I’m reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. I’m only about a quarter of the way through but so far there are two key steps to tidying that keep repeating; first discard the excess then organize what’s left. As I have been reading I’ve been charging ahead in my mind about what I could discard and how I might organize things when I’m finished reading. Well, today I read a section that brought all that thinking to an abrupt halt.
Before you start, visualize your destination
It’s important that the actions we take are congruent with where we want to end up. It seems so obvious, but case in point, as I was thinking about discarding and organizing all my belongs I hadn’t looked much deeper than the simple desire to have less clutter. I hadn’t gotten down to the core ‘why’ of it all first. When it comes time to do the actual work of tidying, answering the question of “Do I need this?” will be so much easier to answer if I understand the why behind it all. The method Marie outlines for getting to those underlying motivations is to, “visualize the ideal lifestyle you dream of”, then identify why you want to live like that. Then repeat the sequence of asking and answering “Why?” three or four more times. Only when you get to your base desire are you ready to start the process of decluttering.
I believe this logic applies to any goal or aspiration. If you are struggling to get traction towards your goals, perhaps it would help to pause for a moment, get to that root need or desire and make sure the tasks you’ve set for yourself are in line with them.