Decluttering and Organizing: Physically and Mentally

Steve Jobs is the more well-known co-founder of Apple. Along with Steve Wozniak he created the world's first one trillion dollar and two trillion-dollar company. Apple became the first company with a market capitalization of three trillion dollars in January 2022.

The meteoric rise of Apple in the computer and consumer electronics industries in the early 1990s had a lot to do with Jobs' leadership. One thing the tech icon did that impacted his management was frequently wear the same outfit. Perform an image search for "Steve Jobs," and you continually see him wearing the same three things.

·        A black mock turtleneck top.

·        New Balance sneakers.

·        Blue jeans.

One of the wealthiest men in the world, Jobs could certainly have afforded an endless amount of clothing. Yet he continually wore the same things. Why did he do that?

It gave him one fewer choice to make every day.

This allowed him to free his mind up for other things. He put what would otherwise have been a daily decision on autopilot. He didn't have to spend any mental energy worrying about what he was going to wear.

How many images of Albert Einstein have you seen that all look the same? He reportedly purchased several versions of the same suit so he didn't have to waste any of his considerable brainpower on his choice of clothing each day.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he owns about 20 identical gray-colored T-shirts in an interview on the NBC Today show. Former US President Obama also believes in limiting the number of routine choices he has to make every day.

In a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair, President Obama said, "You'll see I only wear only gray or blue suits. I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make."

If it's good enough for these successful people, should you give it a try? Perhaps you should if you want to declutter your mind.

Limit Repetitive Choices.

Maybe you don't want to wear the same clothing all of the time. That's fine. All we're saying is that when you limit the number of conscious decisions you have to make, there's less going on in your conscious mind. That means fewer things that can collect in your head and lead to clutter.

Move simple decisions to autopilot. This could be what you're going to wear to work each day, what you eat each morning, or a specific schedule of activities you will follow at some time during the day. The less mental energy you spend on decision-making, the freer your conscious mind is when you engage in important activities.

This is a simple way to reduce the amount of input that goes into your mind. When you reduce how much you ask your conscious mind to do, you limit the possibility that mental clutter will build up and keep you from performing at your best.

We usually think of clutter as physical. It's all that "stuff" you keep promising yourself you're going to clean up. Left alone, it seems to multiply on its own. Where you just had a few things out of place and distracting you a few days ago, now there are more.

Clutter is like that. A crowded, messy area magically attracts other items that don't need to be there. While you may think this isn't that big of a deal, it can be. Aside from the danger that substantial clutter provides (it can be a fire hazard, you may trip over it, etc.), any amount can be distracting. This kills your focus and concentration.

Maybe you don't have much physical clutter in your environment. You are exceptionally neat and organized. If that's the case, good for you. Don't forget though that clutter can exist in your mind. If you have too many unnecessary things going on in your head at once, it can keep you from focusing on the things that matter.

Here are three simple ways to de-clutter your mind. They go to work immediately, removing thoughts, obsessions, and other mental messes so you enjoy less stress and anxiety and better mental wellness.

1 – Divorce Yourself from Drama.

This might mean saying goodbye to some people in your life. If they don't provide more positives than they do negatives, their drama might not be worth the effort. Being around a dramatic individual regularly continues to fill your head with unnecessary distractions.

The issues that the drama queens in your life are constantly dealing with become your issues to some extent. Ditch the drama. Say no to issues and individuals you don't absolutely have to deal with. If the drama isn't yours, you shouldn't have to put up with it.

2 – Stop Living in the Past and Worrying about the Future.

Well, maybe you can worry about the future just a little bit. It makes a lot of sense to plan your life. If not, you're letting chance, other people, and circumstances decide how your life is going to go.

You probably know what we're talking about here. It doesn't make any sense to obsess over things in your past. They're gone, and you can't change them. Use any lessons learned to move on with more information.

As far as the future goes, constantly worrying about it isn't going to do you any good. This clogs up your brain and doesn't leave any space for your mental machinery to deal with your life right now.

