Design a Space you Love So You Can Be Ready for Anything!

Why Creating a Space You Adore leads to a Life You Love

Take a look around you, at home, at your office, and even your car. If any of these are very cluttered or dirty, they will drain your energy, distract your mind with things you know you should be doing, and reduce how open you are to receiving people and new opportunities to your world. Personal finance expert, Suze Orman, in her book “The Courage to be Rich”, even correlated a cluttered home full of undervalued things to poor financial health. As an alternative, when you are in a space you love, your mind will become open and free to dream, you will take care in how you spend your money, as you will not want to bring clutter into your home and you will become very intentional about your entire life.

It is possible you were raised in a cluttered, messy, or dirty home, and were never taught how to clean. This makes it hard because you may not know where to start to get things under control and also, you may not have even considered that your messy world is holding you back. Many people also have deep emotional triggers from childhood that drive the desire to hold on to everything. This is sometimes true even if they don’t have a place to put it, even if they haven’t used it for years, and even if they have a desire to have free space for something new. I’d like you to think about your goals, who you really want to be, and decide if you are ready to start making small changes with the way you deal with clutter and cleanliness. There are many resources available to help you get started, but really the key is to take the first step toward creating the space you adore.

Start Small

If your home is messy throughout, start small, clean up one area. I listened to a podcast, where Shira Gill, a professional home organizer was being interviewed. (You can check out Shira’s website in the show notes.) On this podcast, Shira suggested you should start with your sock drawer. Literally, clean one tiny space and then commit to keeping that one space organized from then on. It feels really good – and will probably lead to further progress.

One space I’d like to suggest you should start with is your bathroom sink and counter area. Go into your bathroom and look around, how many bottles, make-up containers, hair tools, and tooth brushes do you have lying around? Do you use all of them every day? Are any of the containers empty? If so, discard them in the recycle or the trash. Here is an activity for you:

Clean Your Bathroom Counter Challenge

1. Find some energetic music you love
2. Get a trash bag
3. Set a timer for 10 minutes
4. Go through all the cabinets, drawers, and other storage in the bathroom you use to get ready for work.
5. If you know you will never use a product again, ever, THROW IT AWAY.
6. If you hate that color of nail polish, THROW IT AWAY.
7. If that lipstick looks wrong with your complexion, THROW IT AWAY.
8. If that hairspray never really worked, THROW IT AWAY.
9. Let all this clutter go, no guilt, no regret, just let it go. I
10. f there is trash lying about, discard it as well. Try not to think too much while doing this, just put it in the trash.
11. Think of your morning routine, the one you use regularly to get ready for work. What is your process? What items do you use every day?
12. It is fully understandable if you have some make-up or hair accessories that you use mainly on the weekends or for special occasions, these should be put away in the new space you have discovered by cleaning out your cabinets and drawers.
13. Put the items you use every day in a very easy to access location so you can grab them when you need them and then put them right back once you are done. I have most of my everyday hair products in my medicine cabinet, they are easy to reach, I can put them away as soon as I finish using them, and the smaller space reminds me to not allow myself to keep items I am no longer using.

Most people really can complete this exercise in 10 minutes, but if you need to, you can set the timer for 10 more minutes.At the end of your 10 minutes, you should have items in your trash bag and your counter should have no clutter on it. Take a moment and smile at that pretty vase and flower you have remaining on the counter – it may have been awhile since you have seen it! : )

Clean and Disinfect the Bathroom counter:

Once you have the surface cleaned off, use glass cleaner to remove the spots off your mirror, use your preferred cleaner to clean and disinfect the sink and counter areas until they are smooth and fresh. Then, take a step back, imagine getting ready for work in this space. How different will your mood be?

Next Steps…

Some practical things you may want to consider in order to keep your space clean once you have organized it is to:

• Creating a cleaning routine.
• Organizing along with processes you’ll be able to repeat
• Refreshing your design (paint, curtains, inexpensive home décor, etc.)

If you can get your space organized in a way that actually works for you, you will misplace things a lot less, you will save time because getting dressed and ready for work or other events will be a snap. But – More importantly, you will elevate your entire mood and will keep your mind open for creative thoughts and you’ll be able to focus on the future rather than being stuck in surroundings that are holding you back from being the best you that you can be!