Silverknife - Writing and Productivity: Clear your Space, Clear Your Head

This is an old and obvious piece of advice, but it just keeps on being true. When the space in which you live or work is cluttered and messy, it brings down your productivity and even your happiness.

Living or working in a cluttered space gives one a subconscious feeling of disorganisation, and even of powerlessness - those piles of unattended junk or unfinished projects, those coffee cup rings, that overflowing bin, all send an unconscious message that you're not on top of things, not in control. You'll bring that feeling to everything you do.

If you have ADHD or just have problems with attention and procrastination, the mess around you can tug at your attention, leaving you unable to focus fully on your chosen task. If you feel demotivated or incapable, your environment may be a contributing factor.

Attack the mess in a way that fits your personal energy level and attention. I tend to go about it one of two ways:

Incremental

Set a mental flag that every time you go to the kitchen, you'll take a handful of plates. Every time you walk through the living room, you'll grab a couple of pieces of rubbish and put them in the bin. If the bin's full, you'll take the bag to the back door. If you're going out, you'll take the bag out as you go.

While you're on the (cordless or mobile) phone, occupy your hands by putting a few books on the shelves, stacking up papers, do a few pieces of washing up.

In short, just use your spare brain and body capacity to move steadily towards a clearer and cleaner environment - you'll barely notice you're doing it.

The Big Sweep

Put on some music, an audiobook or a background DVD, get yourself a drink, maybe some snacks, lock the door and unplug the phone, and make it a project. Lose yourself totally in sorting out your mess, take your time, you may even start to enjoy it! Pitting yourself against a serious challenge will help get your motivation motor running, just make sure you push yourself through to the finish once the job's shrunk enough to be a "Maybe I'll do it tomorrow" item.

Take some tips from this great article (from Zen Habits, via Lifehacker):
Zen Habits: How to Declutter an Entire Room In One Go

A Place For Everything

The most common demotivator in tidying is the moment when you pick up some discarded object, look around and say "So where do I cram this?" Make it easy to keep your space clear by having an obvious, accessible place for everything in your space. Next time you go to leave a CD box on your chest of drawers, you'll see it's just as easy to slot it into your neatly organised shelves.

Maintenance

Finally, remember that mess attracts mess - one discarded sock on the floor gives the subconscious message "That's where I throw my clothes", a few loose papers soon attract more, then become a pile of unfinished and distracting tasks. Don't let the mess seed!