The Pruning Principle

Vicki Norris
Restoring Order

CBN.com – Do you have a lot of stuff accumulating around your house or office? Are you stashing and stuffing simply because you have too much junk and don’t know where to put it? I call all this extraneous stuff “overage.” In my experience as a professional organizer, I’ve found that our overage is causing us to move (just to get away from it), shop (ironically, because we don’t want to be in our buried homes), and purchase larger homes (to contain all of our overage).

Some of you who have been following my column may recognize the principle I’m about to share; I’ve covered it once before several months ago. The Pruning Principle™ is a principle you can apply in any room of the home, at the office, and even in your schedule to deal with your overage.

Something about eliminating useless stuff just feels right. When we disentangle dead branches from a growing tree, we pull out the matter that is no longer good. When we cut back the yellowed reeds of a perennial flower, we know that its energy returns to the bulb. Ridding plants of the superfluous material makes us feel good about restoring them to health.

That kind of trimming feels good for a reason. Cutting out that which isn’t useful in our life is a spiritual experience! The Bible applies the metaphor of pruning to our spiritual life. Jesus explains: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15: 1-2). Here we see that the gardener’s purpose for cutting out deadwood and pruning back living stock is to produce more life and fruit. We shouldn’t be surprised that spiritual principles prove true in our experience of the physical world as well.

The Pruning Principle is this: We will flourish in our personal, spiritual, and physical life when we expose ourselves and our environment to frequent pruning. Organizing, then, is not simply sorting, categorizing, and tossing, as many believe. Authentic organizing includes a purposeful and ongoing process of elimination and refinement. It’s a perspective before it is an activity.

So, how do we apply this principle to gain a more organized life?

First, we cut out the deadwood from our space. We get realistic about the amount of stuff we’re keeping and whether we really use it and love it. Isn’t it sad that America is one of the only places in the world where we actually get stressed out because we have too much stuff? Donate your overage and take a healthy tax deduction this year. The Salvation Army has a nice valuation guide to help you determine the value of your items. Share things you don’t need or have outgrown with another family. I ask my clients that hesitate to let go of their overage “could someone else really be blessed by this?” and they brighten up with the thought of passing their goods along to someone in need.
Next, we assess the “opportunity cost” of keeping all our stuff. Opportunity cost is the trade-off for keeping something. What is it costing you to save it, group it, store it, label it, insure it, dust it, stuff it, cram it, or lose it? In the case of a storage unit, we can spend thousands per year to store stuff we forgot about, don’t like, and don’t use.
Moving onto our schedule, we then can trim a crowded calendar. We can prune our commitments and activities as well as our belongings. When we cut out extraneous activities, we can focus on investing our time with the people who really matter to us. If you can’t find time to discover and live your God-given purpose, exercise your gifts, and pursue your passions, it’s time to cut back less important activities to make room for your kingdom calling!
We must learn to say no. How can saying no help us get more organized? A crowded life (and space) make it hard for us to focus on our priorities because we are doing too much and confused by the noise of clutter. Organizing is about making room in your life for the things that truly matter. By resisting that bargain at the discount store, or by opting out of that fourth committee or volunteer group, we are in fact saying “yes” to our core values.

Now, applying The Pruning Principle in your life doesn’t mean that you must throw everything away. A lot of people fear organizing because they think it will involve parting with their favorite things. On the contrary, I advocate being surrounded by those special treasures and collections that you love and I never prod anyone to toss anything unless they’re ready to do so. The Pruning Principle allows you to zoom out and gain perspective. It allows you to see the relative value of your belongings and your time in relation to other more important things.

I hope you can take this therapeutic principle and run with it. As you prune back your space, belongings, and time, may you bear more fruit and strive for what is ahead!

About the Author: Vicki Norris is an expert organizer, business owner, speaker, television personality, and author who inspires people to live out their priorities. Norris is a regular on HGTV’s nationally syndicated Mission: Organization, and is a recurrent source and contributor to national lifestyle publications including Quick & Simple magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, and Real Simple magazine. Norris is also author of Restoring Order™ to Your Home, a room-by-room household organizing guide.