Overwhelm doesn't feel very good. Does it? But it is informative - that feeling of overwhelm tells us "make a change." Of course, that thought can be another source of overwhelm. Most of us are overloaded with tasks, information flowing in, and of course, the big one: clutter.

Clutter is basically your life's backlog. With the exception of those people who thrive in the midst of stacks of books and papers, cascading down in heaps onto the floor, what we're looking at is a filing system run amuck. Or perhaps never initiated to begin with. Today, I realized that what I want to do in my life in the organizational category is eliminate backlog. As a lifestyle choice. No backlog!!

A dear friend of mine has a habit of bringing newspapers home from the café which he then piles around his work space. The papers await the day when he then sits down and goes through them, figuring out what he wants to actually read and what he can throw out. Often there are bits of his work day stuck between papers, important little notes, numbers, business cards and so forth which he must be sure he extracts before tying the papers into bundles for recycling. This is like the added bonus from hell: he cannot just go on a rampage and get rid of them, his habit dictates that he absolutely must filter through all these old newspapers first.

There's a psychology to this, obviously. There's some background reason why he burdens himself with this future task. But that's not what I'm talking about today. I want to look at what we do in our daily life which contributes to overwhelm, and this is a great example of how backlogs are created. Remember, backlog = clutter. Clutter = overwhelm. At least in this formula.

It might seem simple to solve the particular problem I've described. Stop bringing home the papers. It's not that simple, though, or few of us would have the crazy piles around our desks that are so common, nor would we be renting storage units to store all the extra things we will never even look at again. This is a deep cultural behavior and it requires some inspection - and introspection - to change it.

For my friend, I would suggest taking a moment at that café, once he's collected his papers to take home, and really think about the value of those newspapers. Think about those minutes and hours that accumulate, looking for something that is lost between papers in the piles. And especially, when he is sorting through them for things to keep, look at what he chooses out of the piles. How much information is there that could not be found with ease online twenty-four hours a day?

For my own lifestyle choices, I'm thinking about how to eliminate other kinds of backlog. I procrastinate about phone calls. I make notes and then lists of people I need to call. Because I don't like talking on the phone, some mean little elf inside me sticks those notes and lists in some place where they're forgotten for weeks on end. Backlog means everything on your list. We have emotional backlogs, backlogs of promises we've made to ourselves, and environmental backlogs of things to do around our house.

All of these backlogs are also in the brain. You can sense it when you notice that growing pile of mail that needs sorting. Piles of unwanted mail create confusion and conflict. Clutter is even implicated in depression, since a chronic sense of overwhelm is a common symptom depressed people report.

It's a tough goal. Can I do it? Actually free myself from the pull of the unfinished past? I hope so, because I want to start traveling, and I'd love it if I didn't have to get home to do the filing. Just thinking about a clutter-free life raises my energy level!