Route 66 Installment #15: Are You Filthy? 10 Places Where Messes Lurk

You may think of yourself as tidy, but…

We all have parts of our professional and personal lives that could benefit from a little spring cleaning.

Spring is as good a time as any to rid yourself of those miscellaneous dust bunnies that can get in the way of your living your best life.

In addition to organizing my own apartment and emptying out my late mother’s house, I’ve been taking stock of other musty and unkept aspects of my life and time that could use a deep clean. I’ve distilled them down to 10 key areas.

1. Your body: Close to 50% of adults eat crappy food. Fewer than 3% live a healthy lifestyle. A whopping 50 to 70 million people have sleep problems. And one out of three of us is obese. I’m not saying it’s you, but we can all do better keeping our bones, flesh, blood, and gut in good shape.
2. Your mind: These recent stress stats may stress you out. Do one or more of these 15 things to relax.
3. Your calendar: We often spend hours doing things that make us miserable, bore us, or otherwise get in the way of doing other things. Don’t over-book yourself or feel compelled to take meetings without a clear agenda.
4. Your home: Especially now that many apartments and houses do double-duty as workspaces, keeping the clutter to a minimum can be a challenge. But having a tidier dwelling can actually improve physical health.
5. Your in-box and desktop: Delete those unnecessary files and keep open tabs to a minimum.
6. Your friend list: We all have them — those people who can’t share our happiness and ignore our struggles. The social media “friends” who never have anything nice to say. You don’t have to wait until National Unfriend Day to prune the list. Here are some kind and caring ways to break up with friends who no longer fit in your life.
7. Your love life: If you’re single, consider a dating cleanse (and, of course, subscribe to my dating series). In a relationship? Keep it fresh! Above all, don’t put up with people who make you sad, belittle you, treat you as an option rather than a priority, or stress you out.
   

   Credit: Femforce

8. Your mouth: I’m not talking about oral bacteria here, although it CAN have an impact on your brain. The words you choose in verbal and written communication can have significant power. Grammarly will even assess the “mood” of your writing. In difficult conversations, think before you speak. Here are some tips. 
9. Your travel stuff and your ride: We’re on the road again! Here are some easy and efficient ways to pack for trips. Dirty cars can make you sick.
10. Your habits: Whoa! This is a huge category. Especially if you’re older, some of the things you do are so familiar that making a change can result in stress (see #2). Take baby steps and reward yourself for small improvements.

So, you’re probably not filthy-dirty in all aspects of your life. But, cleaning up your act in any one of these 10 ways will probably make you feel a lot better and attract other “clean” people into your life.

And, because Gandhi has always been better with words than I am, I’ll close with this.