Is your mind or brain heaving with many to-dos? It can be really overwhelming when you many thoughts in your mind. You may not be able to focus on anything because there are other things on your mind. When you feel like your mental space is in a chaotic mess? It means you need to declutter.
According to Life Coach Alexis Donkin, “If you feel like much is going on, that your experience is full of chaos, or that you’re being pulled in different directions, that’s a sign for you to declutter.” When your brain is in chaos, it can drain its cognitive functionalities, minimizing your ability to stay focused.
Clutter is an unavoidable part of our lives. Piles of newspaper stacked around the room, busting cupboards, unfinished novels on the cushion, clothes scattered on the bed, and beeping alerts on your cellphones may seem harmless. But when we have sentimental attachment for some of the things we left untidy, clutter and visual distraction have a cumulative effect on our brain.
However, clutter does not only mean the distractions in your physical space but can also include the following:
- Dwelling in negativity
- Having an incomplete goal and dream
- Having a constant sensory input and external distractions.
- Ruminating
- Anxiety over things you cannot control
When your mind or brain is cluttered, it drains you mentally and wastes your time. Cluttering creates a distraction, disorganization, and mental confusion that stop you from making decisions, staying focus, creating clear priorities, and being productive.
How to declutter your mind and brain
Declutter your space
The first place to declutter is your space. If your office or home is cluttered, the disorganization grabs your attention and stops you from mentally processing things better or staying focused. Clutter in your space takes over a part of your mind and prevents your ability to think clearly and act fast. To take over your mind back, you should clear out the cluttered space.
Whether it’s stacks of papers on your countertop or the dishes waiting for you to wash, the negative effect of clutter is seen in our mental state, and leads to anxiety and stress. Decluttering your space has positive effects on your overall wellness and happiness.
Avoid multitasking
When you have repetitive tasks to do, you can do them without prioritizing the most important. Learn to delegate tasks to others to help you, or make a to-do-list that will guide you with your tasks. This helps you cut out tasks that are not urgent. We have automated services such as Zapier that can help you push repetitive tasks to others.
While staying away from multitasking can seem counterproductive, doing everything at once might not help you. If you can multitask, there is no harm in doing that. However, the constant handling of different tasks can reduce your focus and increase your stress level.
Declutter makes it difficult for the brain to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information. Constant multitasking can impair the human’s cognitive control, thus reducing your work efficiency.
Set priorities
If you do not set priorities, you might end up running up and down without achieving much. You should learn to prioritize what you do if you want to control your mind and brain. How do you declutter your mind and brain with prioritization?
- Figure out the things you believe matter more at the moment.
- What is the long-term goal of each task?
- Which action works best for each task or project?
- Create an action plan
- Divide your time for each task available according to their importance.
Start journaling
One effective way to relax the human mind is by journaling. It helps in organizing and analyzing your thoughts. The expression on a diary or book helps in eliminating intrusive thoughts, especially about negative situations.
When you write your thoughts down, it improves your working memory and eases mental stress. Studies show that journaling can help in managing your stress effectively and release your cognitive abilities.
You don’t have to be a great writer before you can start this process of decluttering your mind and brain. If you find it challenging to write, you can use bullets and numbers to present your thoughts.
Take a break, relax and unwind
Clutter has a huge impact on your mental health. If you stress your brain more than necessary with distraction and disorganization, it can put you in a difficult health challenge. Clutter can force you to have an eating disorder, leading to anemia or obesity, depending on the state of disorder you are suffering from. These two health conditions lead to other health issues, which is not good for you.
Thus, you need to take a break, relax and unwind if you want to control the stress and anxiety associated with cluttering. How best can you declutter your mind and brain when you take a break? Take yourself out of the situation by going for a walk, resting, or practicing meditation.
Benefits of Decluttering
- Your stress and anxiety levels are reduced when you become more organized visually and mentally.
- You feel healthier when you declutter things stressing your brain. A build-up of clutter can cause a lot of health challenges such as asthma, increased blood pressure, diabetes, and many others health issues.
- Your productivity will improve when your distractions are eliminated. Whether it is a personal issue or office workload that is affecting your mental state, the moment you resolve them, your productivity improves.
- You cut down to what you need in life when you declutter. You stop reading news that aggravates anxiety and fear, become more organized, and purchases things you need.
The best way to declutter your mind and brain is to organize your life. Most times, clutters are the visual display of unmade decisions. Thus, you need to be very decisive about everything in your life, stop overanalyzing, don’t procrastinate, and don’t try to be perfect.
Hey Joyfreshers, how do you declutter your mind and unleash your willpower? How has decluttering help you when it comes to living a joyful and fulfilled life? Let’s discuss below!
