Underlying anxiety grows from a pile-up of tasks and causes us to feel like life is a growing weight. We experience feelings of inner heaviness and mental drag when we neglect our surroundings, letting our spaces fall into chaos. When clutter has you caged like this, it’s time to declutter to detox your mind.
We can escape physically with a vacation, but running away doesn’t banish the problems when you return. Life’s physical baggage and our mental baggage are connected. Clutter is emotionally draining and wading through junk to find important things drains physical energy and time.
Instead of running away, go the extra mile to make your home your haven.
Declutter Detox Plan
To make our bodies feel refreshed, many of us participate in detox methods to purge the nasties from our systems. It can be trickier to improve mental wellbeing but consider this: by changing our physical surroundings we feel changed on the inside. We experience this when taking trips to new destinations.
However, this isn’t about making our homes look like a tropical oasis (although that can be nice too). We need to look deeper than the aesthetics. Instead of purging the junk from our bodies, we must purge junk from our homes.
To sample the benefits of a clutter detox, all you need to start is one small area. One. Let’s imagine this is a desk drawer in a home office. Empty it out, all of it. Throw out the obligatory crumbling rubber bands and rusty paper clips, impractical stubby pencils and pens that run dry or leak ink, and all old receipts and circulars. That was the easy part…
Decluttering Paperwork
The hardest part of organising a desk space is the lingering paperwork. For this exercise we’re going to do a brisk blanket sweep, creating just three piles: “To do”, “to file”, and “recycle”.
The to-do pile should be popped neatly into a desktop tray (love this stackable A4 bamboo letter tray). Arranging papers in clear sight encourages you into action, instead of allowing them to fester in the drawer. Make this admin task your next priority.
To-file papers should be archived immediately (or at least tucked into the fronts of files where they belong, until filing reaches the top of the detox list).
The recycle pile can be cathartically removed from your life with the help of a compact paper shredder.
Be Ruthless
Now you need to get rid of the things that aren’t so easily defined as trash. Many of these will be items that don’t belong in a desk in the first place, things that need relocating to more suitable parts of the home. Always re-home miscellanea mindfully rather than creating more mess stations.
The next items are those that need to be pared down. You do not need 3 staplers (even if the mini one is quite fun) or multicoloured staples that seemed a great idea but never found a purpose. This is where you might feel like calling it a day and throwing everything back in the drawer to avoid more decisions. Don’t give up; be ruthless.
The Benefits of Detox and Decluttering
Once the purge is done you will feel lighter and have a clearer mind, much like a physical detox.
The final part is to arrange your reduced collection of items back into the drawer. Because of the reduction, you are able to organise useful items so that they can be accessed with ease. With each item you drop into place, and are able to easily find later, a piece of the mind settles. Pleasing moments of ease accumulate and contribute toward overall mental peace in your surroundings.
Remember: Simplify to run smoothly. By ridding your home of clutter, you too will feel cleansed.