3 – If It Runs on Electricity, Spend Less Time with It.

From the time some people wake up until they go to bed, they're bathing in digital distractions. You have your own unique electrical field. Constantly exposing yourself to the electromagnetic fields of your phone and tablet, television, laptop, and all the consumer electronics you encounter at work and play can fry your brain and fill it with mind-numbing clutter.

These are things that you can do right now, this very minute. When you do, you immediately start clearing out your mental storage unit. The benefits are less stress, more focus, and better mental health; and you might even find yourself sleeping better at night.

Take a look around your workspace. What do the environments in your vehicle and at home look like? Those places where you spend the most time. Do you have a lot of physical things in those spaces that don't really need to be there?

Perhaps you use them every now and then. So you keep them handy. This might sound perfectly reasonable. In some cases, it may make a lot of sense. You use something every few days, so you just keep it around. This can become a problem when it turns into a habit. Before you know it, your immediate area has very little free space.

In this case, you might not consciously notice what all that physical clutter is doing to you. Unconsciously your senses are constantly dealing with everything they encounter. All that visual and physical clutter slows your brain down. It can ruin your ability to focus, negatively impacts your mental abilities, and can lead to stress, anxiety, and overwhelm.

Speaking of overwhelm, it's something we all have to deal with it from time to time. In our hectic modern world where speed, instant gratification, and constant sensory experiences are the norm, it's easy to feel stressed out and overburdened. When that happens, when your mental clutter overloads your mind, and you need some freedom from the stress and anxiety you are experiencing, give a loved one a call.

Texting Is Okay, but Calling Is Better.

Everyone sends text messages these days. It's great because you can instantly connect with someone. In this case, it's not the preferred means of communication.

Speaking with someone on the phone lets you hear their voice. Both parties can hear emotions in their voices that don't come across clearly in a text message.

If at all possible, sit down face-to-face with somebody who really cares about you. Tell them about the overwhelm you're feeling. Talk about everything that's on your mind, all that's worrying you. Get it all out; fears, insecurities, concerns, worries, whatever it is that's causing you mental anguish. Confiding in someone you care about can erase the amount of damaging mental clutter that's collecting in your mind.

You feel like you have less of a burden when you share your thoughts with another person. So the next time you start worrying, stressing, and freaking out over something, stop the mental clutter-collecting process. Call someone who cares about you, someone whose opinion you respect. When you share what's bothering you, mental overwhelm gives way to better mental and emotional wellness.

Do you have a mind full of clutter? You probably do, even if you don't know it. People have more distracting them now than ever before. Look at your life and compare it to when you were a kid. In that short span of time, you have encountered so much change.

Now compare our modern world with the human experience of 50, 100, and 1,000 years ago.

That's an easy way to illustrate how much you have to deal with compared to past generations. It has a lot to do with important advancements in how we communicate and consume information.

Look around right now. How many electronic monitors, displays, and screens do you see? This includes televisions and laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Don't forget all of those displays on your smart appliances, personal digital assistants, digital watches, and fitness trackers.

As soon as you power up your vehicle you are presented with a digital dashboard. How many digital billboards do you encounter driving down the road? Digital medical, industrial, and transportation equipment and signage is everywhere.

Many of these screens and monitors distract your ears as well as your eyes. Their speakers are constantly working to inform, entertain and influence you.

All of this data and information ceaselessly tries to get into your mind. That constant onslaught can have you restless and unfocused. It can wear you down physically. You feel pulled in so many different directions these days in our modern, busy, and distracting world.

The best way to handle the stress, lack of focus, poor productivity, and negative emotions that come with mental clutter is to prevent it. Here are three simple ways to limit the amount of needless input that's fighting to take up residency in your mind. They also start clearing out the clutter that's already there.

1 – Don't Believe the Multitasking Lie.

