Decluttering my head

I started out my day thinking about decluttering. It’s that time of year, after all. A fresh batch of holiday presents is soon to be unwrapped, requiring lots of out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new activity in most households. 

In the past, I’ve chalked up an excellent record for culling, especially my clothes closet. Years ago, I tossed all of my dresses and skirts into garbage bags and donated the entire lot to my local Salvation Army Thrift Store.

With the exception of accumulating too many books, I can also claim an enviable track record for limiting the number of tchotchkes cluttering up our North Vancouver home. Likewise, our cabina here in San Vito is short on knickknacks. 

But isn’t digital decluttering a good idea too? It’s been years since I attacked my overstuffed digital storage spaces. Do I really need to hang onto a screenshot of my vaccine passport from the pandemic years?

But merely tossing photos and files from my devices isn’t enough. I want to totally declutter my head from the whack of unwanted files in the hard drive of my mind. From AI to Internet listicles, there’s no end of ideas on offer to clear one’s mind.  

1. Write it down

Get things out of your head and onto paper by writing them down. This is called a brain dump.

2. Journal

Journaling can help you stop overanalyzing and eliminate negative thoughts.

3. Practice mindfulness

Meditation can help you focus and redirect your thoughts to the present.

4. Spend time in nature

Nature can help calm your mind and reduce mental clutter.

5. Declutter your physical space

Cleaning up your home or workspace can improve your mood, focus, and energy.

6. Stop multitasking

Multitasking can make it longer to complete tasks and the final result may be worse.

7. Let go of negative thoughts

Monitor your thoughts regularly and try to let go of negative thoughts and emotions.

8. Breathe

Breathing is a simple and effective way to declutter your mind.

All good, sound advice, most of which I’m already taking. But I would prefer a magic delete button that would get the job done more efficiently. And I would begin by deleting my anxiety folders. They occupy way too much real estate in my brain. The subdirectory is aptly named the why-am-I-worried-about-that-for-God’s-sake files. It also needs to go. 

Health worries, hands-down, win the prize for comprising the bulkiest, most overloaded, collection of crazy, useless thoughts I haul around. Ever since hypochondria became known as ‘health anxiety’ during the pandemic, I’ve spent way too much time worrying about stuff I have no control over. Like aging for instance. 

Next up for the digital trash would be my let-it-go-already thought files. Who among us is not re-litigating something endless in their minds? They may include friendships that went south, sibling arguments that will never get resolved, or professional irritations that won’t go away. Be gone!

Conversations-that-are-utterly-pointless is another folder that must go. Politics may occupy a lot of that ground these days but there could also be this subdirectory: the why-didn’t-I-say-this-instead-of-that? musings, the ones on a seemingly endless loop.

To help break the momentum of those particular thoughts, consider advice gleaned from Eckhart Tolle’s best-seller “The Power of Now.” He asks readers to imagine transposing those arguments from their heads out into the real world by walking down the street talking out loud. It works: in barely a second, you will hear how crazy you sound, even to yourself.

I’ve been an insomniac all my life and often wished for a sleep panic button I could just press to finally make me fall asleep. A negative thought delete function may sound equally as foolish, but a girl can dream after all. And, with advances in AI, one never knows.

In the meantime, I’m going to stick to decluttering the old-fashioned way digital or in the real world. By rolling up my sleeves and doing the work.