7 Steps to Mentally Declutter in 2022
Introduction
At Origin Woodworks we build custom furniture. It becomes functional art in your living or workspace. But before we can thrive in our living or workspace we need to start with our health.
Mental health is the subject of today’s post with a focus on decluttering our minds to begin 2022.
The past two years have no doubt tested us all- bringing uncertainty, stress, and discontent- the following 7 steps to mentally declutter can help alleviate these feelings.
7 Steps to Mentally Declutter in 2022
Clutter doesn’t just include physical things in our living or workspace. It also includes things we hold in our mind:
Thought patterns holding us back
Ruminating about the past or constantly future-planning (not living in the present moment)
Negative or uncontrollable emotions
Sensory or information overload in the digital age
All of these things we hold in our minds leave us exhausted.
Throw in a global pandemic and it becomes a pressure cooker. Luckily if we step back and reflect on our habits, we can begin to seek change and declutter in the new year.
Here’s How:
1. Get Quality Sleep
This may be easily overlooked but quality sleep is really our human superpower. The benefits of sleep are numerous and well documented: getting sick less often, improved overall mood and mindset, thinking more clearly, and getting along better with people.
But quality sleep also helps us with learning and memory according to researchers at Harvard:
“When we are sleep deprived, our focus, attention, and vigilance drift, making it more difficult to receive information. Without adequate sleep and rest, over-worked neurons can no longer function to coordinate information properly, and we lose our ability to access previously learned information.”
2. Start a Gratitude Journal
This is a great habit that can go hand-in-hand with sleep as it can be done before bedtime. Speaking from personal experience, journaling each day about what I have to be thankful for has made me realize a lot about my life.
Namely, I have a life of abundance. And if you’re reading this, I’m betting you do too.
When you write out each day what you do have instead of what you wish you had a mental shift takes place.
When you journal in the pursuit of gratitude it primes your brain to have a new default of realizing that things are okay and that you have what you need (or will create it). The clutter of thoughts that remind us of lack in our lives begins to diminish.
Pro-Tip: Use a REAL paper journal or notebook and pen rather than a digital device…which leads us to our next step.
3. Eliminate Screen Time at Night/Bedtime
It has been shown that blue light that emits from the screens on our digital devices throws our circadian rhythms (our body’s natural sleep regulation) off. This can negatively affect our sleep by not allowing us to fall asleep when we should. We then wake up feeling depleted and groggy.
This makes it easier for our minds to become cluttered first thing in the morning with negative thoughts or distractions.
4. In Fact, Limit ANY Screen Time as much as Possible
Speaking of distractions, isn’t it kind of crazy how much time we spend on digital devices? Stats show that the average American spends 5.4 hours per day on their phone! Over a ten year span that means we will give up around 2.25 years to our phones.
Our online attention span has dropped to 8 seconds!
Is it any surprise that when things in life don’t go as planned and we don’t get what we right this minute we end up feeling anxious and agitated? When the online world shows us endless images of things we don’t have, our mind gets cluttered with negative thoughts that don’t serve us.
5. Spend Time In Nature
A great way to combat the previous problem is to get outside. The natural world provides us a break from the digital world (provided you’re not checking your phone).
Living through a pandemic makes this point more acute. We weren’t meant to spend all of our time indoors. Civilization as it currently exists with urban or suburban built environments is a tiny blip on our evolutionary timeline.
6. Practice Single-Tasking
Have you ever tried listening to someone while talking at the same time? It doesn’t really work well.
Our brains are wired to perform one task at a time. When we try to multitask it stresses our brain and leads to fatigue. It also increases the likelihood of errors in complex tasks.
A few ways to practice single-tasking: only check email at a certain time of day, turn phone to silent when focusing on complex tasks and set a timer for important work tasks you know need to get done.
7. Meditate
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." ~Blaise Pascal, French philosopher
What’s amazing is that Pascal wrote this in the 1600s. Apparently, we haven’t enjoyed sitting in silence with ourselves for a long time. Do you think it has gotten any better with our previously mentioned shortened attention spans?
Meditation and examining one’s thoughts brings us full circle on our mental decluttering process. The practice has existed for thousands of years in every major region and culture of the world. The numerous benefits of meditation according to Healthline include stress reduction, less anxiety, increased attention span, and improved sleep.
To get started with meditation check out this article: 5 Meditation Styles for Beginners.
Closing Thoughts
We live in a fast paced, ever changing world. It won’t stop evolving and changing anytime soon. Again, as the past two years have shown, there are many things that challenge us mentally.
As we have discussed, when we establish habits that allow us to mentally declutter our minds we can set ourselves up to better deal with adversity.
And as we begin a new year these habits will serve us well as we can never know what is to come. Begin small with these habits. Don’t try to change everything at once. As you gradually implement these habits, your mind will begin to be less burdened.