The human mind can only concentrate on one thing at a time. It's why when you're talking on the phone to someone, you will often close your eyes to process the conversation if there is a lot of stuff going on around you. Very little of your mental energy is directed to conscious activities. This means you have to be very careful with what you're trying to do, or else you won't be very productive.

Multitasking means doing several things at once, and none of them very efficiently. Go through your life and prioritize your activities. Handle one task or item on your to-do list at a time, then move to another. This is a proven way to clear clutter from your mind and boost productivity and feelings of accomplishment in every area of your life.

2 – Limit What You Receive.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tell us that more than 7,000 people in the US die from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke. These people didn't smoke. But they either voluntarily or involuntarily exposed themselves to a lot of secondhand smoke.

What does this have to do with decluttering your mind? It's all about limiting negative influences.

If you limit the amount of information you have to process you automatically reduce the odds that your mind will become cluttered with unnecessary junk. Set time limits on your phone usage and how much time you spend on the computer as well as social media.

Spend more of your time consciously putting yourself in situations that limit electronic input. Increase the amount of time you spend with people and mother nature. If you limit your exposure to possibly negative input, you logically limit the odds that it will clog up your mental machinery.

3 – Make a Decision.

Be decisive when dealing with your thoughts. Don't let an unimportant feeling or thought hang around. Deal with it and move on. Decide what information, feelings, and thoughts are relevant to you, and then disregard everything that's left.

Stop multitasking. It makes your efforts multi-terrible while creating unnecessary mental distractions. Speaking of distractions, limit how many you are exposed to. When you do receive information, be decisive. Deal with it and then move on. These are three simple ways to declutter your mind and prevent the anxiety and stress, restlessness, mental fog, and lack of focus that mental clutter causes.

You don't have to be a hoarder to collect a lot of clutter. You don't even need to own much stuff to have an environment full of distracting, unneeded, unnecessary items getting in your way. They may not be physically impeding you in any way, but they still are affecting you.

That's because your five senses are constantly doing what they do. Why else would you have them if they weren't always listening, looking, tasting, touching, and smelling your surroundings?

They do this to alert you to potentially negative experiences.

·        You hear your alarm go off, and this means work when you would rather keep sleeping.

·        You taste onions in a casserole that looked so good, but those onions make it oh so bad.

·        You feel a few raindrops on your skin, letting you know you'd better seek shelter.

They also let you know of possibly positive situations.

·        You overhear your boss saying he will be leaving early today, and that's a beautiful thing.

·        You smell freshly baked bread.

·        You see, that there are only five more minutes before you clock out from work and start a week-long vacation.

There seems to be a lot of work displeasure in these examples, doesn't there? By the way, if you want to know how negatively physical and non-physical clutter can affect you, consider this.

You have more than the five senses you are aware of.

Many neuroscientists, philosophers, psychologists, and others believe humans have dozens of senses that process our world and help us interact with it.

For instance, there's equilibrioception. This is a human sense that helps keep you balanced. It's quietly working all the time to keep you from falling over. There's also proprioception. This sense lets you unconsciously understand which parts of your body are located where.

Clutter Distracts Your Senses, Whether You Have 5, 15 or 25

When there are things in your environment you don't need for the task at hand, your senses are distracted. You only have so much mental energy devoted to conscious activities.

It's beleived that only about 5% of all cognitive activity deals with your conscious world.

This means you quickly run out of mental focus quickly when your surroundings are cluttered.

Then on top of that is the long list of harmful emotions caused by mental clutter. Mental clutter includes future worry, obsession over the past, stress, fear, anxiety, and other negative perceptions.

All of this clutter in your mind wrecks your ability to focus. It destroys your productivity and efficiency. When this happens, you may suffer from self-doubt, frustration, self-resentment, and other negative feelings because you don't get a lot done.

What's the answer? How do you enjoy less stress and anxiety, more productivity, and a clearer, more focused mind? The answer is simple. Clear out the mental and physical clutter.

