Maryland, they found that college students all over the world actually exhibited physical and emotional signs of withdrawal when asked to go 24 hours “unplugged” from technology. Other studies have shown that “email overload” can contribute to stress, decreased productivity & concentration, and is connected to feelings of burn out.

So, what can we do about this? Even as I write this blog, that little red notification bubble has continued to increase. Here are a few tips for managing inbox overload–or the “email beast”–that I’ve found useful:

    1. Empty your inbox. As emails come in, filter them into organized folders. This can help prevent the “inbox buildup.”
    2. Be the boss of your email. Set boundaries that work for you. This can be as simple as “I don’t check my email during class,” or not checking email after a certain time of day. Hold yourself accountable with some reinforcement, such as rewards for sticking to your goal for a set amount of time.
    3. Control the flow. Similar to emptying the inbox, control the flow of emails by setting a window of time each day that you concentrate solely on responding and sorting emails. Don’t let yourself get caught in the frantic email answering between classes—rather, sit down and focus only on the task at hand.

      Photo Ready to Start This Friday by Jabiz Raisdana, Flickr Creative Commons.
      Photo Ready to Start This Friday by Jabiz Raisdana, Flickr Creative Commons.
    4. Unsubscribe like your life depends on it. Remember at Fallfest when you signed up for every listserv for every organization you might ever want to join? I’m willing to bet your inbox has doubled with emails since that wonderful night a few weeks ago. Now that you have had time to settle in to the semester, go back and unsubscribe to the listservs that you haven’t read at all. You can also set up filters so that these emails automatically go into folders you can read later if you aren’t ready to un-commit yet.
    5. Take time to disconnect. While it might not be realistic or even desirable to go a day without email, set aside time to disconnect. Put up an away message, or simply turn off your email notifications until you are ready to focus on giving those messages the responses they deserve. Instead, use that “ding” or “buzz” free time to have coffee with a friend, take a walk around campus, or go to a performance you’ve been dying to see.

Getting organized: paper or plastic?

diana2 Comments

I love organization, possibly to a fault. My planner has every single task and appointment in it by hour, my desk is covered thoughtfully studded in to-do lists, and I have a spreadsheet for almost everything in my life (dream projects, class grades for each semester, budgets, you name it).

Every year, I go through the same dilemma: should I change the way I organize? It takes just one task that doesn’t get addressed, one appointment missed, or confronting a huge pile of paper to-do lists. For me, it usually happens in the middle of a busy semester. I feel a little guilty using a paper planner and paper to-do lists to organize my days, reasoning that it’s a waste of paper when other electronic resources are available. Every year I ask myself: should I switch over to electronic?

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