I don’t know about you, but I seem to have a knack for throwing out things that I need and holding onto stuff that I don’t.
When my husband Mark and I were first married, I was so excited about having a joint checking account that I spent several hours one afternoon destroying all of our checks from our individual accounts.
I got so carried away that when I finished, we didn’t own a single check from any account. We had to order new ones right away.
On the other hand, this afternoon I was looking through a drawer and found a little do-dad that someone had given me 6 or 7 years ago. I’ve never liked it; in fact I hate it. But here it is, still with me – even making the trip from Michigan to Indiana.
Do you know that even after I found it and wondered why I was keeping it I didn’t throw it away? It’s still there in the drawer.
OK. Now it isn’t. I finally threw it away.
Surely you have similar things around your house that could be thrown away. It’s not hard. So why don’t we do it?
I’ve found that people with ADHD often put off the simplest things – the ones that will take a couple of minutes at most. I think that our “reasoning” is that we can get that done any time – it only takes a minute – and so we don’t.
You have a whole lot of minutes ahead of you. You have some right now. Why not take a few of them and do one of those oh so easy tasks? Let go a little bit.
Need some ideas? Why, I think I might have a few.
Junk drawer. We all have at least one. You might not be able to clear it out in less than 5 minutes, but you could paw through it and find 7 or 8 things to throw out.
Your car. Wonder what you could find in your car to throw out? Beverage containers, food wrappers, a few random empty bags? Do it.
Your purse. What’s hiding in your purse? Old tissues and receipts? Lose them.
Your make up bag. Certain cosmetics like mascara should not be used for an extended length of time because bacteria can grow in them. Toss out old tubes of mascara and lipstick, eye pencils more than a year old, and any hardened bottles of nail polish.
Your in box. How many emails do you have sitting in your email box right now? How many are you keeping in case you want to read them again? I’d say most of what’s in there can be deleted. And if you can’t stand to do that, get a Gmail account and archive everything.
Just let go. Really.