Clutter in life is nothing more than a reflection of our too busy mind. But there is also an inverse relationship: by bringing harmony to the environment, we can streamline our internal space. So, to business!
Our wardrobes are full, our daily routine is oversaturated, we have 758 friends on Facebook (of which in reality we have not seen even half), we are captured by emotions, our thoughts are confused … Stop! Let’s clean up, throw out the unnecessary, put things in order: clarity is urgently needed.
Psychologists confirm: cleaning has healing properties. When we put things in order outside, it helps to put things in order inside – first of all, highlight the main thing: our values, needs, desires. And besides, get out of the state of the victim and take responsibility for life, regaining power over things, relationships, time.
Putting things in order in any area of life means freeing up space to fill it with important and meaningful things. If you are not friends with cleaning, do not worry: this can be learned. Here are some tips on how to get rid of excess.
House
The famous Japanese space organizer Marie Kondo suggests “keep in the house only what brings joy.” How? Remove everything from cabinets and shelves, hold each item in your hands. Listen to see if there is a feeling of warmth inside, and decide whether to leave it. But before you get rid of the thing, thank her for her service.
If you have too little time to deal with everything at once, set a timer for 15 minutes once a day, recommends blogger, space organizer Marianna Chernobrivenko. For a month of such “marches” you can clear the house of most unnecessary things. But do not start to disassemble the entire kitchen, limit yourself to a shelf. And more options:
1. Dismantle a table or shelf in the hallway where keys, envelopes, hairpins, gloves and many other little things fall down.
2. Look into the bag and throw out all the rubbish from there (checks, napkins, used tickets, etc.), remove things that do not belong there.
3. Sort out clean dishes. Often the impression of clutter in the kitchen is created not by dirty dishes, but by those that are drying near the sink or left when you disassembled the dishwasher.
4. Throw out all expired food and those that have been open for a long time from the refrigerator and freezer.
5. Disassemble the drawer with kitchen utensils – give away what you do not use, or what exists in two copies, throw away broken things.
6. In the bathroom, check the expiration dates of cosmetics, throw away empty bottles or dried soap, wipe down the mirror and sink.
7. Check out your first aid kit. 15 minutes is enough to throw out medicines that have expired. Add what you need to your shopping list.
8. Water indoor flowers, remove dried leaves, wipe the pots.
9. Go through your inbox – maybe it’s time to unsubscribe from some annoying mailings or answer a letter that has been waiting for a long time?
10 Follow the saved links in the browser. Are they all relevant? Do you still want to read these articles?
11 Take a look at your smartphone – get rid of unused apps and organize apps into folders for easy retrieval.
12 Go through the photos – clean up the ones you took by accident, unsuccessful shots, screenshots of the screen that are no longer relevant.
Time
We are so overwhelmed with things that we don’t even know where to start. But let’s not panic. Business coach and coach Olga Kostyukhina suggests using the Eisenhower Matrix, named after the 34th President of the United States: it helps to prioritize, increasing personal efficiency.
Look at the situation from above to realize what is really important to you, and not react to what is just urgent. Think for five minutes about everything you need to do. Then draw a square on a piece of paper, divide it into four small ones. Sign the upper left square “Important and urgent”, the upper right – “Important and not urgent”, the bottom left – “Urgent and not important”, and the last one – “Not urgent and not important”. So you can fix four types of tasks.
1. “Important and urgent”: they must be done immediately, without delay or delegation. It is desirable that there are no more than 20% of such tasks, otherwise there will be a blockage, it will be difficult to manage everything.
2. “Important but not urgent”: schedule them realistically in your diary. This is your growth zone, these things need to be done as you have finished urgent and important. Such cases should be the majority, about 60%. Then you will go to the goal at a pace that is convenient for you.
3. “Urgent but not important”: consider delegating them, ask your spouse, child, colleague to do this for you. Learn to say “no” or “not now”. Typically, such cases are recruited about 15%.
4. “Not urgent and not important”: at the moment you can remove them from the list, you will return to them later … or not, it all depends on the goals and free time.
Fill these four squares with activities and tasks. Analyze. Where is the bulk of the work? Is it possible to change something, move it? Is this arrangement convenient for you? Haven’t forgotten anything? Now transfer the tasks to the diary. Important and urgent – for the coming days, and important and not urgent distribute so as to complete within one or several months.
This is a simple but convenient scheduling system that frees up additional time and helps to redistribute the workload.
