Getting things done

I get the impression that some people in my life do not understand my current obsession with decluttering. The reason is best summed up by David Allen in his Getting Things Done Live Audio Seminar:

What is stuff? Stuff is anything that has landed in your world, psychologically or physically, that doesn't belong where it is, they way it is, for all eternity, but you haven't decided what to do with it yet.

Stuff yells at you "do something with me". You can't stand that yelling so you dumb it down and numb it out.  But you can't selectively dumb down and numb out. You also shut down the channels to enthusisam and inspiration in your life.  If you have numbed out all those things yelling at you because you have allowed them to come into your life, I guarantee you, once you retrieve that energy, it will blow you away.

I love this because it explains why I can be shut down by a messy kitchen.  I'm not sure why, but I was labouring under the belief that I should clean the kitchen first thing every morning.  This morning I got up and it was particularly bad.  I found myself watching TV to the point that I thought "why am I watching TV? I don't usually just sit and watch TV during the day".

I realised it was because I just couldn't face the kitchen.  So I wrote down on a piece of paper that I would work on the kitchen at 4:30pm - like an appointment. I then was able to spend three hours solidly working on other things I needed and preferred to get done.