Clutterers Anonymous

The other day I happened upon a site called Clutterers Anonymous. No I wont be joining any supportgroups just yet. My clutter problem isn't that out of control. It was interesting however to take their 20 question quiz. Here it is, including my answers to them:

• Do you have more possessions or items in your life than you can handle comfortably?

- No not really

• Do you find it difficult to dispose of many things, even those you haven't used in years?

- Yes sometimes. I usually have a hard time shaking the feeling that I might need it again in the future.

• Do you rent storage space to house items you never use?

-Thankfully no. If it was that bad then I would sign up for the support group this instant.

• Do you spend time looking for things that are hard to find because of all the clutter?

-Disorder makes it hard to find study material I need to go back to.

• Do you find it easier to drop something than to put it away, or to wedge an object into an overcrowded drawer or closet rather than find space for it?

-Yes!

• Do you collect things to give to others?

-No

• Do you bring things into your house without establishing a place for them?

-Yes

• Is your clutter causing problems in your relationships?

-No, but that would require a relationship. (For the single females out there I'm single and looking!) still I haven't had clutter ruin anything in the past.

• Are you embarrassed to have visitors because your home is never presentable?

-Yes. This is a recurring problem for me. Though sometimes I invite people over in order to force myself to deal with the clutter.

• Do you hesitate sharing about this problem because you are ashamed of your cluttering?

-Well I am writing this blog am I not?

• Are you constantly doing for others while your own home is out of order?

-Yes and no. Not to a large extent but to a degree I am much more inclined to help someone else then to take care of my own mess.

• Do you miss deadlines or abandon projects because you can't find the paperwork or material to finish the work?

-No I generally force myself to find what I need and finish on time. At whatever cost.

• Do you sometimes get buried in details, making projects take much longer than is really necessary?

-Thankfully this is not one of my traits.

• Do you procrastinate about cleaning up because you believe you must do it perfectly or you won't do it at all?

-To some extent yes.

• Are you easily side-tracked, moving from one project to another without finishing any of them?

-Yes

• Do you have problems with time management and estimating how long it takes to do things?

-Sometimes yes. But it depends on the project.

• Do you believe there is all the time in the world to clean your house, finish those projects, and read all those piles of old magazines?

-Regretfully yes. I always think I'll have time "later"

• Do you use distractions to escape from your clutter?

-Yes definitely. I'll frequently kill tons of time at my computer when I need to do things about my clutter.

• Have you tried to clean up from time to time but find yourself unable to stick with it?

-Not really unable per se, just unwilling.

• Does the problem appear to be growing?

-No thankfully it is more or less on the same level. Slightly less actually


There, not so bad right? Right? Actually according to the website I would be a prime candidate. So how many of these apply to you? I'll have a poll up this week. Post your score in it an we will see how we are all doing.

Relevant links - 2008-05-19

Can you become a creature of new habits? - Learning habits can actually make us more creative. Not learning new habits can cause our existing creativity to atrophy.

Learn an instrument online - A short article suggesting a few ways to learn to play an instrument with the help of the web.

Slate's special issue on procrastionation - Slate magazine deliveres a couple of days worth of articles about procrastionation. Have a look and see what can help you.

Top 10 interview mistakes - Some of these are downright crazy but some can be quite helpful. Make sure you don't ruin your next job interview by making any of these misstakes.

Sleep deprivation is NOT a badge of honor

Sometimes we get the idea into our heads that sleep deprivation is a sign of how hard of a worker you are. We imagine a scenario that goes something like this:

Person A - "I didn't sleep very much last night, I was up finishing up ." Person B (thinking) - "Wow what a hard worker! He needs a raise."

Now in reality this never happens. In fact according to this article on Signal vs. Noise you are more likely to loose productivity, creativity and controll of your temper when suffering from sleep deprivation. From the article:

Forgoing sleep is like borrowing from a loan shark. Sure you get that extra hours right now to cover for your overly-optimistic estimation, but at what price? The shark will be back and if you can’t pay, he’ll break your creativity, morale, and good-mannered nature as virtue twigs.

...to think you can do with 6 hours or less is probably an illusion. Worse, it’s an illusion you’ll have a hard time bursting. Sleep-deprived people often vastly underestimate the impact on their abilities, studies have shown.

This lesson is to myself as much as anyone else. The 6 hour sleep cycle is all to familiar to me. And just like the article said I keep rationalizing and imagining to myself that I'm actually fine after 6 hours of sleep. So time to get to it and start getting to bed before 23:00.

Seven things Bruce Lee can teach you about getting your life in shape

He is fast, extremely agile and none of us want to get on his bad side. But he wasn't all about fighting (as awesome as he was when he did it.) I recently stubled upon this article on The Positivity Blog about 7 fundamentals Bruce Lee can teach us about life. My favorite point is number 5:

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”

I guess thats something I struggle with. I care too much about other peoples expectations of me and less about my own. Enjoy!