5 ways to Declutter Your Mind
Spring is in the air! It’s the perfect time to do some mental housekeeping! Fresh air, fresh ideas, new opportunities, new growth—all signs of Spring! The ideal season for meaningful reorganizing.
As a newly made solopreneur I am learning how to shift out of my old parenting habits that had me living on the fly and constantly busying myself with multi-tasking. I am continuously looking for ways to maximize my time, organize my days and free up mental space. Asking myself “sorting” questions like: What are my top 3 priorities for today? What can I let go of? What can I outsource? What can I save for “later”? I can definitely relate to how mental clutter can cause confusion or even anxiety. I now mindfully incorporate the following strategies to organize my days and weeks, freeing up mental space I need for creative processing.
Mindfulness lives in organizing too. Often, we are living in the mode of haphazard organization with short term and long-term tasks and goals swimming around in our heads. Just like our closets, our minds need tidying up from time to time. What to “keep” and what to “purge.” Getting rid of non-essential mental clutter is crucial to staying focused, motivated and productive.
5 ways to Declutter Your Mind
1. START BY ASSESSING YOUR PRIORITIES
What is most important to you? Eliminate unnecessary distractions by focusing on your top 3 priorities for the day (or week). If you need help discerning what is most important, look at your Wheel of Life that includes, but is not limited to: Family, Work, Health, Spiritual Awareness, Personal Development, Fun and Enjoyment, and Finances. Question your “have-to’s” and review your to-do list. Ask yourself, what is essential and what can I let go of? Now narrow your focus for the day (or week) and get rid of the rest of the “to-dos” swimming around in your head. Assess, delete and reorganize.
What can you delegate? Assess what you can remove from your plate by running it through your priorities filter and then delegate what you can to someone else. Perhaps to a family member or a peer? And what can you put on autopilot? Leverage automation to simplify your life. Like setting up bills to be paid automatically every month, cleaning your house at a routine time, or exercising at a scheduled time.
2. AVOID MULTI-TASKING
Be aware of potential stress influencers like focusing on way too many things at the same time. Being “busy” doesn’t mean you are being productive. A lot of times being busy just means you are in a state of being “functionally overwhelmed.” While there’s no harm in occasional multi-tasking, constant juggling between tasks limits your attention span, increases stress and actually creates additional clutter for your brain to filter.
Instead, single task as much as possible. Make a list of things you need to accomplish that day. Prioritize your top 3 short term tasks or goals for the day starting with what is most important. Write them down and work on completing one task at a time. This mindful practice of recognizing what is most important to you and focusing your attention on one task at a time will free up mental space.
3. EVALUATE YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEM
What’s working? What’s not working for you? Recognize and eliminate your distractions. How do you align your to-dos, your schedule and your priorities? Make your schedule your boss. Put everything you want to accomplish in your calendar, filling each time slot, including time slots for self-care.
Try my Seasonal Organizational Cycle
Assess, Prioritize, Plan, and then Reassess
4. WRITE IT DOWN
Utilize your Purposeful Planner to help you get in the habit of organizing and writing down your weekly and monthly intentions and goals. Be mindful of what you are aiming for. “What am I working towards?” “What is my desired outcome?” Write them down. Make them “reachable.” Put them on a Spring timeline and work backwards from a big view to a narrow view of your week and days.
Keep a journal: Journaling is great way to relax your mind by releasing bottled emotions and organizing your thoughts. Expressive writing gives you the opportunity to free up some mental space and manage stress more effectively. It is also a healthy outlet to manage anxiety and cope with depression. Consider creating a habit of using your MPP journal every day.
5. DECLUTTER YOUR HOME
Be decisive. Physical clutter in your home often leads to clutter in your mind. It now makes sense why I had to take care of all my dirty dishes in my apartment sink in college before I could sit down and focus on studying. I thought cleaning my apartment before studying was simply a matter of procrastination, but now I think it was a strategy for clearing my mind for focused attention on schoolwork. Clutter is simply delayed decisions. All those annoying stacks of papers, clothes and other “stuff” we store away to deal with later. Every time you see your stuff, you are reminded that something has been left undone. Whether you realize it or not, odds are that all that “stuff” is probably weighing you down and causing you to feel stressed or overwhelmed. An external block that leaves you feeling mentally blocked.
Face the Biggie! That one big project you’ve been thinking about tackling for weeks or even months! Don’t think about it, just start it! What do you need to take care of but don’t want to? Find a chunk of time and remember that once you are five minutes in — you’ll be in it, and doing it, working towards checking off a heavy item on your list. The longer you procrastinate, the more you allow it to clutter your brain with background stress.
In decluttering your mind, you will also be caring for yourself by reducing Emotional, Mental, Physical, Environmental, Social and Spiritual stress. These 6 CORE Influencers impact how we show up. If you’re not performing at your best, and you want to explore which of these CORE Influencers may be blocking you from a life of full engagement, click below
