Causes of mental clutter and how to avoid them

We all know that just like how our room gets cluttered our mind too gets cluttered. But the thing is the clutter in the room is visible and we clean that (at least we are forced to) but your clutter in your mind isn’t visible to even you and there doesn’t even arise a question to clean it. But wait what exactly is mental clutter?

Whatever makes your thoughts lack clarity is mental clutter. An overwhelming situation where you don’t know what is happening and you aren’t able to think. But don’t worry we’ve got this. We can come over this.

Based on S.J.Scott’s Declutter your mind book, I have pointed out the reasons why your mind gets cluttered

What exactly causes mental clutter?

Stress

The pressure upon you in your office/school which is piled up with stress at home and then comes a bonus unwanted offer of responsibility. (Phew!) All this gradually develop and clutter your brain, just like how gradually our carelessness clutters our room.

Choice

Yes, having choice is a good thing, but too much of anything isn’t good. Let’s assume you want to purchase a shirt. You have a mental picture of a neat maroon colored shirt. But upon reaching the shop, you find many more colors that you feel are better than maroon. Had there been no other color, you would have picked up your shirt, billed it and voila! But what should have been a 10 minute visit becomes at least a 20 to 30 minutes of this or that. Now think of the same for an important decision, when you are piled up with choices, you are overwhelmed leading to mental clutter.

Distraction

Ding! You have an Instagram notification. Someone commented on your pic Beautiful! If you are going to rush to the phone and have the urge to reply or like that as soon as possible, your mind is going to be more cluttered. Your worry that it is your duty to respond it immediately is cluttering your brain

Negativity

Let’s assume today is your result day for an examination you gave. What’s the thought that will be nagging you? What if I don’t pass? What if I didn’t score good marks? No, not everything has to end in a negative way. Don’t say that everything has already been negative to you. You being alive today is positive. You are healthy enough to read something like this blog is positive. You having a gadget like computer, laptop or phone is positive. There are many positive things but we tend to magnify the negative things and hence cluttering the brain.

Now that’s something we should be taking care of! But luckily we can declutter out brain and be free.

How to declutter?

Start Journaling

It is one of the best ways to de-stress and remove anxiety. Just open a notebook and write down whatever comes to your mind. Dumping out whatever is there in your brain will leave you with a relieved feeling. If you are not sure what to write you can use the help of prompts journal prompts for brain dump, journal prompts for anxious people etc.

If you dont want to write it down on a paper or think that that someone else might read it, just type them out on your smartphone or laptop and completely delete them when you are finished. This may not be as effective as writing with a paper and pen but it does relieve you from your thoughts

If you feel like you dont want to write about yourself try starting a blog. Write about something you love. As a blogger I can vouch that writing about something you love on a blog will make you relieved and also youll have a satisfaction of helping others

Set goals and priorities

When you have goals, you are less prone to clutter of mind and also the already existing clutter is easier to eliminate. Write down all your goals. Now separate them into long term goals, mid-term goals and short term goals. Find out a way to incorporate your goals into your daily life. Lets assume one of your goals is to write a book. You can incorporate this into daily to do in ways like make story outline today, write 1000 words etc.
But yes make sure to set realistic goals. If you can only lose 2 pounds in a month, dont set a goal to lose 8 pounds in a month. This will only add more clutter to your mind.

If you feel a task is bigger break them down into small chunks. For example, I dont write in my to-do list as write a blog post. It will be like

• Research
• Headlines
• Write a draft
• Check grammar
• Check SEO
• Design featured image

The list will go on like this and Ill insert these tasks in between other tasks so that I will finish the blog post without any pressure

Meditation

I know! I know! You have heard this umpteen times. Also you dont have time to set aside for meditation. You need not, just think this as a round to the coffee machine. If you can have a few minutes for the coffee you can have for meditation too. When you feel overwhelmed stop what you are doing and set a timer for two minutes. If you dont like listening to nature sounds you can opt for mantras. Youll find them on YouTube. Also you can simply sit there in silence and notice your breath go in and out. Just 2 minutes.

Gratitude

Maintaining a gratitude journal is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Generally, we humans dont tend to focus on the positive things but we keep on thinking about the bad things that happened on the past.
We think about how our boss lashed us for something that we didnt do, but we easily forget how the same boss appreciated us for handling a project single handedly when everything went wrong

We remember how our friend ditched us, but we forget how much they made us happy

Even in daily life when we try to remember what happened the whole day the first thing that hits our mind is something negative that happened. But when you maintain a gratitude journal you are forced to see the positive side of at least one thing that happened daily

When we focus more on the positive side the clutter in the brain reduced automatically.

Me time

Finally you need to think about yourself. It is very important that you are in a good state to declutter your brain. From time to time take time for yourself. There are no rules when it comes to taking time for you. Do whatever you like. Whether it is dancing for a favorite music or reading a book, do what will make you happy.

What else do you think will help you declutter your mind? Write down in the comments section ♡