Clutter, Clutter, Toil and Flutter

As I moved from corporate wage-slave to solo-entrepreneur, re-ordering my entire life was the first big challenge. All the structure and order that my day at the office had provided me was replaced by an ongoing explosion of possibilities: workshop flyers, emerging projects, things to read, people I really should call, new equipment to learn, business plans … ACK! My coach, Barbara Poole, kept reminding me to stay relaxed. I’d find my way to something new that would pay the bills. She suggested that I first notice what excited me and what drained me. I realized that clutter was the biggest drain.

Through my career I have veered between the extremes of being pathologically neat and organized to being ... well, let's just say "fluid." I think being a recruiter cracked the engine block of my neat-freakiness and I started spending more time at the manic end of the continuum, getting comfortable with everything out and piles of piles. Every so often I would purge and re-order, only to find myself surrounded by piles again, full of beginnings, good intentions and dreams. Eventually I was acting as if the idea of simplicity –- of throwing out, getting rid of, saying no -- was a straight-jacket on my unbounded creativity.

As an emergent solo entrepreneur, I deduced that I had to get out of my own way and find a new source of order or drown in my own clutter. In my quest to reframe simplicity in a more useful way, it finally occurred to me that true simplicity can be about freedom. As I explored that possibility, I saw that freedom has to begin with taking charge. The courage to take charge grew stronger as my bank account shrank. Taking charge required conscious choice. Coming out of the corporate world, this power to decide what’s important was like an underused muscle. Ever so slowly I started to flex it, just to see what would happen.

After making some decisions about what’s important, I found unexpected energy and confidence to let everything else wait in the wings, in a box, in a drawer, or in the garage. It’s all still there, but at least not impinging on my day. As I tried saying, "No, I choose to do THIS right now" I felt free, not confined. As I threw a magazine subscription renewal notice away, I felt a surge of power. It MIGHT have been a hot flash but I don't think so. As I threw out my file of possible training experiences, I felt lighter. Once I had a “because” that I chose myself, I found the freedom to breathe, to put aside, to have a whole table top with nothing on it. The physical and mental delight of a clear surface, an open space where my creativity can sit, is one of those small gifts I now treasure.

I try to remember that beyond the clutter are many small gifts that give the greatest joy. Every summer for the past decade I have had the pleasure of spending time with friends in a cabin in Montana, on the banks of the Madison River. For about 10 days, a group of families exists together in the simplest way. With no communications technology other than a telephone, no TV, newspaper, or other reminder of 21st century life, we are free to play games, take walks, fish and eat well. Without the clutter, we can see and truly appreciate the small gifts of precious, normal life: a great cloud formation, making a really excellent pizza, seeing a spectacular wild flower. Less stuff, more joy. That’s pretty simple.