Here are some examples. The most urgent thing is to change the brake pads in the car: go to the workshop immediately. You still need to get to the doctor: dial the number and make an appointment. You need to buy a gift for a trainee employee: think about which of your colleagues can do this. In addition, it would be nice to clean up the garage: you can think about it tomorrow or in a month, or you can forget it.
Emotions
If we could hide our fear, anger and sadness in the far corner of the closet, would everything be in order? “Emotion itself is not a problem,” explains psychotherapist Catherine Emle-Perissol. “Because, in essence, it is a survival mechanism: when the brain receives information from the senses that, as it believes, indicates danger, it turns on fear (to run away from the threat), anger (to fight it) or sadness (to go into danger). himself, expecting the threat to pass by).
It is impossible to get rid of emotion, but we can find its right place by learning to recognize and understand it.
“Put” the emotion on the “lower shelf” – bodily. Try not to make a mental story out of it, which belongs on the “top shelf”. You reacted to an event that unsettled you and caused a reaction, that’s all.
Draw a Line Between Outer and Inner: What You Experience Is Yours
Tidy up the script: if we lose our mental balance, there is always a reason for it. Before the mind took control and began to try to extinguish the emotion, contain it or explain it, something happened that became an alarm to the body. Try to identify this event: what did you see, hear, touch?
Distinguish what you feel: what did you feel in response to this primary event? Fear, anger, sadness? What did you want to run away? Jump into a fight? Play dead?
Draw a line between the outer and the inner: what you experience is yours – accept and consider it. What the other person said, did and thought remains his responsibility. The context of the event may be unfavorable for you, but there is nothing you can do about it.
Relations
Social networks are rapidly expanding the circle of our acquaintances. And there are also real connections, sometimes obsolete, which we keep out of habit or out of loyalty. And often an overabundance of communication creates the impression that time no longer belongs to us, relationships drain us. Then it is worth thinking about what can be changed.
Olga Romulus, the author and trainer of the trainings, offers a simple and effective metaphorical exercise. Take a few minutes to think about the wording of your request, for example: “What do I not like about relationships with others?” Then look around and choose an object that will attract your attention, “call” you. Give him a few (3-5) characteristics, then analyze: they will metaphorically express the essence of your relationship with other people.
Let’s say you choose a glass of water. What can be said about him? “He is transparent” – then think about whether you also feel too “transparent”, open to others? Maybe it’s time to close some part of the interior, not to be wide open with everyone.
Second, the glass is filled to the top. Maybe your life is so crowded with communication that nothing else “fits” into it. Isn’t it time to take more time for yourself? The third is glass. Metaphorically, this can be interpreted as your fragility, vulnerability. Maybe you don’t feel secure, whole? Are you missing support? With the help of such projections, you can very well see your problem areas.
Do not try to get rid of an unpleasant thought – instead, “neutralize” it, depriving it of power over you
What to do next, how to understand with whom it is better for us to communicate less or completely part, and what kind of relationship to maintain? Ask yourself the question: what does a relationship with this person bring me? Do they make me stronger or weaker? Can I attribute them to my resources?
If we understand that communication with him does not enrich us in any way, leaves us with a feeling of wasted time, then, apparently, it is worth contacting him less often or thinking about how to change relations.
Thoughts
How nice it would be to put things in order in the mind, in all this internal chatter, to stop chewing mental chewing gum. Is it possible to get rid of the so-called toxic thoughts?
“No,” says psychologist Yves-Alexandre Talman. First, we are not the masters of our mental activity. To believe that we can always control what comes to mind is self-deception. In addition, according to research, the optimal ratio is three pleasant or positive thoughts to one negative one. So what to do?
The main thing is not to get into a fight: if you force yourself not to think about something (for example, about the color blue), it automatically causes thoughts of … blue in the brain. The brain does not think in denials, so the rebound effect is guaranteed.
Do not try to get rid of an unpleasant thought – instead, “neutralize” it, depriving it of power over you. Thought is just one of the representations of reality. When you think, “I can’t raise my hand,” you can still do it! If it comes to mind: “I am a nonentity”, remember that in reality this is not so. To look at the situation from the outside, change the wording: “My mind tells me that … I am a nonentity.”
Try to look at the thought objectively: often it is a cognitive distortion (an erroneous way of processing information). For example, you only remember negative details (selective abstraction). Or make hasty and negative conclusions, or “read the minds” of others (arbitrary inference). Learn to recognize these deviations that fuel frustration and trap you.