Clean your environments of physical clutter. Stop dropping things wherever you happen to be and put them in their rightful place. Quit obsessing over the past and worrying so much about the future. Forgive people rather than constantly thinking about what they did to you. Limit the amount of stress you voluntarily place yourself in, at work and in your personal life.

Whenever you sense some negative emotions, observe them. Where are they coming from? What's causing them? If your thoughts aren't necessary and they are messing with your mind, get rid of them.

Unresolved mental clutter can be as dangerous as physical clutter that proposes a trip-and-fall possibility, or a fire hazard. Get busy removing unnecessary thoughts and obsessions from your life. Clear out sensory clutter; you will enjoy less stress and anxiety, and more mental clarity and focus.

Brain-based clutter is stressful. It's generated by having too much going on in your mind. You're trying to deal with too many things at once. That's difficult, even on your best day.

Focusing in on this modern world with its many distractions is tough. We often make it tougher than it needs to be. This happens when we refuse to say no to our friends. They are always asking favors, and we're always saying yes. That's a perfect stress-building recipe because we seldom tend to our own needs and responsibilities. We're too busy trying to please others.

Other needless distractions include things we did in our past. It might be true that you could have made better choices. That's the case with all of us. But obsessing over your past might be one of the most fruitless activities you can undertake. You have absolutely no control over what has already happened, so constantly thinking about it is just cluttering up your brain unnecessarily.

We also create a mental mess that doesn't need to be there when we spend our valuable time thinking about things we have no control over. This keeps you from living your best life. It needlessly ramps up your levels of worry and stress.

Honestly Appraise What You May Be Able to Influence.

Maybe you believe you have a lot of influence over a friend of yours. Regardless of any proof you might think you have that backs up your belief, you are dead wrong.

You have absolutely no control over anyone but yourself.

If you're like most people, you find it difficult enough to control your own actions and thoughts. While you may believe you have an ability to influence others to take certain actions, what happens if they oneday decide to quit listening to you?

Be honest with yourself. In most situations, all you can control is your behaviors, your emotions, and your attitude. To discover if you're unnecessarily cluttering up your mind, make a list of those things in your life you're constantly thinking about that you do and don't have control over.

Act on What You Can Control, Talk about What You Can't.

We often try to control things outside of our realm of influence because we feel frustrated otherwise. It makes no sense to bang your head up against a brick wall if your actions are fruitless.

Actually it doesn't make much to sense to bang your head up against a brick wall for any reason!

You know what we mean. If you consistently think about, worry over, and act upon things you can't control, you're going to be frustrated, stressed out, and constantly filling your mind with mental clutter.

So make that list. Once you've made a list of the things you can control, that's where your thoughts and efforts need to be directed. If you can't control something in your life but you'd like it to change, talk about it. Bring it up to the significant people in your life that might help you change that situation. Then whether or not you get the change you're looking for, move on.

You can't control what you can't control! Just tell yourself that over and over. This can keep you from needlessly wasting your time and mental energy when they can be directed to where they have a chance to make a positive impact, it limits the amount of information your mind has to deal with, and this means less mental clutter.

Clutter of the mind is and isn't like physical or visual clutter. It's similar to clutter you can see and that it can be very distracting. The difference is you can't reach out your hand and remove a piece of mental clutter like you can the physical things unnecessarily littering your space.

Mental clutter is insidious because you may not realize how much energy is devoted to it. Clutter of the mind includes those random thoughts that seem to appear all day long, no matter what you're doing.

HealthyBrains.org tells us that the average person processes about 70,000 thoughts every day. That's a lot of thinking. Of course, the vast majority of these happen without your permission. Dr. Fred Luskin of Stanford University says that of the many thousands of thoughts each person has, as many as many as 90% of them are repetitive.

So you're needlessly thinking thousands of thoughts you have no control over, and most of them have been around before. That is a ton of mental clutter. One way to deal with much of it is to stop worrying and start solving problems.

Worrying Just Leads to More Negative Thoughts.

