Spring-cleaning: setting up your environment to win!(Marilu: eye-opening discoveries on health and fitness)

Wouldn't you love to set up your living and working space to, once and for all, function most efficiently. for your health, well-being, and career? Think of the benefits that come from having a well-organized life: You can focus on your priorities while not being distracted (and stressed) by the disorder that clouds your mind and body with clutter. You can instantly access everything you need. You can surround yourself with a system and equipment that are conducive to healthful eating and exercise. And most important of all, you can allow friends, neighbors and co-workers to visit anytime--without warning!

For most people, the thought of spring-cleaning sends shivers up their spines. Not me. I celebrate it! I love spring-cleaning! It's the perfect time to get rid of the old and bring in the new; the ideal opportunity to reevaluate your health, diet, family and career goals and decide if your current environment is working for you or against you. I start to salivate every year, sometime around midwinter, over the prospects of spring-cleaning. You've heard of Pavlov's dog? Well, I'm his cleaning lady.

Childhood Influence

This probably dates back to the living conditions I was subjected to while growing up. I was forced into a tidy lifestyle in early childhood because my tiny bedroom had no door and was openly connected to our kitchen, the unofficial lobby/ meeting hall/Grand Central Station of the household--and neighborhood! My family was very popular, and our kitchen door was perpetually open to all--and so was mine. I was the only kid in the family (and probably in the neighborhood) who didn't have a bedroom door.

My siblings were able to hide their messy lifestyles behind closed doors, and my parents wisely insisted those doors stay locked when company was around. Clutter was allowed to run rampant in all of their rooms while mine was the exemplary display model for the viewing public. My brothers' room was the worst. Buried deep beneath an avalanche of grass-stained jerseys, baseball cards, and dirty magazines, I once found a Native American with a tear running down his cheek. Whenever their door opened, a mushroom-cloud odor of gym socks and box turtles wafted through the house. I'll never understand why that stench lingered years after their turtles died. I still get homesick every time I visit PETCO.

My childhood was like Jim Garrey's character in The Truman Show, and because of it, I became accustomed to lots of noise and activity, bright lights in my face, people being able to watch me work--and a need to keep my environment neat and organized. This has had lasting consequences. To be most productive, I still need some of those conditions. I always did my homework on the bus or in the cafeteria instead of in the library or study hall, and I still work that way. Silence and solitude are more distracting to me than chatter and commotion. But I also can't focus when I'm surrounded by clutter. I can't work in a messy room. Ideally, I should work at a very tidy but crowded bus depot. But that's just me.

Organizing Principle