my general philosophy is that in order to be successful we have to manage three things our time, our tasks, and our stuff. I started my career as a professional organizer dealing mostly with stuff. As a coach I’m more deal with the other two. And even though I’m not in clients homes helping them organize anymore, the topic does come up quite often.
One of the things that many of my clients struggle with is getting rid of things. I’ll probably do a follow-up on why getting rid of things is difficult. But I won’t get into that now. The takeaway that I’d like to give to you today is about the concept of waste. Many of my clients struggle with getting rid of things, throwing things away, because it represents waste to them.
But waste does not occur when we get rid of something. Waste occurs when we bring something into our life that we don’t need. Waste occurs when we buy an item of clothing that doesn’t quite fit or isn’t quite right. Waste occurs when we bring things into our lives that are essentially disposable.
And sometimes waste occurs that’s not your fault. It’s helpful to realize that once something enters the consumer ecosystem, it exists. At some point it will have to be dealt with at its waste, no matter how durable a good it is. So, ultimately, waste, and minimizing it, it’s about changing behaviors going forward, not lamenting decisions already made. And sometimes it just is what it is.
I think I’m going to split this into two posts. I also think I’m going to go back and write the post about why it’s hard to get rid of stuff first and post all three in order.