Declutter Your Mind

Wishing you a happy 2021 full of love, gratitude and clarity.

I’ve written extensively on the benefits of minimalism. One idea that’s come to mind recently as to whether or not I should be applying these same principles to mindfulness. We reduce the number of physical things we have and keep the things that matter most to us, but the same should go for de-cluttering our mind. My challenge for 2021 will be to declutter my mind, and develop mindful habits.

Applying minimalism to our minds sounds fairly abstract at first, but it makes sense. When we reduce our physical possessions, the memories we attach to things along with the clutter in our minds that can come from having too many things, can remain unchanged. I think it’s one of the reasons why Marie Kondo would always thank her possessions before discarding them, as a way of thoughtfully removing any guilt, memory or other clutter from her mind to start fresh in a mindful way.

It shouldn’t just be a ‘one in, one out’ rule for our physical possessions; we should apply this to our mind as well. This is one of the reasons why I’m particularly organised in my digital life, with all photos and files neatly organised in their own place for rediscovery at another time. This successfully removes clutter from my mind because I know where it is when I want to access it, and there’s no stress in finding where that photo or file is. The one thing I have noticed, however, is that since beginning my minimalism journey, the amount of anxiety I feel has increased (something that’ll expand on in another post to come). That may be due to other factors such as social media or the pandemic, but I feel that the significant impact that minimalism has on my life means that I must reconcile and investigate how it effects all areas of my life, and see as to whether or not there is a link between this anxiety and my minimalist habits. That’s why I want to be more mindful in 2021.

I’ve started an ikigai list. For those who aren’t familiar with ikigai, I recommend checking out “Ikigai” by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. I’ll report more on this in future posts. For now, I have set a weekly goal of meditating for an unspecified period of time each and every day. It may be 5 minutes, it may be 30 minutes, but embedding this practice into my life will fuel productivity and gratitude to new heights. In a few months, I’ll report on how it’s going.