Decluttering

The idea of removing things you don’t need from your life (physical, digital and mental). This means all the remaining “things” will be important for you. (Purpose/ function or makes you happier).

The goal is to be able to live in an environment that helps you get closer to your ideal “you”, the strongest version of you.
By decluttering, you will be able to focus your energy on the important things in your life.

I’d like to offer you some ideas on how to declutter your life. Starting from the easiest to the hardest.

(1) Physical decluttering: easiest one, your living space.

  • Read “The Life-changing magic of tidying up” by Marie Kondo or watch some summary of her ideas

  • Declutter in the morning

  • Visualize your new lifestyle

    • e.g.: Very clean, minimalist, easy access to things I use frequently, everything store away from my eyesight

  • Make a list of areas you want to declutter.

    • e.g.: Washroom, Kitchen, Bed, office, storage below bed, storage room

  • Refresh your goal and discard item rules

    • Goal: Reduce belongings until you reach a point where it’s right for you.”

    • Rules ideas:

      • Ask questions:

        • Does keeping this item helps me get closer to my dream?

        • Does it spark joy? (emotional value)

        • Why did I buy this? (reason)

        • Why am I not using it now? Do I need it now?

          • acknowledge the item fulfilled their role and say bye
            “outlived their purpose”

        • Will I use it in the short future? (functional value)

          •  How easy can I replace it if I need it ?

      • Gift : Once received, outlived their purpose

      • Cards/ letters:Take picture and save in hard drive

      • Electronic boxes: better just throw away; “idea of selling used items with the box” okay to take the loss there.

        “Choose your battle.”

        “You win some, you lose some.”

      • Clothes: (focus on minimum needed)

        • 4-5x t-shirt (sleep, work at home, run errands, go on dates)

        • 3x long pants (work at home, run errands, go on dates)

        • 2x tank tops (sports)

        • 5x shorts (3x sports + 2x go on dates)

        • 1x overcoat, 1x long sleeves, 1x cardigan

        • 2x shoes (gym + run errands)

  • Discard items that outlived their purpose.

  • Store the kept items by categories. (Clothes, washroom, kitchen, frequently use, etc)

    • Best storage box is the rectangle shoe box size or big bag

      • re-use shoe box or transparent plastic box

      • Ikea storage case (polypropylene) -> Easily go under bed

      • Plastic drawer tower -> fold clothes

(2) Digital decluttering: Files, pictures, videos, social media posts

  • (2.1) Not videos or pictures (excel files, text, projects, etc.):

    • Free cloud storage services: Dropbox and google drive

      • Create folder -> drop files into it

      • Delete files you don’t need

  • (2.2) Videos and pictures:

    • Goals:

      • free space from your phone

      • Empty your cup. Say “thank you” and “good bye” to your previous experiences and allow yourself to freely engage in new experiences

    • Best practices:

      • *For videos and picture, every big period shift, it’s important to clean them, store in an external hard drive and delete them from your phone. This allows yourself to empty your old cup and allows new ideas to come in.

      • **iPhone user: If you use iPhone, you can connect the iPhone to the macbook air with a cable. Then, open the “Photos” app, select and “important” the pictures to you Macbook air. Drag and drop to your external hard drive. Delete from “Photos” app and delete from your phone. Done.

    • Normal videos: I do lots of vlogging as a form of journaling, so I happen to have lots of videos to review on daily basis.

      • During idle time, you review videos from your phone.

        • e.g.: multitask-able time like washroom, morning walk, commute, relax on bed, etc.

      • Put a favorite sign on video you want to keep in your phone.

        • Usually I keep videos that brings me back to a good memory or teach me some life lessons

      • Delete videos that doesn’t bring you any value now or in the future

      • Move the important videos to an external hard drive and delete those without “favorite sign” from your phone.

      • Make a trip video compilation -> really nice momento.

        • Gives you closure from your trip and memories you can look back.

    • All pictures:

    • Declutter pictures with “important” and “happy” in mind.

      • Mostly keep group picture and selfies from certain events like trip. The rest are deleted.

      • Most of “non-sentimental” things can be found online. (e.g.: pictures of food, landscape, etc.)

    • Every 5 years or big events -> Move them to external hard drive and delete them from your phone.

      • Pictures don’t take as much space as videos.

  • (2.4) Social media posts:

    • I mainly use Instagram and facebook message for communication with friends and family. Sometimes, I share posts, but the goal here is to keep the posts that still represent the “you” now. And archive the older one.

(3) Mental decluttering: Actively choosing what you want your brain to be exposed to. People, medias, noise can get your attention and indirectly give you ideas. The goal here is to quiet down your brain from external ideas and choose which “channels” you want to keep receiving new ideas and suggestions.

  • People: Take some healthy distance from people and evaluate how much interactions you need from them

    • Roommate: Do small talk, close your room door, go outside more often (run errands, gym, walk, etc).

    • Family: Do small talk, close your room door, go outside more often (run errands, gym, walk, etc).

    • Friends: Just reply to messages, leave toxic group chat, refuse events, proactively create new one

    • BF/GF: set boundaries for alone time

    • Co-workers: small talk, minimize non-work related interactions, take vacation.

    • Community: take a break and don’t go for a few weeks

  • Social media: Remove yourself from addictive or not meaningful channels

    • short videos (IG, FB, Youtube): very addictive, take a break from watching those, replace by healthier activities

    • reddit you follow: unsubscribe from groups you no longer have interest, add into new group

    • Youtube subscribers: unsubscribe from channel you don’t like, see new youtuber of interest

  • Media (news): stop watching news, actively look for articles you are interested in

  • Streaming platform (Netflix, etc.):

    • Actively watch movies -> Make a list and watch from that list

    • Avoid mindlessly look for suggestions for things to watch.

Some comments:

I feel going through the physical decluttering first is great. Actively make decisions to keep an item in your life build the decision making skills for digital and mental decluttering. When your living space is more clean and all items have meanings, it’s easier to allow yourself to get more stuff that will help you get closer to your dream.

The digital decluttering is good every 5 years or big events. The phone storage gets full and too many past achievements are holding you back from your new life.

“Every second you spend thinking about your past success or failure is stripping away time and focus form your new story.”

The mental decluttering makes reference to “break the frame” post. The idea to distance yourself from “noise”, so you can start thinking again.

Decluttering takes lots of mental energy. I suggest dedicate a weekend morning/ early afternoon for it.

SimpleLifeBalancing.

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