I am at work. I see yet another ‘Stop, Start and Continue’ exercise forming on the wipe board in front of me because someone has jumped up with unadulterated enthusiasm, grabbed the wipe pen and decided that this would be the best way to organise our actions. I don’t disagree. He is a good guy.

Although, my heart sucks inside my brain. Why? Because no one ever ‘STOPS’ their stuff as they all think what they are doing is important. The Golam effect. My precious thing, this is super important and I need it.

How many times have you seen this, how many times has this been you? We accumulate stuff and we have been trained to do so, it is an economy thing. The whole powerful world of marketing is aiming at our desire to obtain things and that is just what we do. We step right up to the plate.

We clutter our world with stuff. It’s in our homes, our wardrobes, our garages and in our place of work or even on our social media and online entities. As an example, how many kindle books have you purchased but not yet read. Right. We just accumulate stuff and then never get around to it and it is not only hard copy but also on our virtual worlds.

In a previous life I would spend an entire day every six months just cleaning out the garage of accumulated stuff. I do remember the satisfaction and how exciting it was to finally clear out that garage and claim back that space. Another great example of satisfaction was cleaning out the kitchen drawer, yep that one, the one that hoards the take-away menus and spits out pointless stuff when you don’t need it. Try clearing that out today, it is exhilarating, in a strange kind of way.

The other place where I find I carry a lot of clutter is in my head. It is just filled with stuff from work and the things I want to do when I get home from work and because there is a lot of it in there to work on, there is never a sense of accomplishment. So recently I started to work out how to do the ‘clearing out the garage thing’ but within my head. Pause for a minute and reflect on that, can you imagine doing that in your own head. The creativity that would flood in and the advantages that you could give to whatever the heck it is you can finally focus on. That has been my recent focus, so I am doing some stuff and in all honestly it is a work in progress, but it is making a difference.

I now meditate. It did sound a bit wanky to me at first but I do it and I enjoy it. I was given some beads for Christmas as a gift from my partner. I live in China, she is local, so it is appropriate and I love them, both. I do ten minutes every morning and it clears my mind.

I also write a whole lot of stuff down now and also list my to do stuff directly into my iCal on my iPhone, which is very good for focusing. That in itself is a top tip for improving your attention to getting things done.

I also exercise more and I have eliminated coffee from my consumption… so my head is clearing and is a little less cluttered. One other thing is that I also say ‘no’ to a lot things now, and sometimes I just don’t do it, which is always a fun conversation with people, and I am actively working on finding stuff that I can stop. I do think I will always be a dreamer, trying to get an avenue into something new and exciting and inside my head will always be a hive of activity, but it does seem a whole lot lighter with less stuff kicking around in it and it has created some more space for me to think.

Space is important, creating space in our heads, homes and online is never an easy task. My advice for what it is worth. List it. Action it and do it. We are sold on meditation to allow us to think, which I get and participate, but oh how it would be such a better experience if we lightened the load in other ways. You can find your path on this, explore what works for you.

My recommendation would be, just do the stop exercise and then… do that, STOP. Take your list and go and make everything on that list STOP because you will feel better for it.