Every so often, it’s good to really give your life and your habits a spring cleaning. After several months of never having more than a couple days at a time at home and a series of massive life changes – there comes a time to take stock of where you find yourself and hit the reset button.

There are some really interesting suggestions that we have been implementing in our lives lately that I’m finding to be very successful so I thought that I should share them with you as I know many of you creative types are dealing with the same kinds of frustrations that I do on a daily basis.

Streamlining your life

#1 – Get rid of physical clutter around you. For us this meant mostly books, because we’ve always been bookish folks. Even before the publishing company we collected books just to read, not to sell! Now with most of the classics being available on e-readers for free, we donated to a charity book sale anything that we could get our hands on digitally unless it was a really special edition. 25 cases of books in fact. And we hardly made a dent in the existing collection… but it sure opened the space up and made me feel better.

#2 – Get rid of the mental clutter. We spend an awful lot of time and energy trying to remember the things we need to remember… so I went back to my OMNIFOCUS program to make sure I was acting on the principles from the Getting Things Done book and not trying to keep track of everything in my head. Downloading all those to-do’s helps free up the memory for actually processing things I do need to think about right now.

#3 – Get rid of the to-do’s that are haunting you. You know, like the dental check up you haven’t booked even though it’s 6 months overdue, or your taxes from last year, or the huge stack of thank you cards from your wedding still waiting to be posted (ahem). Whatever you least want to do, should probably be the thing you do first. They don’t get any easier the longer you wait…

#4 – Do a time spent to priority check. Make a list of the priorities in your life, and then assign an estimate to how much of your time per week is being spent on those things. For example:

• spending time with husband & daughter 10%
• writing 1%
• spending time with friends 5%
• generating income 84%

Maybe it’s time for a realignment? Or maybe some of those items simply need to get eliminated from your life and scratched right off the list. Within each category you can analyze in more detail what is taking up all your time. For example, what work do you spend most of your time doing and how much of your income does it actually bring in? Can you cut back on those tasks that have the least return on your time invested and then spend that time on things higher up your priority list?

 Increasing Productivity

#1 – Don’t check your email until right before lunch. Then don’t check it again until right before you quit for the day. The more emails you send, the more you get. And once you start checking, you are at a serious risk for distraction every time something comes in.

#2 – Decide the night before what your first and most urgent task at work will be the next morning. Start with that, then work your way through your “to do’s” in OmniFocus (or whatever program you use) in order of priority until it’s time to check your email. You’ll be amazed how far you get! And that way, if your email contains something that becomes an urgent priority item, you won’t be distracted and keep pushing the already existing urgent items further down on the agenda!

#3 – If possible, the first thing you do in your day should involve exercise. Walk to work, go to the gym, do some stretches and/or exercises before you sit down to your desk. It’ll get the blood and oxygen flowing to your brain and you’ll be more alert, quicker with all your tasks and feel better about yourself too.  Repeat at midday, getting some time away from your desk to run errands, a quick walk over lunch or just do some stretching while you step outside for a quick breath of fresh air.

#4 – Avoid refined sugar and complex carbohydrates (most of the “white” stuff) as much as you can. You’ll be amazed at how tired you don’t feel in the afternoon. Seriously, just give it a week and see how much of a difference it makes!

Something that’s really working for you that I didn’t mention here? Share it with us in the comments section… we’re always looking for more ways to improve our lives!