Do you feel that your home or office desk reflect your mental or emotional state?
My current obsession is the new Netflix series with Organizational expert Marie Kondo. I’m currently traveling, and after watching a couple of episodes, I was so inspired that I organized my suitcase.
This also got me thinking about how clutter all around us affect our mental and emotional state. When we simply tolerate things, it takes away energy and focus.
If you want to declutter your life, here are tips and inspiration to get you started.
3 Areas To Declutter For More Focus And Peace of Mind
1. Your Home Environment
I highly recommend looking into Marie Kondo’s work. Read here books or watch here Netflix series.
Here are three lessons I learned from her:
Lesson #1: Declutter and organize by category, not room-by-room
What most of us do is to organize room by room. Instead, Marie wants us to declutter and organize by category.
She recommends the following order:
- Clothing
- Books
- Paper
- Komono
- Kitchen
- Bathroom
- Garage
- Miscellaneous
- Sentimental items
Lesson #2: Keep what gives you joy – thank what you need to let go
Another lesson I learned is, you need to evaluate each item; does it spark joy in you or not. If it sparks joy, you keep it. If it doesn’t spark joy, you thank it for all the value it brought to your life and discard it.
Lesson #3: The folding technique
Marie Kondo has a verticle folding technique. This makes it easier to organize and store clothing. The technique is:
2. Your Inbox
Do you feel that your inbox can be overwhelming?
Learning how to manage it can will help alleviate that dread.
There are only three things you can do with an email in your inbox:
- Action it immediately.
- File it (for reference or future action)
- Delete it.
If you want to declutter your inbox, aim for Inbox Zero. That means that there are no emails in your inbox. It’s an awesome feeling to achieve Inbox Zero.
If you get a lot of emails, I highly recommend SaneBox. It helps to find emails that are important and has some other great features as well. I save a lot of time using it! My favorite function is SaneBlackHole. If there are newsletters I don’t want to see anymore, I drag it to SaneBlackHole folder, and I never see emails from that sender again. Click this link to check it out (We have no affiliation).
3. Your Mind
The third area to declutter for peace of mind – is your mind. How well we are managing our minds can have a significant effect on our performance and wellbeing.
Here are three ways to manage your mind:
- Physical activity – don’t underestimate the power of a walk outside.
- Meditation – read more about the benefits of meditation.
- Journaling – read more about The Power of Journaling.
Now you have the essentials on how you can declutter your life. Don’t try to all these strategies at once. I repeat. Do not try to do all of this at once! Choose one area to declutter. When you feel that you have control over one area, you can move onto the next.
What do you want to declutter from your life? What is the first area will you focus on? Comment below!