You know the feeling: you're forgetting important dates, you feel as if you're being pulled in a hundred different directions, and you're unable to finish a project or task from beginning to end.
A cluttered mind is disrupting and it hinders our productivity, balance and even our mental health. Instead, why not fill that space with…space? That way there’s room to grow, focus on and own (both mentally and physically) only that which serves us.Mental clutter refers to times when our mind has too many thoughts which makes it difficult to process and focus. Our minds, like our houses, have a tendency of filling up the space available–simply because it’s there. And I also can’t make progress if my mind wants to own a task that’s too big and daunting to accomplish in a single step (like having “write a book” on my to-do list). I can’t make progress if my thoughts are caught up in the past and present. I can’t make progress in life if I overextend myself. I like to think of my own mental minimalism as an MVP, which in this case, refers to: Minimum Viable Progress.
There’s no room, and they’ll make a mess of your carefully arranged backpack. The future is equally awful at taking away our focus-it screams at us that what we’re working on could fail, or that people will mock us, or that we have to say "yes" to something because it could be our big break, or that everything we currently have might be taken from us (possibly involving a zombie apocalypse).ĭon’t let those thoughts that don’t serve you into your tiny mental house. The past tries to tell us that our previous failures define us, or that we aren’t the type of person that could ever do something we want to do. The past and future have a tricky way of creeping into our thoughts, and if our thoughts now live in a tiny house with a meticulously organized backpack, there just isn’t room for many of them. Mental minimalism requires focus on the present.įor more advice on mindfulness, sign up for free, daily messages from Shine.įocus only works if you’re focusing on one thing (it’s funny how many people tell me the number of things they’re “focused” on). We especially can’t have zero boundaries if we want to have the mental space needed to create things. If we don’t set boundaries for ourselves, others will set them for us-and we may not like where they draw the line. Or, if you never say no to friends who are constantly asking for your time/energy, those friends will always expect that of you. If you reply to emails late at night and on weekends, people you work with will expect you to be available at those times. What if we decided to declutter thoughts that no longer (or never) served us? What if we agreed not to add anything to our plates until something is removed? What if we achieved “inbox zero” for our brains?!? (Ok, I don’t even know what that one would actually mean, but it sounds cool, right?) Paring life and thoughts down to only what’s essential means we’ve got to prioritize.īoundaries need to be set and tested. Or, to a lesser extent, lots of tiny houses, each with their own backpacks filled with 34.8 perfectly arranged items.īut what if we applied minimalism to our mental space? Or 34.8 perfectly arranged items that all fit into a single backpack. Most of the time when people think of “minimalism” they think of less stuff.
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How to Declutter Your Mind With 'Mental Minimalism' originally appeared on The Sunday Dispatches.
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