Why A Few Minutes A Day Is Like Magic

How my client finally heard, understood and implemented "a few minutes a day keeps the chaos away" and now calls it now MAGIC. 

New Moons are ideal for intention setting, and intention setting helps us getting clear on what we really want in life and business and it helps us focusing on our goals and achieving them.

The New Moon is ideal for that because it's the beginning of a moon cycle, it's like planting a seed. Let's stay for a hot second with gardening: we all understand that it's not enough to just plant a seed, we also have to look after it and nurture it, so it can become a seedling and then a full grown plant. It's the same with our intentions.

The intention is like the seed, but to nurture and look after this seed, we need to spend a few minutes a day.... in order to make progress and to achieve our goal.

I want to tell you a story, a couple of weeks ago I was on a coaching call with a client. The client had made some progress since we started working together but it was all more mentally, having insights and awareness of what's going on and why there was as much clutter around. That is all very valuable and it's awesome progress, it's the inside work that a lot of people that try to declutter their environment don't do.

But even mental decluttering without physical decluttering doesn't get us where we want to go. And for my client, there seemed to be a mental block to get from having awareness and insights to actually doing something about it.

You maybe had this experience too, you realize that you want to do something but then you are not doing it, and you are aware of why you are not doing it, but then you are stuck and can't get past the realization into taking action.

That's what seemed happening to my client, no matter how often I said just try out a few minutes every day to actually do something, I said all the things I usually suggest, remember I have

The magic 3 principles for successful decluttering 

1. Divide your area you're wanting to declutter into small, manageable chunksPrinciple 
2. Start with the least personal area and thingsPrinciple
3. A few minutes a day keeps the chaos away, taking 5 minutes to declutter daily is more powerful than a three-hour purge on the weekend

Think of these principles holistically-- they work together. By starting with small, manageable chunks in the least personal areas, you will actually get traction spending only a few minutes a day over and over, easy peasy, no heavy lifting required. 

But even though I felt like I was a broken record saying it over and over to this client on all our coaching calls, the client stayed stuck. 

Have you been there? I sure have, and then we beat ourselves up for it, can you spot that this is mental clutter which creates emotional clutter? And it doesn't make things better does it, we're just packing more clutter on top of the clutter we already have, and what happens then? 

This client was coming to coaching calls upset because once again there were no wins or actions to report, only awareness and insights. And while awareness and insights are awesome, eventually we need to take the second step and start taking action. Only action changes things, and only action can really give you clarity and results. 

I had to find a way to help this client to take action, to move from just thinking about it and having insights to actually starting to declutter. I always say start with the easy stuff, the low hanging fruit so to speak, the stuff you know you don't want, the obvious stuff, but even all these suggestions didn't get my client to be able to take action. That was until

I discovered the magic -al key to help this client 

The client wanted to live in a more supportive environment but at the same time felt there was no time to create such a supportive environment because all the time and energy was dedicated to building a thriving business.

Working on the business all day left no space for anything else, not even for self-care really. And as you may remember i also say over and over decluttering is self-love and self-care.

So what I realized was, I need this client to see what a great benefit a supportive clutter-free environment would be to the most important goal of having a thriving business. That was when I finally got through and the client was willing to try it out, and committed to really do 10 minutes of decluttering a day and see what happens.

On the next weekly email check-in the client wrote that on a few days the decluttering was done but on other days it was forgotten. So I suggested that I would be the daily accountability buddy and that I expected to receive an email every day with just the word "done", once the 10 minutes were accomplished.

Sure enough, from then on I got almost every day an email and this client showed up to the next coaching call like a changed person. The energy was up, a big big smile, and a glow in the face that wasn't there before, and those are the words my client said to me:

Conny, this is like magic! It really works! You should use this in your marketing material!

Isn't that funny, I feel I do use it in my marketing material, I say it so often I feel I am annoying people and here was my client, that knew me for at least 3 years and was working with me for a while already, and it seemed like those words "a few minutes a day keep the chaos away" were never heard.

We spent the rest of the coaching call talking about how it worked, why it worked all of a sudden, after not being able to make progress for quite some time.

Once my client understood, really heard and understood, that a few minutes a day would not take time away from the big goal, on contrary it would help and even accelerate to get to the big goal, the goal of a thriving business, the willingness to really try and invest the 10 minutes was there.

The 10 minutes were not just another task on the long to-do list that tried to kept my client away from working on that big goal. The 10 minutes became THE to-do, the perfect great stepping stone to get to the big goal.

It really is like magic 

If there is a magic wand that I can wave for my clients, and for you reader, it's exactly that, to get you to understand, that "a few minutes a day keeps the chaos away" is the way you reach your other goals and to experience the magic.

Decluttering is not a one time big event, it is a journey, a journey of mostly small, maybe sometimes a bit bigger, steps.  It's not that you can do it once and then you are done for the rest of your life.

Clutter is like dishes, or laundry, or bathing, it's an ongoing process, of rinse and repeat, you are never fully decluttered but you can get to a place where it becomes your lifestyle, living a clutter free life is what you do, you are in control of your stuff, the stuff doesn't control you anymore.

There is no destination of finally being decluttered, living clutter-free is a lifestyle, a daily decision, a daily habit and you can start today, no waiting required and everyone has a few minutes in their day. 

Start today, start right now, it's an important stepping stone to your most important goals in life and business to create space, calm and ease.

We are creatures of habit and repetition is what our brain loves, because then it doesn't have to use a lot of energy. Your job is to make sure that you repeat the right things every day, the things that support you, the things that get you closer to your goals, and that our habits are aligned with where you want to go in life and business.

Everything else is an unnecessary uphill battle that wastes a lot of your energy, slows you down, and maybe even keeps you stuck not reaching our goals.

It's all about repetion

This whole story with my client teaches me a lesson too. It teaches me that even though I often feel like a broken record, I am still not saying it enough. I am still not getting through to people, I'm not getting through to you my reader, that comes here to this blog for help. 

• You that feels overwhelmed by clutter,
• you that doesn't know where to start,
• you who also stays stuck in the head by just reading this and other blog posts but then is not doing anything.

So you will hear me say and write it even more from now on all in the hope that you - just like my client - really hear me one day, when I say,

It's like magic, a few minutes a day keeps the chaos away!!

Reach out and book a complimentary Clutter to Clarity session to hear how I can help you on this journey from chaos to peace.

The life and business you want is on the other side of all that clutter, get there with strong intentions and a few minutes a day of actions.