Decluttering Your Mind and Your Life

Understanding Mental Decluttering

Defining Mental Clutter

You might be worrying about the future, reflecting on past regrets, or fretting about a long mental to-do list. When your mind is busy with concerns like this, it is difficult to focus or be productive. Everything can seem overwhelming and this often leads to feelings of anxiety or panic. You might also find that your sleep is disturbed as a result, and this in turn exacerbates the problem as you become more tired (for more on this, see our page on the importance of sleep.)

There are some simple techniques that you can use to declutter a stressed and restless mind. These will help you to feel more calm and focused, leading to better sleep and productivity.

1. Declutter your physical space

A cluttered home or work space leads to a cluttered mind.

Cluttered surroundings are constantly telling your brain that there are things to be done, including organising, cleaning, and tidying. The brain feels bombarded by these stimuli, causing stress and anxiety. An uncluttered and organised living environment has a calming psychological effect. See our page on decluttering your living spaces for more ideas about this.

2. Write Things Down

If your mind is awash with things that you need to remember, simply write them down.

You could make a list on a notepad, an app or digital planning tool. Choose a place where thoughts, ideas, appointments, shopping lists etc. can be emptied from your mind and recorded, to be dealt with at another time. It is a good idea to keep a notepad by your bed, so that if you are woken in the night by something you need to remember, you can write it down and go back to sleep, instead of lying awake worrying that you might forget it.

Keep your notepad near you, so that if your concentration is interrupted by a sudden thought that you need to remember, you can write it down for later and carry on with what you were doing.

You can take this a stage further by keeping a journal or diary. You can use this to write down specific worries, things you need address in a difficult conversation with someone, plans for the future, creative ideas and so on. Your aim is to clear space in your mind by emptying these thoughts onto the page.

To keep or not to keep?

Many people find the process of writing down thoughts in a diary or journal liberating and cathartic. This is particularly true if you are working through some difficult issues. However, there are two schools of thought about whether you should keep your journal, or discard what you have written each day.

Looking back over your entries and musings can be helpful for your personal development. Your experiences might also be helpful, interesting or even entertaining for others to read, leading you to consider publishing an ebook or writing a blog. For more on this see our page on keeping a diary or journal.
Discarding your writing means that you don’t have to worry that anyone (including you) is ever going to see it again. Some people find this even more liberating, because it is possible to write down even very difficult thoughts if you are then going to shred or burn what you have written.

There’s no ‘right answer’ to this, so do what works best for you.

3. Stop multi-tasking and prioritise

A very long to-do list can feel overwhelming.

It therefore adds to your mental clutter rather than reducing it, which may lead to anxiety. It is hard to think clearly about what to prioritise, or focus on one task when there are so many things jostling for your attention. It can be tempting to try and tackle several things at the same time, or to tick off lots of small but unnecessary tasks to make your list seem shorter. However, this won’t help you in the longer term.

Instead, be ruthless with your to-do list. Each day pick out the things that absolutely must be done on that day.

Focus on a short list of your most important tasks and try to make sure that it is only these priorities that occupy your mind. Take some of the smaller, less important items off your list. If you still feel they need doing, consider whether you could delegate them to someone else, or set aside time in the future to do them.

For more useful tips, see our page on writing a to-do list.

Just as you would tackle a big decluttering project in your home, break down your larger items of mental clutter into smaller chunks that are easier to tackle individually. Set aside a specific amount of time in which you can focus completely on one particular important task. Keep all other mental clutter out of your head space while you are concentrating on that task.

4. Dam the daily flood of information

We are now exposed to a huge volume of information every day, if not every minute.

