DECLUTTERING AS A STRATEGY FOR BETTER WORK
“Just because you have space doesn't mean you have to fill it”.
-Anonymous
To achieve any worthwhile goal, you need to create time for it. Time is the number one thing that helps any investment appreciate. But I’m not necessarily talking about finances here, I’m talking about anything you work on that you want to see become successful. It could be your products, online content, your business, your career, your health or body, your personal skill or hobby… anything. But in considering the fact that time is very important, we often underestimate the importance of other factors involved in any form of growth. And I’m talking about attention.
Attention is the intensity to which we are wholly focused on a particular task or goal. Take for example, a creator who needs to drop a new blog post in less than a week that is meant to be game changing. But every time he starts writing, after 10 minutes, he remembers that he is supposed to give a friend a call. He pauses the writing and talks on the phone for over 10 minutes. By the time he is done with the call, all the wonderful ideas he may have had at the beginning of the writing session might have vanished, if he didn’t write them down. He has to read what he has done so far to get back on track to continue, then in another 15 minutes he realizes he hasn’t had lunch, or he had a high carb and sugar breakfast that couldn’t hold him for long, so his stomach was already cringing again by 11:00 am. So he decides to eat “brunch” now.
But seriously, what is brunch?
Well, I’m not here to talk about food, but since I’m discussing all you need to declutter for a better work environment, I may delve into that later.
…
The truth is there are so many factors that determine how productive you will be, how well you will create, how well you will work, how well you will focus. But there is one unpopular factor that also determines your productivity level.
It is how well you declutter.
To declutter simply means to remove all unnecessary or useless things from your personal space, and only surrounding yourself with things you find useful or pleasant. Today, decluttering has become a word synonymous to throwing out your excess clothes, shoes and furniture. Some people even do it and end up regretting it (I may have, once). But it’s not just about the material things you own. I see decluttering from three major perspectives:
1. Your environment
2. Your body
3. Your mind.
I personally see these perspectives as all-encompassing because these are the major things that affect how productive you will be in the long run to become successful. I’ll discuss them individually.
1. Your environment.
Basically your environment deals with where you live, where you work, or any place that you spend a reasonable amount of time frequently. Personally, I work in an office and from home, so I have two major “spaces”. I’m sure you’ll agree that the cleaner and freer a space is, the better the job that you can get done there. What I mean is, you would get a better job done in even lesser time while working in a clean apartment that is airy and organized than working in an apartment that is dirty, disorganized and visually appalling.
My point is that your apartment should always be clean, likewise your workplace. The dirty shirt hanging from the sofa or the load of dishes on the sink that you can see from the small door opening may distract you. And you know something about distraction? It’s more catastrophic that you might think.
According to a study by the University of California, it takes about of 23 minutes to get yourself back on track after being you’ve been fully distracted or your task has been interrupted. By virtue of this, you may be at risk of losing hours every day to interruptions. You’ll learn how to better tackle this in the third point.
Learn to be organized. It will also help you spend less time on cleaning days. Have a dedicated workspace if you can, or even if you like the work on the bed, keep it neat and arranged every time. I still have to state here that you must get rid of any personal belongings that you know you don’t need or use. Excess stuff clutters up your house, and that mean you will have less space for more productive activities.
2. Your Body
A lot of people often forget to take good care of themselves and tend to focus more on achieving their day’s task. And it’s sad because we can only function optimally if the body is in the best possible condition.
Think of it this way: to think and come up with new ideas for what you are working on, you need your brain to function properly. But this can’t happen if you haven’t eaten already or you slept so late last night and are having a headache because of it. Our body is a critical resource, so we must learn to take good care of it. Practicing good hygiene, eating healthier and at the right time, exercise, and proper sleep are just some of the adjustments we could adopt to make our body feel better and work better for us as well. It sounds trivial, but I advise that you don’t take them so lightly.
Personally, I’ve come to experience the effects of exercise in the morning having a positive effect on how I work for the rest of the day. I ensure to get at least seven (7) hours of sleep everyday (I’m not trying to impose a particular time frame here, but I would advise you stick with what works for you and makes you less groggy in the morning). I exercise or meditate every single morning, and I have a timetable for that. I make sure I have my bath and eat breakfast before I get into any task whatsoever, even if I’m working at home. That way, I feel refreshed and in what I call a “work mood”.
