Flow

Knowing your flow means understanding how stuff, data, tasks and information are coming into your space — and how they leave. Because if stuff comes into your space and calendar each day, but nothing is getting crossed off or deleted, you’re going to end up with clutter.

 

Why Know Your Flow?
Are you stressed? In my experience, a major cause of stress is clutter. Think about it, there is schedule clutter because we have more tasks, obligations, and activities than we have hours in the day. There is physical clutter which overwhelms our homes and workplaces which is caused by bringing in more items than we have space for or than items that are leaving the space. There is information clutter due to the overabundance of newspapers, TV channels, internet access, and magazines. So why practice stuff-flow®? — to decrease stuff in your life!

Stuff
The mail is a big problem area with flow. Mail arrives each day, and most of it is junk. Many times we’re too busy to process it as soon as we walk in the door. Understanding how much comes in and how often you process it will help you know your flow.

And what about shopping? Whether it’s clothes, groceries or more items for the bathroom, all of us buy several items each week and bring them into our space. Are you bringing in more than the amount that departs?

Photo by Dan4th.

Information
TV, internet, books, phone messages, and so forth. We have an endless source of information. Without a system for capturing and processing all this data, it’s easy to get information-overwhelm. How do you capture incoming data?

Tasks
The same is true when it comes to your schedule, calendar or to-do list. How many tasks do you add each day? How many projects are you juggling? What items have you crossed off or completed? Knowing the rate at which you add — and subtract — items and tasks will go a long way toward solving schedule-overwhelm.

Need more info about knowing your flow?