Declutter your space to declutter your mind

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By Leila Kalmbach

Clutter makes us feel claustrophobic and stressed out. While we may understand this on a physical level, imagine the clenching feeling in your chest when you walk into work to see your desk strewn with papers — it’s still all too easy to ignore how much power clutter can have over us. By understanding the relationship between a cluttered space and a cluttered mind, you’ll be better able to take control of your things so that they don’t take control of you. So what’s wrong with clutter, anyway? When we’re trying to hold too many things in our minds at once, it’s impossible to focus on any one thing. Clutter serves as physical reminders of those things we’re not doing — think of clutter as a physical t o-do list. If you’re sitting at your desk trying to work, and your desk is littered with checks to cash, bills to pay, books to read and phone numbers to call, your mind will be jumping between the work you’re trying to focus on and the four other things you’re not doing. You can’t do everything at once, so it’s counterproductive to stress about needing to pay bills while you’re already engaged in work, and it’s even more counterproductive if you then stop working in order to shift gears and pay those bills while they’re on your mind. Another problem with being constantly reminded of your to-do list is that these reminders lose their power as you become habituated to seeing them there. It may seem like if you leave the shirt you need to return sitting out on the hall table, you’ll be less likely to forget to take it back. But it’s easy to get so used to seeing the shirt that you don’t even notice it anymore. Humans have two types of memories, implicit and explicit. Explicit memories are the ones you know you have, while implicit memories are not conscious. An example of an implicit memory might be if you see the name of someone you haven’t thought about for a long time and feel a twinge of guilt, even though you can’t explicitly remember what happened between you and this person that made you feel guilty. The way this relates to clutter is that if your physical to-do list is constantly in view, you’ll start not to notice the specific items that need doing anymore, but your body’s response to them — your implicit memory of them — will stay the same: stress. In this way, you get trapped in the pattern of not tackling your to-do list but still feeling stressed out about it. Understanding why clutter is so bad for our well-being is the first step toward cleaning up our act. Here are a few things you can do to clear your house, and in so doing, clear your mind.

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- Don’t let yourself fall into the pattern of thinking that because you hardly even notice your clutter anymore, it must not be affecting you. Your implicit memories of to-do items associated with the clutter are still adding to your stress level. - Remember that decluttering is especially important in your bedroom. According to Sleepmed Inc., over 70 million Americans suffer from insomnia or other sleep disorders. Many of these sleep disorders result from stress. Eliminate the clutter around your sleeping space to get rid of the stressful reminders that can keep you up at night. - Keeping items around that you don’t use usually results from a worry: If I sell my old college textbooks, will I later want to refresh my knowledge of astronomy and regret getting rid of them? If I give away the bureau I inherited from my grandmother, is that akin to saying I don’t value her memory? Don’t let yourself fall into this trap. Items are just things, not memories, and if you’re not using them, they’re taking up valuable space. Put aside things you’re not sure about and give yourself a month to see if you use them. If you haven’t touched them after a month, when they’re fresh on your mind, you probably won’t touch them five years from now, when they’re buried in the back of the closet. When you let go of these items, you’re letting go of the worries that go along with them. - Tackle clutter before it builds up. This goes for physical as well as emotional clutter. It’s easier to put away a few items than a whole pile, and it’s easier to talk to a friend about something she did once that bothered you than it is to wait until she’s done it over and over again. Stillness of the mind is considered an important goal in many eastern religions, and with good reason. Cleaning up our houses can go a long way toward cleaning up our minds, and a decluttered mind is everything when it comes to productivity, stability and contentment. Remove the clutter from your mental house, and you’ll find that you’ll have much more productive yoga and meditation sessions, which in turn will help you to still your mind even further. You’ll be left with calm and quiet, into which you’ll be able to hear yourself think. About the author: Leila Kalmbach is an Austin-based freelance writer and editor who is currently spending the year in Australia. Leila grew up in Austin and graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, hiking and spending time around the water. Contact her by e-mailing eye.for.ink@gmail.com or visit www.eyeforink.com for more information.