Spring Cleaning Part 2
Spring is upon us! Flowers are beginning to bloom, and April showers are watering seeds planted long ago. That means it’s time to get ready for spring cleaning part two with Keys to Abundant Life Inc.
For part two, I am sharing my favorite free and low-cost tools for mental decluttering. This purge of physical and emotional baggage will help create space for your new growth.
beauty of circumstance
even a wilting flower can stand tall again
under the right conditions
water
soil
sunlight
& a pot with room to grow
– ZaMari Love
1. Out with the Old
In part one of the spring-cleaning series, we talked about the ways a cluttered work and living space can induce anxiety and interrupt productivity. If you have not already gotten around to ridding your space of old belongings that distract your focus, trigger negative emotions, and don’t serve a purpose, consider putting it on your part two to-do list.
Items to think about trashing, donating, or selling might include gifts, clothes, pictures or letters from past relationships and items in need of significant repair.
Another way to mentally declutter is to clear out your emails, text messages, and contact lists of inactive people and messages. Removing old and battered belongings and relationships can be a great way to begin healing unresolved emotions.
2. Mindfulness Practice
Mindfulness, or the practice of focusing your awareness on the present moment, is a technique you can use to free your mind of the thoughts and feelings that cause stress and anxiety throughout the day.
One form of mindfulness meditation that I use often, is intentional breathing while focusing my attention on each of the five senses.
What do I hear, smell, see, feel on my skin, and taste? Using this method helps me to redirect my thoughts from things that had already happened or have not happened yet – both things out of my control. Remember, peace is in the present.
3. Journaling
The same way a cluttered workspace slows down your progress, a cluttered mind slows down your thoughts and ability to cope with stressful situations. Give your brain a break from processing so many things at once by journaling at least once a day.
Those worries you have been ruminating on – write them down! Journaling in the morning and at night has both been proven to promote creativity, reduce anxiety, and boost productivity.
So, whether day or night works best for you, writing down your thoughts at the beginning or end of each day will help you slowly chip away at your cluttered thoughts and make space for gratitude and new goals to flourish.
4. Schedule Everything
For those of us juggling a busy schedule, it can often seem like there are never enough hours in a day. This idea itself is stressful, but there are tools you can use to ease your mind and maximize your time.
If you are still exploring what schedule works best for you, try this. Map out your day in hourly increments setting a time for everything including what time you wake up, eat, walk the dog, check emails, cook dinner, etc.
The purpose is not to have you follow a strict hour-by-hour schedule. It is to help your mind stay organized in case anything needs to be shifted.
If one of your scheduled tasks takes longer than expected, there will be no need to panic about staying on track with the day’s goals. You can simply shift your entire schedule down or rearrange your schedule to accomplish a less time-consuming task in the time you have remaining in that hour then resume your routine as you best see fit.
5. In with the New
The purpose of this spring mental make-over is to transition your mental space from chaotic to calm and make way for new beginnings.
As you begin to clear your mind of stress and anxiety, don’t forget to make good use of that now fertile soil.
This spring, nurture old seeds and water new ones by rekindling an old hobby or launching a new passion project you will enjoy.
