Getting things done involves far more than what happens with our careers. We can be just as dissatisfied by productivity in our life outside of work. Certainly, we can find ourselves mentally cluttered once beyond the office door – perhaps feeling trapped within social groups that no longer share our values, or stuck with unfulfilling routines, or even burdened by personal responsibilities.

The answer, according to organizational gurus such as Julie Morgenstern (of Never Check Emails … fame), is to realize that the emotional barriers that may hamper your career pursuits can also act as a drag at home.

Morgenstern's view is that it's possible to blast your way out of this inertia through the adoption of clear ambitions for your home or social life. No less than at work, you need to set motivating, long-term objectives. And, again, the need is for positive goals: pursuing something you want rather than fleeing something you dislike, such as feeling ‘lonely’ or ‘bored’.

Indeed, ‘no one lets go of anything without reaching for something else’, says Morgenstern, which is equally true in our social or domestic situations as at work, with the obvious corollary that, if we have no goals to reach for, we'll continue to cling on to our past.

Develop themes for your life

We must develop ‘themes’ for our personal life, says Morgenstern (writing in When Organizing Isn't Enough, her 2008 book on mental and physical decluttering). She cleverly separates them into zones such as finding love, living healthily, expanding boundaries (perhaps through learning or via new physical activities) or even pursing an adventure or seeking ‘serenity’.

Of course, all the above can be combined though the adoption of some transformative, theme-based pursuit such as yoga or volunteering. In fact, given that your dissatisfaction may be symptomatic of a deeper mental malaise, the more holistic the theme, the better.

Morgenstern asks that you take a ‘big-picture approach’ that involves looking at all aspects of your life – not just the empty zone that could be your social life or the fact your personal finances are a mess (see below). They're all connected – offering either a sense of well-being or, more likely, the opposite.

Yet she also asks that we ‘keep it simple’, which is a plea not to add unnecessary complexity when it could be a decluttering that's required (with too many commitments being at issue, rather than too few). Again, this focuses on the likelihood that a single thread runs through various aspects on your non-work dissatisfaction, which you should try to identify. Perhaps you feel trapped in your current circumstances, or maybe the issue's one of isolation. You could even feel overwhelmed: indeed, it's worth trying to find the one word that best describes your concern – what Morgenstern describes as the ‘lens’ through which you evaluate your life.

Finally, on themes, Morgenstern insists that you shouldn't ‘short-change yourself’. Generate themes that focus on your ‘highest aspirations’, rather than the minimum you ‘feel you can manage’. Whether it's a new activity you want to master (such as playing the piano), or an entirely ‘new you’ (perhaps moving into the big city rather than commuting from your home town), the theme should be something you strongly desire – as only that will inspire you enough to bring about the necessary changes.

Points of entry

And, with the theme settled, we're off: via the adoption of Morgenstern's somewhat contrived SHED mnemonic.

• Separate all your ‘treasures’. This means examining everything in your life – including possessions, actions and habits: and working out what supports your personal progress and what impedes it.
• Heave all your ‘trash’. Having identified the ‘treasures’ you wish to keep, you should remove all the possessions, activities and bad habits that prevent change.
• Embrace ‘the remarkable individual that you are’. Realize you're not defined by objects or interests, or even by the people you know. Embracing an overarching theme is an important part of this transition – giving you the perspective to look beyond your possessions.
• Drive ‘into the future with vision and hope’. Having unloaded the baggage, you can now reload your existence with the possessions and activities that reinforce your ‘theme’, though this shouldn't be a headlong pursuit to replace one acquisitive habit with another.

Morgenstern's mental and physical de-cluttering is achieved via ‘points of entry’. These can be rooms full of junk, poor habits or unhealthy activities. Indeed, there are ‘entry points’ in three zones, says Morgenstern: ‘physical’ (including possessions); with respect to your ‘schedule’ or non-work commitments; and regarding your ‘habits’. In all three, ruthlessness is required, she says, if you're to free-up your free time for potentially transformative pursuits.

Yet some care is required. Jettisoning friends, for instance, can quickly leave us emotionally bewildered, especially if we experience setbacks on our journey towards some social nirvana we've not properly thought through. It may also feel false, and be declared as such by associates, again reinforcing our sense of confusion and even isolation. Yet such caveats simply reinforce Morgenstern's notion of ‘treasures’, and the fact we should separate all aspects of our life into things that reinforce the ‘rut’ – which should be removed (or ‘trashed’ in her parlance) – and things that help us reach a new level, including friends, which we should nurture (see Part Four for more on ‘others’).

Tackling financial phobia

Life outside work can generate issues significantly less benign than a cluttered house or empty social life. Our personal finances, for instance, can act as a major barrier to our progress. Indeed, all the above advice denies one crucial and potentially limiting concern: money. If our personal finances are in disarray, such plans will be halted immediately.

Of course, money is a perennial concern for most people. Yet ‘financial phobia’ – as it's become known – goes much deeper than mere money worries. It's a disabling mental affliction that impacts both our ability to match our spending with our income – either overspending or, just as likely, assuming everything unafford­­able – and our competences with respect to long-term planning.

And this is no obscure affliction. Research by Dr Brendan Burchell of Cambridge University claimed that one in five Britons suffers from financial phobia, which he described as a ‘mental condition that prevents people sorting out their personal finances’.

According to Burchell, ‘financialphobes can be intelligent people who are high achievers in most areas of their lives – they are not irresponsible, feckless or spendthrifts’.

Nonetheless, they've become trapped by the psychological concerns associated with money. Many feel apprehension when having to deal with money matters, while others are simply bored or distracted (resulting in typical ADD-style behaviour). Yet, for as many as 45 percent of sufferers, thinking about financial matters produces physical responses such as classic fight-or-flight symptoms (including a racing heartbeat, the sweats and shaking).

It also afflicts people right across the income spectrum. Certainly it afflicted me, and still does to a lesser extent. I hated anything to do with my money. Of course, I worried that I didn't have enough – as most young people do – but it went way deeper than that: as if by peering into my finances I'd be confronting the undeniable truth that I was somehow unworthy.

So what can be done to overcome financial phobia? One problem is that the solutions seem so bland: creating Excel sheets with incomings in one column, expenses in the other, and with rows added for savings or outgoings. Fine – except that's not how we've tackled other areas, so why be so anal when dealing with an area that, at best, bores us and, at worst, terrifies us into denial?

A more philosophical approach is required.

‘In your relationship with money, you are the living being and money is your tool’, writes personal finance guru Suze Orman in The Laws of Money, the Lessons of Life (2003). ‘Money does not define you or make you more valuable as a human being.’

Money is our slave not our master

Orman's advice floats above other works on the subject because she's not interested in the minutia of each transaction: that's your issue, once motivated to do so. She's offering a sympathetic voice – declaring that money is a means to an end, not the end in itself. It's our slave not our master, although it's a slave that demands respect nonetheless.

For Orman, decisions about money must take place within the context of long-term personal goals. Well-documented objectives will have action points, which will have costs. And it's these that must concern us, although we'll be motivated to tackle such concerns only if we've a strong understanding of both the bigger picture, and the immediate and detailed use of our financial resources.

This may seem obvious, although it's already a transformation in thinking for the financially phobic, who'll almost certainly view money, not as a lever for advancement, but as an impediment. To help, Orman offers five rules – or ‘laws’ – that can act as principles for using money as a tool (with some thoughts of my own).