What’s something that you don’t tolerate well these days? Lactose? Spicy food? Loud chewing? Birkenstocks with socks? People who air quote too much?
For me, it’s messes ( who am I kidding – clutter in general). My chill is so low, it might as well not exist, lol.
I mean, I can be cool about it at first. But at some point (usually the exact moment I witness a foot literally stepping over said clutter as if it’s part of the room decor), my entire nervous system activates and it’s game onnnnnnnnn.
I cannot be stopped from cleaning and throwing away with pure abandon, much to the annoyance of the three other humans I live with.
So of course it makes perfect sense that after the 87th morning of opening a cabinet and having to sort through a jungle of disheveled plates, bowls, and popsicle molds to get to my protein shaker cup thing- I would lose it and de-clutter the entire kitchen. That is a completely sane and rational response, right? Lol.
De-cluttering meant literally taking everything out of every cabinet and every drawer and putting it all into one titanic pile, as if I’m building the world’s weirdest bonfire. Omg, you know what happened? I came face to face with all kinds of stuff I forgot even existed! There were lids with no Tupperware, jars without lids (also, why on earth do we have 342 jars?!), duplicate accessories and appliances, and stuff that we had never even tried (hello, ice cream maker bowl contraption).
It happens though, right? In the course of living life – we accumulate the most random stuff. Some of it is useful, but the vast majority of the stuff is meh and marginally useful – but we refuse to get rid of it!
So it stays. It gathers dust. And eventually, it becomes clutter and gets in the way of the stuff you actually use and need.
Back to the 87th day – aka – the day I lost my kitchen chill: I dove straight into that messy titanic pile that I’d just created. I made my protein drink and rage drank while I sorted through this beast, slowly deciding what goes together, where stuff needed to live based on our family now, and most importantly, what needed to go.
There’s something wonderful that happens when you let go of stuff that is no longer useful: space is created.
And who’s with me: there’s nothing as refreshing as space when we are inundated with too much of anything, right?
Space to store stuff. Space to breathe. Space to enjoy the few things we treasure and love.
Space isn’t just needed in our kitchen cabinets. It’s needed in our work lives too.
In my work with companies, the most successful projects were led by people with the courage to let go of what wasn’t working to make space for new and better ways of running their businesses (even when it made everyone else uncomfortable).
Letting go of the hemming and hawing of back and forth decision making based on stories to make space for faster data driven decisions.
Letting go of inefficient and manual processes to make space for faster and more automated ones.
Letting go of multiple versions of the truth to make space for one aligned version of truth.
Letting go of what’s always been done to make space for what’s new and emerging.
As you think about your business – where is the clutter that’s no longer working? What needs to be done in order to clear it away and make room for something even better?
If you’re not sure where to start – where are you losing your chill? That’s usually a fabulous place to start!
And if you happen to find yourself fully activated and rage de-cluttering your kitchen too, feel free to send along any extra jar lids you might find.
