Declutter Your Life
Stop Doing Things

Declutter your life by not doing things that do not add value to your life.

If you only look forward to something being over, you don't really want to be doing that activity.

Much of my life has been spent doing things I really did not want to do. I did not declutter my life.

I spent most of my time waiting for things to be over.

I couldn't wait for school (high school, college and graduate school) to be over.

I couldn't wait for high school basketball to be over.

I couldn't wait for Christmas and parties with my ex-wife's family to be over.

Christmas, parties, sports, education are all supposed to be good aren't they? Well for me, the way things were, it wasn't so good.

My ex-wife's family loves spending a lot of time on Christmas Day opening gifts. It is not unusual to spend 10 to 12 hours at this. I really want to spend about an hour or less opening gifts. This way of doing it is not me at all.

My ex was also super stressed in the month leading up to Christmas and that made living with her at that time excruciatingly difficult.

At that time in my life the day after Christmas was the best day of the year for me.

No dealing with all the relatives. Just a quiet day at home or back to work. The kids have new gifts to enjoy.

The biggest reason would be that my wife's stress would be over and she will be decent to me. The season was a huge problem for her and she made it very difficult on me.

Now, Christmas time is wonderful for me. I don't make it a big deal. I just spend a little extra time on Christmas type things. It does not monopolize my time, money and energy.

Of course, I had to leave her to get this way. I had to declutter my relationships.

I need to constantly be thinking of how to declutter my life for me and for my kids.

I want them to think this way too. I don't want to tell them how to think, I merely discuss this way of thinking and show them my way so as to give them an alternative way of thinking.

I think my son thinks this way.

We signed up my son for a late summer and early fall roller hockey league. It cost $145 and the games are Wednesday nights.

He had played in leagues before but now there is no one there his age, he is 14. It is just older guys in their 20's and older.

He is not really enjoying it and has told me that he would like to quit.

At first I was like, how can you quit, I paid the money, I thought you wanted to play, your team needs you, you need the exercise, blah, blah, blah.

Now I am going to encourage him to quit if he wants to. I am not going to force him to play.

Why should he play something he doesn't want to do? He is thinking for himself. He doesn't enjoy it and would prefer not to continue. He gets it. He only likes to do what he wants to do. He is happier that way.

His mother is still trying to force him to continue playing.

She doesn't get it. She is more into the never quit mindset.

There is only a certain amount of things a person has to do. As an adult you have to have enough money to live on and support your family.

As a kid, you will have to go to school in some way, public, private or home school.

But that's it, isn't it? Why do people feel the need to continue doing something if it isn't working out for them?

Quitting is so hard for people.

Once you start something, even if you hate it you will find it hard to quit.

But if you look at it from the idea of am I only doing this to get it over with? Declutter your life and it will be better.

If so, and it is possible to quit, your decision should be easy at that point. QUIT. I thought I should capitalize the word so you can understand it.

People will find it hard to let you quit.

I am dreading calling the leader of the roller hockey league and telling him my son is quitting.

It should be easier, quitting.

But it isn't.

Whenever I have quit something, I have made a conscious decision to declutter my life and my life has improved tremendously. When you quit something that does not add value to your life you free up time for things that do add value.

Time is gained not just from the activity itself, but from the time agonizing about it. The extra thinking and worrying is just as time consuming and draining as the activity itself.

Go Back to Home Page.

Go Back to Declutter (Top of This Page).