Congruity through de-cluttering

The book I'm writing has at it's core the notion that part of finding happiness in a career is finding what you want your life to be, and then stop spending time, energy, and money on anything that is not pushing your life in that direction. I call this idea congruity.

Oprah's "clutter guy" Peter Walsh expresses a similar notion when it comes to de-cluttering your life. "It's not about the stuff," Walsh advises. "It's about what you want your life to be." Once you know that, you can quickly distinguish between stuff you need to keep to reach your goals, and stuff you don't:

Most things that you save for the future represent hopes and dreams. But the money, space, and energy you spend trying to create a specific future are wasted. We can't control what tomorrow will bring. Those things we hoard for an imaginary future do little other than limit our possibilities and stunt our growth. When I urge you to get rid of them, I'm not telling you to discard your hopes and dreams. It's actually quite the opposite. Because if you throw out the stuff that does a rather shabby job of representing your hopes and dreams, you actually create room to make dreams come true.

-Peter Walsh, "It's All Too Much"

His worksheets for rooms go beyond organizing. They ask questions like:

• What is the current function of the room?
• What is the ideal function of the room?
• Who uses it?
• Who should use it?
• What should it contain?
• What has to go?

This approach keeps you on the high ground, goal-focused, not bogged down in the minutiae of which drawer to put what in. When your life is all pushing in the same direction, the clutter takes care of itself.

Here is an excellent, more detailed review.