Also, listen to what your body is telling you. If you’ve been working for hours and your posture isn’t just cutting it anymore, switch it up. Change your work position or take a quick break to walk around. You could even take a “power nap” (a quick nap that shouldn’t last for longer than 20 minutes, and trust me, it works). This way, your body feels willing to flow with your day’s activities because you have given it the right treatment.
I have to state here that one particular problem people face in terms of decluttering the body is what and when they eat. These have a direct impact on how your body and mind is able to handle certain tasks. I’m no nutritionist, but even they will tell you that what you eat and the timing affects your body’s metabolism and energy levels, which affect the way you work.
For example, eating foods high in calories with no fat or protein can make you get hungry too frequently, and distracts you from whatever it is that you are doing. This means you won’t achieve the best quality of work that you should have, had you eaten a more filing meal to avoid distractions caused by hunger.
3. Your mind.
And yes, I separated this from your body because this is way less physical.
I just wandered off for a minute here, and you wouldn’t know it, but I lost the last 3 minutes of my time thinking about something I did today. It’s in the past, but I still made it affect what I’m doing right now. That’s just to give you an idea of what I said earlier about the harm of frequent ditractions.
You see, the mind is abstract, yet it has the power to control everything you do.
The difference between a rich and a poor person isn’t lack of resources or ideas, it’s their mindset. The truth is that the ability of an individuals to achieve their goals through improved habits is bolstered by their mindset. When talking about decluttering your mind, I’m talking about just two things here:
(i) How to focus
(ii) How to be conscious always
How to focus
I love the definition of the word “focus” given by Christina Bengtsson which says:
“Focus is simply choosing the right thought among thousands of thoughts”.
The right thought is the thought you need at that exact present moment, that is, the task at hand right now. The thousands of thoughts are the ideas and fears and problems and goals which may be swimming all around your head. But you can only be optimal when you decide to work with just one thought at a time. Therefore, you must develop the art of focus for every single thing you do, even leisurely activities, if not it’s not totally leisure.
When reading a book, forget about that business plan you have been trying to complete or that work at your desk that is due next week. You will not get the message of the book, and also thinking about something else won’t get that other task done as well.
You must focus. You need to be completely immersed in a task for about half an hour before you get to that peak point, and letting distractions creep in just means you’ll have to start your focus cycle all over again and it will take a longer period to achieve that task.
Focus gives you better work in shorter time, and honestly I attribute that to what Shonda Rhimes calls “the hum”. You are all up in your work and by the time you’re done, you know you have achieve something worthwhile. Distraction on the other hand costs less times and work of a lesser quality. Chose the better option.
How to be conscious always
This is something I’ve personally battled with for years. Here, consciousness means “reminding yourself every day of who you are, what you do, and why you should never stop doing it”. I would say it’s that voice in your head that tells you not to visit your friend on the day before you have that big presentation because you know you won’t get adequately prepared. It’s what knocks your head off the pillow in the morning even before the alarm does. It’s what makes you stay up an extra 30 minutes even when you are sleepy because you know that you can’t afford for that task to drag you attention any further.
It’s the thin line between self-compassion and laziness.
Self-consciousness is a way of decluttering the mind because it helps to link up your long at short term vision at the same time, therefore at every single moment of the day, you know what you should be doing and you will be able to restrain from doing other things that zap your focus or aren’t in line with your long term goals.
One last thing I would like to add in view of decluttering the mind is that it’s important to always have your personal plans and goals. This is the backbone of your focus and consciousness. We live in a busy world, where the availability of information, the flow of trend and the influence of communication and social networking has increasing influence on our daily decisions. There should be a limit to how factors external to you have an impact on the tasks you decide to achieve or how you make use of your time.
If you decide to adjust your goals, tasks or schedule continuously according to how the world is evolving then you will never be able to pay full attention to anything.
Declutter your mind, body and environment. Learn to censor things that distract you. Build your inner harmony with your work and your goals. And don’t stop until you get there.
PS I still don’t buy the brunch idea. I prefer breakfast.
