8 Tips For Decluttering Your Mind

Spring is a great time to clear away some of the clutter that may be enveloping your life. Clutter takes us away from focus. Of course some of my creative friends are ok with clutter, but for many of us clutter causes a huge distraction and takes us off point. By the way clutter, or a “temporary mess”,  is fine if you are working on a project, artistic or otherwise. All you need to do is clean up when you’re done with it. Here are some decluttering tips for your consideration.


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Clean Up Your Workstation: Have you caught the disease called the ‘Messy Desk Syndrome’ (MDS)? Many homebased business desks look like a cyclone just passed through. One can’t see the desktop due to the clutter. What does your desk look like? Does it have old files, papers, ink for the printer, coffee cup, pens, letter opener, printer, books, computer paraphernalia such as connections and wires, batteries, stapler, disks and on and on…

A messy desk is a psychological distraction, and those distractions take away your ability to focus.
Depending on your business there is another desktop that may be cluttered – your virtual desktop. Is your screen cluttered with files, word documents, PowerPoint files, videos, pictures, and what have you? The virtual desktop is also a disrupter. While we are at it, are emails interrupting you as you work away on a project.

Control Your Emails:  Email clutter can definitely cause mental clutter. You have to scroll and scroll through useless emails just to find the ones you’re after. Beyond that, it can be highly distracted to have that number of unread emails on your email icon, reminding you that you need to sort through them.

Often people don’t think about the mental stress their chaotic inbox is causing them. Check your email regularly, being sure to delete the ones you don’t need or want. Unsubscribe from the useless marketing emails cluttering up your email and do a spring cleaning of your inbox. You’ll be amazed at the less mental stress it causes you.

Learn to Say ‘No”: You will have to learn to say ‘no’ to demands on your life and time that create upheaval. Frequently having to sacrifice yourself for others is taxing on your spirit and the only way to stop it from happening is to say ‘no.’ Yes, there are a few people who will be stunned or even frustrated that you have decided to put yourself first but do not allow their opinion to sway you. If they genuinely care about you, they will understand and be supportive of your decision.

Build Lists: Nothing helps to declutter your brain quite like lists. Lists have an amazing way of allowing you to empty your mind of all the things you’re thinking about or have to do without letting you forget them.

Get in the habit of making not only to-do lists but also lists of thoughts or ideas you have that have also been cluttering your brain. This will allow you to better focus on the task at hand, boosting your productivity.

Schedule Your Time: A lot of what clutters our minds regularly is all the things we have to get done and the short time in which we have to do it. While making to-do lists, as we mentioned earlier, can be helpful with this, it’s far more helpful to schedule your time appropriately.
Spend some time each day making a schedule for all you need to get done and the time you have to do it in. Break up larger tasks across a few days instead of trying to get it all done at once. Get the easy stuff out of the way first so you have more time to devote to the more difficult and time-consuming tasks.

Take Inventory of Your Life: It may be time to declutter the world around you. Ridding yourself of the things you are no longer using can do a lot to shift your physical and emotional well-being. This action begins taking inventory of all of the stuff in your world and validating which items are a functional part of your life. If something is no longer a useful part of your life, consider donating them to a charity or tossing it out.

Spring Clean Lifestyle: Decluttering your life can be important. It maximizes what you are able to do in a day and helps to ensure that everything that you do in a day is worth getting done. It doesn’t just mean cutting things out of your schedule, it means visualizing your day-to-day agenda and talking to other people in your life to make everything fit.

Live More Efficiently: You may also find that having a tidier home means living a more orderly life.
If you have a lot of pans in the fire, you may feel that you don’t have time to keep a spotless kitchen. However, decluttering your home makes it easier for you to find the things that you need to complete the task at hand. You may also find yourself more focused and inspired to do your work if you are in a more organized environment.

As always folks stay safe, keep well and continue becoming the best version of yourself.
Richard Fontanie.


Other Sources:
“ Please Declutter your Life”, new eBook coming your way in April.
“Home Office Business Stress: Causes and Cures”
“Stressology 200: Stress Remedies For Today”  
“A Beginners Guide To Self-Discipline”
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