Our brains are bombarded by news stories, social media, blogs, television, text messages, and emails, and this makes it hard to concentrate. There are some simple ways of reducing this source of mental clutter:

Unsubscribe from mailing lists, email marketing, newsletters and blogs that you don’t use or read. Think carefully about what is relevant to you and discard everything else.
Be disciplined about how much time you spend reading or watching the news, using social media, watching TV or aimlessly browsing the internet. Set yourself a time limit and stick to it.
Be critical about the sources of information you choose. If being exposed to these sources of information regularly is negatively affecting your mental health, have a complete break from them.

For more ideas to help with this, see our page on problematic smartphone use.

5. Be decisive and don’t feel awkward about saying no

Consider whether all your commitments are absolutely necessary or whether some can be postponed, delegated or cancelled altogether.

You might find our page on work-life balance helpful in making these decisions.

Don’t feel obliged to attend social events because you ‘feel you should’. Choose engagements that are worth your time and energy. Spend time with the people who boost your mental wellbeing. Attend activities that are beneficial for you personally or professionally and discard the rest if you can.

Develop your assertiveness

You might not find it easy to make these decisions or to have difficult conversations with your boss about unrealistic work expectations. See our pages on decision-making and assertiveness for helpful advice.

6. Don’t dwell on the past and don’t worry about what you can’t control

Many of us spend a lot of time ruminating over regrets, worrying about past mistakes or bad decisions, thinking about people we have hurt and hanging on to anger over past grievances.

We also use up mental energy and head space worrying about the future, things that might (but probably won’t) happen and ‘what if?’ scenarios.

Worrying is a waste of valuable mental energy. Worry doesn’t make anything better. It just clutters your mind and makes you feel worse.

Write down your worries and things that you are dwelling on. For each one, ask yourself, can I change this situation, and if so, what should I do?

For example, can you make amends with a friend? Can you plan for different scenarios if you do end up losing your job as you feared?

If you have control over the problem, then do the things in your power to change it. If you can’t then let it go.

There is more about this in our page on managing personal change.

7. Make time for relaxation

Relaxation is important for both tired bodies and busy minds.

There are a number of activities and techniques you can try, that will help to clear your mind of invasive thoughts and mental clutter. Our page on relaxation techniques will give you some ideas. You may also find that the best relaxation for you is taking exercise or getting some fresh air (and our page on the importance of exercise explains more about this).

Even just taking a few moments to breathe deeply can be helpful in calming your mind. Similarly, going outside into the garden, or somewhere where you feel closer to nature, is also calming.

Meditation is possibly the most powerful tool for helping restore mental clarity. It involves learning to focus on the present moment, on your breathing and on the sensations in your body. See our page on yoga nidra for more information.

8. Look after yourself

When you are feeling a bit overwhelmed, this can interfere with your ability to sleep—but being unable to sleep can also make you feel even more overwhelmed.

It is a vicious cycle, and needs to be tackled from both ‘ends’.

In other words, you need to try to address the things that are bothering you, and the ideas on this page will help. However, you also need to take active steps to help you to sleep better. For example, taking physical exercise will mean that your body is more tired, and more ready to sleep. Physical exercise also helps to distract you from your worries, so it has a ‘double whammy’.

There is more about this in our page on the importance of sleep.

It is also important to eat healthily, and not allow your worries to distract you from the need to look after yourself.

There is more about this in our pages on food, diet and nutrition.

9. Talk to someone

Consider sharing some of your worries with someone else.

Often, sharing your ‘mental load’ with someone else—even just by chatting to a friend over coffee—can really help to lighten it.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether they are able to help in any way. It seems that the act of sharing problems is often enough. However, you may also find that they are able to help in a more active way. For example, they may be able to provide a new perspective that reduces the priority that you place on particular issues.

Conclusion

Too much mental clutter can have a negative impact on your life in the form of anxiety, sleep disturbance and a feeling of being overwhelmed.

The techniques on this page will help you to begin emptying your mind and your life of unnecessary and unwanted worries and thoughts. This should help you to restore a sense of mental calm, and feel more in control of your life.

Continue to:
Decluttering Your Living Spaces
Improving Your Wellbeing