The majority of people say 2020 has been a tough year. We are living through a pandemic, and it is not something many of us have experienced before. I have seen posts online about a few older people who survived the Spanish Flu, which was in 1918-1920. There have been other pandemics before, and there will be more, but this seems to stand out as one that made its mark in history like the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020. The survivors of the Spanish Flu would be over a hundred years old, which is something not many people can claim, to have lived through two global pandemics.

People are reacting in various ways to the way the world has changed in 2020. Some of us are quite content to continue in our introverted lives with self-quarantining. For this group of people, nothing has changed, and they are happily continuing to live their lives in the safety of their homes. It upset others when they have to cancel plans with friends. They are extroverts and need social activities to maintain their lifestyle. It is challenging for people who identify as extroverts because the pandemic does not allow them to have parties or even hang out with their friends. Withdrawal is hard, no matter what it is from. It isn’t a medical withdrawal, but it is emotional, and it is a different hardship for those who are experiencing it.

I fall into the third category, a bit of both. I am an ambivert, and I tend towards the introverted side the longer I am alive.  When I was younger, I lived for the social butterfly lifestyle. Now I value my time at home and need downtime between social events. I don’t actively avoid social activities, but I don’t need them to thrive, either. I am perfectly content to keep myself busy at home, and I get enough socialization at my part-time day job.

I was working on myself in the last few months when I realized I was in what I have recently heard called a learning vortex from an online friend. It is a loop or a cycle of learning that just keeps going as long as you let it. Self-improvement and working on aspects of your mindset, goals, and entrepreneurial dreams take work. However, if you do not stop long enough to apply what you have learned, then you cannot advance in these areas. It is hard to say no to all the opportunities online, because as you know, once you say yes, the ever so helpful bots send more opportunities in your direction.

I have expanded my online learning to help me tackle things like cleaning and organizing my home. Yes, I have been at this for YEARS. So I know I won’t finish in a day. At the rate I am going, it won’t happen at all, though, and I am not ready to leave things the way they are.

One of the online speakers I had the pleasure of hearing in an online event was Mary Morrissey. I learned from listening to her that one invisible block to creativity is clutter. So my husband and I moved some furniture and cleaned up my desk. I now enjoy working here. It needs another round of organization, which I will fit in this week because it is not 100% optimized yet. I can only imagine what applying this method to my entire home is going to feel like. It will free me to be more creative with less guilt than I have, and to me, it is worth it.

When I clean, I find it easier to stay on task if I am listening to music. I created the term Bouncing The House for it. I am a creative writer, and from time to time, I make up words or phrases. This is one of them. I crank the tunes and clean. It has stuck with me, and I use music to help me focus at other times. Some people work better with silence, but I prefer to work with background noise.

In tackling clutter and messes, I am doing more than just cleaning. I am making room for me to be more creative. As someone who longs to create to feel that joy in her life, it is something I dread doing, but I know the payoff will be worth it.

Whether you are an introvert, an extrovert, or an ambivert, one thing is for sure. We are all spending more time at home. I am looking around at all the projects that are waiting for me to get to them and taking action. When I remove the roadblocks of clutter and guilt, who knows how much I will accomplish next? I look forward to the end results, and I hope that this article inspires you to get going in your home to remove clutter and feel better about being safe at home, in your living space.