Clear your Mind of Clutter
5 ways in 5 days
We often hear about the positive effects of clearing away clutter in our lives. Living amongst clutter causes us to be: distracted, less productive, and, at the same time, more agitated and stressed. We accomplish much less and feel more anxiety when surrounded by clutter. In much the same way, having a mind full of clutter can have negative effects on our sense of well-being. So how can we successfully clear our minds?
For many of us making any kind of lasting change in our lives is a step by step process I suggest trying 1 exercise each day for the next 5 days.
1. Try Journaling: Journaling is an extremely effective way to clear one's mind. It allows us to: * reflect on our actions, express gratitude * problem-solve, dream big * simply relax and let go of stress. Writing down our thoughts in a journal allows us to release the many thoughts swimming in our heads and get them paper instead. When we do this, we have a place where we can hold our thoughts, reference them, reflect on them, and act on them as well.
Your Mind-Clearing Exercise for day 1: 1. Journal 3 things you appreciate in your life and why you appreciate them. 2. Journal 3 challenges in your life and ways you can navigate these challenges. 3. Journal 3 goals for the week. What is 1 step you can take towards each goal?
2. Narrow Your Focus: As busy as we can all get, it is way too easy for our heads to get filled with schedules and TO DO lists of all of the things that we need to get done. In no time, we can be on brain-overload trying to remember everything we need to accomplish in any given week. Try not to focus on the whole TO DO list at once. Instead, break your mental lists into smaller parts and only focus on one small part at a time. Having too much to remember only results in things being forgotten. It is much easier and less stressful to tackle only a shortlist at a time.
Your Mind-Clearing Exercise for day 2: Write down a total of 4 TO DOs that are your highest priorities. Then pick one of them, break it down into small pieces, and work on it until it's done. Then focus on your second TO DO in the same manner, then your third, and finally your fourth. If you only get 1 or 2 done that is ok. Life is full of a series of steps, it’s progress, not perfection. Also, make sure one of the TO DO items is a self-care item, something that creates joy in your day. Consider doing that item first.
3. Stop putting off the little things, get help for the big things: The reason that some of our TO DO lists get so long in the first place is because it's easy to put things off. A sure-fire way to have a cluttered mind is to be continually adding to our TO DO list but then never getting to anything on it. Always remember, the list-making is only part one of getting things done, the list-doing part is the second part. The plethora of tasks we need to accomplish can crowd our minds and make actually carrying out the work seem overwhelming. Make an effort to do easy tasks as they come up, like putting a jacket in the closet instead of throwing it over a chair, cleaning and putting away a dirty dish when you're done eating, or filing a sheet of paper rather than adding it to the already-sky-high TO FILE pile.
Have family pitch in, have everyone spend 5 minutes tidying up before bed. Having a clean mental slate at night makes for a clearer mind and a more restful night's sleep. Your Mind-Clearing Exercise for day 3: Find 3 tasks on your TO DO list that will take 5 minutes or less...and then do them.
What tasks can be delegated or even hire someone for the bigger, time-consuming projects such as repainting a room, repairing something, yard cleanup. Even hiring a cleaning service for a one-time deep clean can clear a lot of mental and physical clutter.
4. Don't waste time and cause yourself undue stress by worrying about things you have no control over: Chronic worriers spend countless hours worrying about everything under the sun. We have probably all known somebody that finds reason to worry in nearly every situation. Don't be one of these people. Imagine how much clearer your mind could be if you only spent time focusing on the things you had control over. For example, it makes more sense to focus on a work deadline than it does to focus on an upcoming snowstorm. One thing we have control over. One thing we do not. Don't clutter up your mind with the things you can't change. Focus instead on the things that you can. Your Mind-Clearing Exercise for day 4: Grab a sheet of paper and draw a line, from top to bottom, dividing the paper into two equal sides. On the left side, write down anything you're worried about that you CANNOT control...on the right side, write down anything you're worried about that you CAN control. Then focus on the right side only.
5. Throw out any thoughts that aren't helpful: Sometimes it is easy to fall into the negative thought rut. When things don't go our way, it can be easy to focus on the negatives of the situation instead of seeing the positives that may be lingering there too. Don't clutter up your mind with useless negative thoughts that really serve no purpose. Negativity just breeds more negativity. Find solutions to problems instead of wasting the time and energy dwelling on the problems themselves.
Your Mind-Clearing Exercise for day 5: Every single time a negative thought enters your mind, think of two positive thoughts.
Bonus:
Sometimes you just need to do a brain dump. Grab a pen and paper and just write every thought, don’t edit, just write and keep writing, pour it all out. Spend as much time as you need. When you feel done, take a deep breath, and find a safe place to burn this piece or pieces of paper, in a fireplace, in a fire pit over the sink. Light the paper and as it burns release everything that was on it, don’t worry if it was something really important for you to do, it will come back to you later. If you are not able to safely burn the paper, you can tear it up and bury it and release it into the earth.
I hope you found some of these exercises useful. I would love to hear what you did and how it felt as well as other things you have done that helped clear your mind of clutter. Let me know in the comments what has worked best for you.
With Love & Gratitude,
Holly
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