Life Coach - Step 56 of 100: Declutter everything

Thank you Shirin for the wake up call. Laziness in blogging was kind of becoming a habit.

Apologies for the long break in my blogging. I am between jobs and initially the stress of finding the right job in a recession economy was my excuse and after that it was decluttering my house.

I had a break of a few days between my jobs and I used it to declutter the house. Over a period of 4 years stay in US, we have managed to collect a lot of stuff which we dont need any longer or was a spur on the moment purchase.

Outside CME, Pune there is a homepathic doctor enroute to Khadki market who managed to get rid of my cold allergies in 4 sittings of Rs 15 each. He had a poster in his office that said "Discipline is finding the right thing when it is needed in the shortest possible time". I guess it meant discipline as applied to material objects in storage or in use.

In our units we have so much acquisitions over time - purchases, gifts, finders losers that it is time for us to declutter our units. Now decluttering also applies to documents. If I ask my company commander to get me a report and he takes a day to compile it, it means firstly he is not aware of the details and secondly his team does not know where to look for it in the shortest possible time.

I have a unique system of storing items - called organized chaos. In my home during my childhood I had boxes for various things. So if you asked for a particular comic, I would go to the boxes of my comics and then search in that few boxes. I knew it was somewhere over there in those few boxes. The search was restricted to only those few boxes. I eventually got to what I needed but it took time. I am trying to move from the organized chaos by having a systems wherein even if I am not physically present, I could instruct you where to look for it. Initially I had to be present to know where to look for. still a long way from perfection, but I am improving gradually.

My PMP JCO had a good system. If I asked for a Log book of a vehicle he would have it in front of me within minutes. All tools were in the same spot after they had been used. There was no searching for anything.

Here is what I want you to do, when you go for your unit rounds look for declutter. Stop at the QM office and ask him to get you reports of last month. Stop at MT office and ask for Log Books. Ask Kot NCO for lost unit inspection reports. Repeat the same at each company location. You could ask for anything that you want to see - not just my laundry list above. Now some of the NCOs, JCOs would have what you need in less than a minute and some would take time. Identify why the timings were different. And standardize the best practice.

We will get to decluttering of other stuff in next blog.