You can't organize clutter.. you have to get rid of it.

'churning' is a good word! :)

Frankie, I have just written 2 posts and deleted them, because I am so full of what I've just learnt. Originally, I came on here to respond to your post, and give some advice about de-cluttering, then I learnt something as I wrote, and deleted that post. So I wrote another one, and learnt something else, and whew... I have had a major "aha" moment.
I was going to tell you I didn't exactly know what you meant by "churning", that organizing is simply a matter of keeping only what you love and use, and getting the rest out of your home. But even while I was typing I realised that I do know exactly what churning is. I even use the term a lot, because that is how I worry. I churn in my mind. I churn over my thougts.
I'm a stressor and a worrier to the point that if I haven't got anything to worry about I'll worry about someone else's worries for them! LOL. DH is not a worrier, thankfully for my sake, and often tells me to "Stop worrying!", So last week I sat up in bed and said, "Ok I want to, but HOW do I do it". His answer, "Just stop thinking about it.". So I gave a sigh and said, "But HOW? No one says HOW to stop the thoughts." "You just do it, don't think of them anymore, put them out" he says. Right!
And then as I wrote to you, it clicked with me. I have successfully de-cluttered and organized our home, and it's a peaceful calm haven that we love to come home to. I no longer churn when it comes to the house, so I DO know how to stop churning my thoughts.
Exactly the same principle. I've read Flyladies "De-clutter your body", and even then it didn't actually click. I understood the principle, but didn't know how to "do" it.
Just the same as when I read of people who have trouble getting rid of stuff from their homes, I think "Huh? it's obvious isn't it, you just take it away somewhere else or you trash it, what's the problem". Well, I see now why people get stuck, because I get stuck with my own thoughts.
Well, I'm trying not to write such long posts, so I'll just say that I'm going to give my mind the same treatment I gave my house.
Ask each thought,
Do I love you, do I need you?
Are you still there because someone gave you to me?
Am I hanging onto you because you might fit in the future?
Am I hanging onto you because you fit me in the past?
Oh, I could go on and on with this.
Now tell me, where do you trash junky thoughts to?
I recognize all the "stuff" now, but I have to take the steps in getting them out of my mind.
Frankie, thank you for your post. It helped it all to finally "click" for me.

Frankie, I know exactly what you mean when you say you'd rather "do something real." I would like to spend more time doing "real stuff" and not just wasting time on activities that don't further my goals, such as stressing out over the clutter. The clutter seems to suck at my soul. Fortunately, my hubby agrees with me that we need to get rid of everything that we don't actually need or use or somehow love. It hasn't even been a year, and already things are much better, for me AND my home.

Lily, I am very much like you. I tend to churn my thoughts as well. I had never thought to use the exact word "churn," but that is a good description. I usually think of it like the old fashioned adding machine ... click click click ka-ching! Numbers crunching, gears turning ... and sometimes, after much calculation, a solution! But not very quickly, and most of the time not at all. I know I'm caught in the trap of thinking that I can figure out a solution, but I don't know how to stop worrying.

Until recently.

I have known for a while that if I merely pay attention to my emotions, and allow myself to truly feel them ... without logic ... without thoughts at all ... they kind of evaporate like smoke.

Just yesterday I was reading a book that my mother-in-law gave me. It is called "Taming Your Gremlin."

It explains meditation in a nutshell, without calling it that.

Anyway, one of the concepts that had never occurred to me is that my mind and all its "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" is just like the emotions. Allow myself to listen to that "gremlin in my head," let it voice its concerns without trying to argue with them, and ... "poof," the shoulds start to go away. The churning stops.

Like you, I have noticed that a lot of the frustration and dissatisfaction have just gone away somehow, now that I have been decluttering. Things seem to bother me much less.

I have had a lot of "a-ha" moments when reading on this forum. It really gets me thinking about what truly matters.

I used to be a big "churner". I call it "ant behavior", just moving clutter from one room to another. I would hide things in closets, till the closets became too crowded to function. I then "churned" stuff to the attic and garage. I understand you can't organize clutter. Great ideas here!

Well, this is familiar! I struggle with the brain that won't shut up, too. What I have realized is that many of us (particularly women, I think) have long lists from many categories, our days are disjointed, and we are used to spending our time doing rather than just being. I think we are conditioned to confuse activity with responsibility, and since we don't want to be irresponsible, we think we have to be continually accomplishing something that we can see. But it is the things we can't see that give us energy, that give our loved ones joy in our company, and that give meaning to our lives.
Physical clutter behaves like visual noise...every pile nags us and makes static that interferes with the reception between us and the quiet that is the source of peacefulness. So before we clean up all our messes, I think we have to sit down and really think about what we are assuming and what we are doing that creates the clutter in the first place, and make a plan to stop doing it. Then the cleanup can start, and if we do it in manageable bits, it can stay done.

I would rather, or I would rather I would rather, do something "real" with my time

actually, this creates "churn" for me.

Maybe it's bcs I'm applying the "doing something real" stuff badly.

but...

I'd rather read, or I need to make a prom dress. So, I DON'T toss out old socks that don't fit. Eventually, the maintenance stuff I don't do gets SO bad that it MUST be dealt with.

The other thing that creates "churn" for me is not making a decision. I don't know if I'll need something, or I can't bring myself to be fierce about whether I should throw it away.

Frankie -
Great post, and I do understand, I think, what you are saying. It sounds like me when I'm out gardening and enjoying the beautiful day, but there is this voice in my head saying "and just when are going to get around to re-organizing all those books?"

I am also ambivalent about the value of organizing. It sometimes seems to me to be giving material objects far more attention than they deserve! I often wish I could be more like dh, who just stows stuff and forgets about it. It will have to be dealt with sooner or later, but how much mind space do I want to devote to just thinking about it?

I am no expert at organizing, but that is not what it sounds like you need. What I find most helpful is to determine exactly what I MOST want to be doing at a particular moment and then try and forget everything else. You can make out a regular schedule, or decide in the morning, or just make your decisions on a moment's notice. But once you've made your decision, you keep it whether it's "I'm going for a nice relaxing walk"; "I'm going to kick back and read for 2 hours"; "I'm going to pull out everything in the closet I don't need and take it to charity NOW".

It sounds like you're coming to the conclusion that de-cluttering material stuff is cluttering your real life, or as you said,
"true progress (is) actually spending less time organizing or thinking about organizing."
Amy

p.s. I second the recommendation for "Taming your Gremlin." Useful little book.

Those are good replies and food for thought. I like the "ants" analogy. One way I can tell when I'm "churning" is that I keep seeing the same thing turn up. Sometimes of course it means I need to "break through" to a new system, but a lot of the time it is something that I just don't need. I like it when I can finally see that.