Why are most of your thoughts negative? The way the human brain developed means there is a negativity bias you have to deal with. For some reason, negative thoughts and experiences are given more attention than positive ones. One of the most negative aspects of this process is worry.

We worry about things all of the time, don't we? It seems worrying is a favorite human pastime. The problem with this is that worrying never gets you to a point of resolution.

That's why you should turn worrying into problem-solving.

The next time your ceaseless thinking machine cranks out another worrisome thought, address it. Instead of worrying, look at this thought as a problem. How can you solve it? How can you make the best out of this situation? If all you can see is negativity, look for the silver lining in the cloud.

Imagine that the following thought pops into your head...

You've been having some issues with a friend. You said some things, and she said some things, and now you aren't sure if the two of you are in a good place in your relationship. If you have enough spare time you can waste hours if not days of your life worrying and imagining all sorts of terrible scenarios.

Or you can create a game plan that addresses the situation. Instead of worrying endlessly, solve the problem.

If you can't call or see your friend right away, schedule a meeting. Talk it out. Most of the time, the things we worry about and imagine are going to be so terrible, never end up being anywhere as miserable as we thought they'd be.

To de-clutter your mind, stop worrying so much. When worry is prompted by your constantly negative thoughts, look at it as a problem that can be solved. Then solve it.

This is a simple way to keep mental clutter from building up in your brain. You might also find a lot more positivity in your life. Now you are solving problems when in the past you simply worried over them and let them fester.

Scott Bea is a clinical psychologist that understands just how clutter can wreck your mental and physical health. He tells us that the visual clutter, anything that falls within your line of sight but isn't necessary, cranks up your production of cortisol. That means more stress and anxiety.

If you hadn't had enough depression recently, just add more mental and physical clutter to your life.

Clutter negatively affects your self-esteem level, even if you don't consciously believe it's that big of a problem. Mental clutter as well as the physical variety, kills your ability to focus and to be productive, and can lead to sleep loss.

Physical clutter in your environment can lead to mental clutter.

Your senses are constantly trying to deal with everything they detect in your messy, disorganized space. This fogs up your brain and gets it working overtime. When you remove visual, physical, and mental clutter from your life, you gain better control of not only your mental abilities. You also give yourself a boost your self-esteem and feel good about what you've accomplished.

The Downside of a Cluttered Mind.

Before we discuss how you can do some spring cleaning in your cranium, let's get a little negative. Sometimes understanding the downside of a situation can motivate you to take action. Here are a few of the unfortunate symptoms of a cluttered mind.

·        You constantly focus on the negative and have difficulty seeing things in a positive light.

·        You worry about things you have no control over.

·        It's difficult focusing your attention and having clarity of thought.

·        You're easily and frequently distracted.

·        Your brain never shuts down, and is always processing information from multiple topics and lists.

·        A cluttered mind can lead to multiple sleep problems.

·        It's not uncommon to feel physically drained and tired, as well as mentally confused, and not very productive.

When your mind is cluttered with unnecessary "stuff," a lot of energy is required to deal with it. This can make you feel run down and fatigued. You don't feel like doing anything or dealing with anything.

Don't worry; there's a simple solution you can use twice a day to sleep better and relieve the stress your mental clutter is causing. You'll find it easier to focus, and you'll be more productive as well. Here's what you need to do.

1 – Write it down when you wake up.

2 – Write it down when you go to bed.

What is the "it" that you should be writing down? Your thoughts. Your feelings. Anything that's going on in your head. In the morning, write out a game plan for the day. Prioritize important things and keep everything else off of your list.

At night, read over what you wrote that morning. Then unload your mind. Back up the mental dump truck and get it all out. If random thoughts bothered you during the day and are still on your mind, let them stand up and be recognized.

Writing out your thoughts is such a powerful way to clear your mind. When you do this regularly in the morning and at night, you'll find you sleep better, and you're more productive during the day. This won't stop your ceaseless inner chatter. What it does is it gives you control over it while ensuring a lot of mental clutter doesn't take up full-time residency in your mind.