As we get swept in the day to day hustle of life, it is easy for us to allow our mind, home, car, and workspace to get cluttered. What is clutter exactly? Clutter is to fill, litter, or cover with scattered or disordered things that impede movement or reduce effectiveness. It is a disorderly manner in which a state of confusion can arise. To unclutter or declutter is to remove unnecessary items from an overcrowded space in order to make it more orderly, pleasant, and useful.
There are a variety of types of clutter. Mental clutter is when our mind is filled with all sorts of thoughts, ideas, and worries. Some of these are important and useful, while others are not. A “monkey mind” refers to a person’s unsettled, restless, scattered, and whimsical mental thoughts. This state of mind makes it near impossible to be fully present and focused on the task or moment. Our innate capacity for thinking leads us down a whirlwind path that can cause us to experience mental chaos. We feel helpless at gaining control over the frenzy of thoughts, ideas, and worries that are zipping around in our mind. This is mental clutter. Much of the information that is zooming around at lightning speed in our mind is not necessary. This calls for each of us to discipline ourselves to unclutter our own mind. We can do this by forcing ourselves to sit quietly and get all of our thoughts, ideas, and worries out of our head and written/typed onto paper. This practice helps to tame a monkey mind. Once the tornados of thoughts are placed onto paper, they can be organized and decluttered. The mental state can go from one of disarray to one of strategic arrangement. Seeing your thoughts written out allows you to purge the ideas that are nonsense and organize those that are of value.
Earl Nightingale has stated that the average human uses roughly about 5% of their total mental capability. Of the 5% mental capabilities that we do use, we waste a large percentage on needless clutter. He states that 40% of our mental energies are focused on worries that never manifest into reality. Meaning 40% of what we focus our mind worrying about doesn’t even turn out to be that way, something totally different ends up happening. We wasted our time worrying about an outcome that ended up being a totally different outcome than what we had imagined. The next 30% of our worries are focused on things that took place in the past that we cannot go back and change. We cannot alter the past, though we allow our mental energies to dwell on experiences of the past. Since we can’t alter the things that have already occurred, it is a much wiser approach to focus our mental energies on things that we can control and impact. Another 12% of our mental use is targeted toward health concerns that usually do not turn out to be as severe as what we were worried about them being. Again, a wastage of mental energy. Add to that 10% of petty/miscellaneous worries, like what we will cook for dinner tonight and that lands us at 92% (40%+30%+12%+10%). That means that we have spent a ridiculous amount of mental energy on worries that were merely mental clutter and of no real use nor benefit to us. If our 5% mental capabilities were converted into currency of $5, then we have just taken $0.92 of our $5 and thrown it into the trash. Leaving us with roughly $4.08 of usefully focused mental capability. This is still a far cry from a whole 100% or $100. We may want to strive to use much more of our mental capabilities to get closer to 100% or at least double digits.
In addition to allowing for far too much mental clutter, we also enable our environment to get cluttered. When we are moving at a hectic pace, then our environment will often mirror this fast living. Our home starts getting messy with piles of papers, clothing, or other items scattered about. We may end up throwing things into closets, storage spaces, and/or the garage just to get them out of the way. Yet this practice only relocates our clutter, moving it from one place to another. It doesn’t truly declutter our living space. Our car also starts to have papers and other items scattered in the passenger and/or backseat(s). Even our trunk might hold all sorts of odds and ends that are not really needed. At work, our workspace may be in a disarray with papers, sticky notes, and note pads randomly placed about.
We may even find that many of our relationships are added clutter. People who don’t necessarily support nor benefit us in any way may still be lingering in our life. We may be holding on to connections that are toxic to us. Having people who criticize, judge, belittle, undermine, discourage, or deter us in any fashion are not individuals who we should hold near. Some of these people may be our own family members, in which case we might not be able to purge them out of our life altogether. However, we can protect ourselves by creating distance and spacing out our interactions with these individuals. In this way, we are decluttering our relationships and associations.
It is imperative that we make time to declutter our own life. We can start with uncluttering our mind and organizing our thoughts by writing them down and prioritizing each. Then we can move on to decluttering our home, vehicle, and workspace. To do this we must focus on the items that are of value and utility for current life. Anything that is not being used nor adding value may be donated, discarded, or passed on to others to utilize. The items that we choose to keep should be carefully organized so that they are easy to find and use, which should improve our effectiveness and save us time. Lastly, we should take inventory of the people that we regularly interact with, and start to protect ourselves from those who do not support nor encourage us to grow in all aspects of life. Toxic relationships should be the first ones on our declutter radar, especially those that cause negative or anxious emotions within us. You show yourself pure love by spacing yourself from those who are simply unhealthy for your soul. The act of decluttering one’s own life can be liberating and models self-love.