Unstuffed by Ruth Soukup

Author:Ruth Soukup
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2016-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

It will be far easier to create a new habit that is more or less a variation or extension of your old habit, rather than trying to initiate an entirely new behavior. Remember, according to Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, a habit once established in your brain takes very little effort or willpower to maintain. Your brain wants to do the same things over and over. Thus keeping your solutions so simple and easy to remember that they become habits will create success for every member of your family.

Establishing Stricter Limits

By this point, you may have already realized that an essential part of becoming unstuffed is learning to set stricter limits in your life, both in the amount of physical stuff you allow in your home — from books and toys to clothes and more — and in the amount of nonmaterial stuff you allow to cloud up your mind, and take over your time and schedule. Becoming unstuffed means learning to say no to more.

When it comes to paperwork and information overload, sometimes it feels like we don’t really have the option to say no. It seems to just come at us, whether or not we want it to, whether or not we accept it. What can we really do about it?

The reality is that, while you may not be able to control every piece of incoming information or every scrap of paper, you can make a conscious effort to cut back on the amount of data that comes your way. You can start by converting all of your bills and payments to auto-pay and opt for digital statements rather than the paper variety. Next, you can unsubscribe to catalogs and junk mail by using a service such as catalogchoice.org. Also, you can cancel subscriptions to magazines or newspapers you never have time to read. These steps alone may easily cut out 90 percent of your incoming mail.

Paper mail is only one area where you can easily set stricter limits. In my own life, for example, I am really bad at listening to my voice mails. My mom especially has a habit of leaving very long messages, sometimes as long as ten or fifteen minutes. I generally prefer to call someone back when I’ve seen that I missed a call rather than taking the time to listen to a long message. As a result, about a year ago, my voice mailbox became completely filled with messages I hadn’t yet listened to. When people called, they discovered they couldn’t leave a message. So they didn’t. They either called back or sent me an email or text message. Living without voice mail was so freeing that I just decided to let my voice mailbox stay full, and it has stayed that way ever since. It is a conscious decision, and I don’t feel guilty about it or about the fact that there are still many messages I have never listened to. It may seem like a small thing — and

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