How to declutter your mind
1. Habit of mono-tasking
We multitask all the time because they make us feel busy & productive.
But, according to American Psychological Association, multitasking makes us less efficient because it fills our mind with too much activity. And the more complex these tasks are, the longer it takes for our brain to switch from one thing to another.
“A lot of times, being busy just means
you’re in a state of being functionally overwhelmed.”
– Ryder Carroll, the creator of Bullet Journal Method
So to declutter your mind, replace the habit of multitasking with the habit of focusing on and finishing one task before moving on to the next.
Write down if something pops up in your mind. If it’s important, it can surely be done next without distracting you from the current task.
2. Getting bored is good
Schedule some white space in the day. Like, try taking a walk without your headphones, or spend time without your phone doing nothing.
The idea is to simply let our mind wander without filling it with inputs. It’s a great way to practice mental detox and declutter your mind every day.
Research has shown that small bouts of boredom are good because they give our brain the space it needs to make new connections between the information we already have. Basically, come up with innovative ideas or creative solutions.
And so by inference, it can be a very helpful tool to handle stressful situations.
So get into the habit of scheduling time to let your mind wander and scheduling helps because it really becomes difficult to stay consistent with anything unless we intentionally set some time aside for it.
3. Think in writing to declutter your mind
Now at any given point in time, there can be a lot of things going on in our head.
What then happens, is it create a kind of mental confusion and we lose track of our priorities, lose focus.
According to a study done at the University of Rochester Medical Center, journaling can boost our overall well-being because it helps us organize our thoughts & understand our emotions better.
So, the habit of writing down tasks and ideas is one of the best ways to declutter our brain, organize your thoughts and stop overthinking.
When we write down the thoughts crowding our mind it helps us kind of practice mental minimalism. Letting only those thoughts take up space that are relevant to us, to our goals in life.
4. Habit of prioritizing
When we are clear about what’s relevant and important for us, we can focus on things based on their priority, and so use our time and energy more efficiently. Because decluttering life means being intentional with how we spend our time, energy, attention.
“Life is C between B and D”
– Jean Paul Sartre
So making intentional choices with our time, and how we use our mental energy, focus, attention becomes so much important because they decide which direction our life takes.
5. Declutter and organize
The science behind the idea that an uncluttered and organized physical space helps us think more clearly is explained in an article published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
It basically shows that when there are too many things vying for our visual attention, it limits our ability to focus and process information.
So, aiming for as much unoccupied space or white space as possible, essentially getting into the habit of being an organized person can help unclutter your mind… When you spring clean your life, it helps declutter your brain too.
But another kind of clutter is all those pending decisions and tasks that we have been putting off for one reason or another. Procrastination, the I-will-do-it-later-bug can be one of the biggest sources of mental clutter, stress, and overwhelm in life.
But there are some key things that help overcome procrastination routinely & show up every single time.
When you clear mental clutter, it helps control your thoughts and stop worrying unnecessarily. Mental minimalism, being intentional about how you spend your mental energy, focus, attention helps declutter your mind and practice mental detox routinely.
