Decluttering your life and becoming organized starts with one important but easily overlooked step. You need to declutter your mind.

If your home and office are cluttered and disorganized, chances are your mind is too. Mental clutter is restless, moving from brooding over the past to worrying about the future. It’s going through your mental to-do list and fretting over having too much to do. Above all, mental clutter is exhausting and fruitless. It stops you from getting things done.

Here are some top tips for getting back in control and decluttering your mind.

1. Declutter your environment
If all you can see is chaos, your mind will be in overdrive all the time as there’s always something that needs doing. When you tidy up your space, things stop being overwhelming and you will be able to see if in fact anything needs doing.

2. Start keeping lists
Free up your mental space and keep anxiety at bay by writing lists. Checklists and to-do lists will keep your tasks ordered...

Journaling can help you achieve your goals because it will force you to think about them, consider the why and how, and delve deeper into the situation so that you can examine all sides of it. Read on to find out how journaling can help.

• It Forces You to Write Down Your Goals ñ When you start a journal, it basically is a way to force yourself to document your goals. Whether you write them down on paper or you use technology to get it all down doesnít matter. Once they're written, they are ready to tackle.
• It Makes You Consider Why and How ñ As you enter data into your journal, youíll be forced to face the why and how of your goal. This is especially true if you write down a goal and focus on it in your journal.
• It Enables You to Examine the Opportunities and Threats ñ When you are focused on goal making with your journal, youíll also explore opportunities and threats coming your way due to your goals. It helps you avoid roadblocks in...

Setting goals simply work... there can be no doubt about that. But I’ll bet that the goals you currently want to achieve are based on a specific outcome, aren’t they? These are called outcome-based goals, and they usually involve a change in a situation in our lives. A better job, more money, a bigger house, weight loss and/or fitness... all of these are outcome-based goals, and these are what comes to mind when most people think about goal setting.

But there is a different type of goal that doesn’t focus on the outcome at all! Rather than focusing on the outcome, this type of goal focuses on changing behaviors that make achieving the outcome-based goals so much easier and faster! These types of goals are called behavior-based goals.

With behavior-based goal setting, the intention is to create positive change in your habits, or behaviors, which will increase your chances of achieving your outcome-based goals. You can think of behavior-based goals as a mid-point,...

Setting goals isn’t much use unless you can measure and quantify them. Without the right metrics, you won’t know whether you’re succeeding or not. That can derail even the best intentions and set you back. If you’re going to improve your life and become a goal-oriented person, it’s important to learn how to quantify behavior-based goals.

Be Specific

It’s hard to quantify your behavior-based goals if they aren’t specific enough to track. Really take your time and think hard about whether or not your goals are clear. It doesn’t matter how high your aspirations are, it matters how clear-cut they are. If you don’t have specific goals, you’ll never be able to track them.

Keep Count

When possible, specify hard numbers in your goals. Make it a priority to answer emails within a certain amount of time, or make so many business calls each day. Numbers are easy to keep track of, they’re easy to compare, and they aren’t...

If the thought of organizing your finances makes your mouth dry and your heart pound, you need to read this article! By following a few basic processes, you can defuse your money anxiety once and for all.

And organizing your finances is not just good for your peace of mind. It can save you money. Here are some tips to help you stay on top of bills and accounts so you can easily control your finances.

Streamline your bills

Get those accounts out of the drawer and in one place. Set up a direct debit payment for regular bills like power, taxes or gym fees and never miss a bill payment again. Pay your bills on time to avoid late fees, penalties or a bad credit rating.

Keep track of your spending

Use a notebook or a spreadsheet to track your spending. Every time you buy something, whether it’s gas, shoes or lunch, make a note of it. Not only will you see where your money is going, but the discipline of writing down purchases is a prompt to think before you buy. Do you really need...

Is your home a mess? Are you always losing things like your keys or your phone? Can you find those important documents at tax time? Are you always doing things at the last minute because you can’t find what you need to complete a task? Take back control of your space and get organized!

Being organized is learning the process of arranging things and keeping them in order. And being organized and tidy is not just a good thing because your Mom told you so! It saves you time and money and lets you get on with doing the things you want to do.

Here are six reasons why being organized is important.

1. You will have more time
   Being messy and disorganized is a major time-suck. How much time have you wasted looking through a cluttered closet looking for that other shoe? Or that important letter that you know you put on the kitchen counter and now can’t find? It’s better to spend some time assigning a proper place for everything and making sure you put things in the right...

Did you know that a whopping 85 percent of people have low-esteem? This issue affects their personal and professional lives, including their careers, their health, and their salaries. In other words, self-doubt and low self-esteem can keep you from reaching your peak potential.

These personality traits appear to be more common among women. They develop in childhood and either exacerbate or diminish with time. If self-doubt plagues you, check out these tips to boost your confidence and trust yourself more:

Accept Yourself

Self-doubt is part of being human. Embrace it and turn it into a strength. When used correctly, this personality trait can help you make better decisions, instead of rushing things. Think of it as a tool that guides your actions and keeps you from making costly mistakes.

Just make sure you don't overuse it though because self-doubt can also make you question your sanity and decision-making abilities.

Know You're Not Alone

Even the most successful people have...

Self-awareness exercises can help us to become conscious of our primitive and self-destructive thoughts, beliefs, ideas, assumptions, and choices. When we are self-aware, we become more peaceful, loving, and intelligent beings. Not only do we stop suffering, but the people in our lives stop reacting to our self-imposed misery. Instead, they find more peace also.

Listed below are few of the self-awareness exercises and activities, as well as tips to cultivate your gratitude practice.

Journal about what you are grateful for

Writing down a few things you are grateful for is probably the easiest and most popular gratitude exercise available.

The purpose of the exercise is to remember 3-5 things you were particularly grateful for when you look back on your day. In this way, you are completely focused on all the good things that happened to you, rather than the negative or the issues that caused you stress. When we practice gratitude, we are more at ease and expect more good things to...

Having a cluttered space, whether it’s your office desk or your home (or both) can feel overwhelming. If you have stuff everywhere and no idea of what you have, it can feel impossible to deal with and out of control.

Here are some tips to help you take back control of your space and declutter.

1. Commit to a Goal

Part of the overwhelm is due to the feeling you have to deal with all the stuff straight away. You don’t. You just need a plan and a commitment to sort and throw away a reasonable amount of stuff every day. Once you do your daily ration, you’ll feel so much better because you’re getting on with it in a systematic way.

2. Do a Clean Sweep

Take a box of garbage bags and do a walk through your home and just pick up anything that’s garbage like circulars, newspapers, wrappers. With the trash out of the way, you can get on with the real decluttering.

3. Do one room or area at a time.

Depending on how you’re feeling, this could be the worst...

To cultivate an attitude of gratitude, we have to take time from our busy day and remember to give thanks for all the blessings that keep coming our way on a daily basis. Gratitude keeps us focused on what we have rather than all the things we don't have, which keeps us in a victim mentality.

We may not realize that gratitude is a choice and that it doesn't come easily to many of us. Most of us were taught as children to say "thank you" when someone gave us a present or did something nice for us. But after a while, “thank you” can become quite glib unless we learn ways to cultivate the attitude of gratitude. Practicing gratitude is also a skill which is never too late to develop.

Here are some things to keep in mind to develop an attitude of gratitude:

Express Gratitude

When you are grateful for the things that you have and express gratitude, it takes it to another level and opens the door to feeling optimistic. Optimism is a skill that can be cultivated and one of the...