Clearing The Clutter: How To Spring Clean For Productivity & Peace Of Mind

Have you ever felt called to clean? That might seem like an unusual question, but consider this: before a big life event, like changing careers or meeting your soulmate, did you intuitively feel that it was time to de-clutter and refresh your environment?

Maybe the clutter lurking under your bed suddenly felt unbearable to be around or the mess under the sink simply had to go. If you’ve ever been given that intuitive nudge to spring clean and clear out the clutter, it’s usually a sign that something good is on its way for you and you are ready for it.

See, everything around you is energy, whether it’s the laundry basket full of dirty clothes or that dumping-ground under the stairs. When you clear out the ‘stuff’ that fills your home, you clear the way for new energy to flow in your direction, whether it’s a new purchase you have been saving for or wonderful new opportunities in your career, business or social life.

In an energetic sense, decluttering quite literally makes space for newness and fresh starts. It paves the way for your goals to manifest.

Reflect on this question in your journal: Is my living environment energetically inviting all the good I want to see in my life in? Have I created a clear space for new opportunities? Or is my environment energetically flat and repelling my dream life away?

Is your external environment a reflection of your state of mind?  

Good question. It certainly can be. In fact, your external environment both reflects your state of mind and influences it simultaneously.

Imagine you’re in a room with clothes scattered, drawer doors lying open, and bins overflowing. Chances are, you feel stressed and overwhelmed. In fact, studies show that messy environments increase stress and anxiety levels and even have a knock-on effect on your levels of motivation and productivity. 

Imagine you’re rushing out the door and can’t find your keys. That simple feeling of frustration can be enough to send your day in the wrong direction. 

Likewise, messy emotional states can result in messy physical environments. In Buddhist traditions, for example, it’s suggested that a disorganised environment is an expression of a mind that is not at peace. In this sense, our homes can be a reflection of our inner world. 

Knowing this, you may feel motivated to make some changes. If you’re looking around your home right now, feeling inspired to spring clean, then good news: we’ve got some helpful tips.

How to spring clean to clear the mental clutter

Look inwards first

Given that your physical reality is an expression of your state of mind, it makes sense that the first thing you should do before grabbing those black bags is suss out how you’re feeling inside.

Grab The Head Plan Productivity & Wellness Journal and free-write about any areas of your life that currently feel in disarray. Are you putting so much time and energy into your career or family that you’re too burned out to clean and tidy at the end of the day?

Free write what your space would look like clutter free and organised. How would this feel? What energy would you house have if you would describe it?

Once you’ve done some introspection, it can be helpful to look around your home right now and consider where to start. Write a list of the areas you want to sort out. Then using your weekly planning pages schedule the de-cluttering in. Slow and steady wins the race. Nothing worse than starting a spring clean with lots of energy, burning yourself out half way and being left with an even bigger mess than when you started

Tackle your home, bit by bit…corner by corner.

You may face many challenges when trying to keep a tidy home. Maybe you have kids or a messy spouse. If this is the case, do your best to control the controllables. That might mean ensuring you always tidy up after yourself even if others don’t. It could mean committing to doing just 10 minutes of cleaning a day to keep on top of things or setting some boundaries with the people around you to ensure everyone does their bit.

Use the Marie Kondo Method

Marie Kondo, the well-known Japanese organisation expert, has a handy hack when it comes to decluttering.

She advises holding each item in your hands and asking yourself if it sparks joy. Or in other words, does it bring you that warm, fuzzy feeling? Simply, does it make you feel good? Of course, this won’t work for every single item in your home. Few of us, for example, would hold up our pots and pans, and say they bring us joy, but we still use them every day. They serve a vital function in our homes. 

Remember this: you don’t have to get rid of everything. The goal is to have an organised home that’s full of items that are practical, useful, bring you joy, or tick all of the above boxes. 

Pay it forward

Each of us has a carbon footprint and chucking everything away when it’s no longer of use to us will only add to that. But the good news is, instead of sending your preloved items to landfill, you can give them a second wind.

Not only is donating your clothes to a charity shop, popping them onto a reseller site, or gifting them to a friend better for the environment, it’s also good for your moods too.

Altruism, the act of giving to others, is scientifically proven to improve your peace of mind, foster stress relief, and help you tap into feelings of joy and elation.

Pro tip: while sorting through your items, it may be helpful to organise your bits and bobs you no longer want into piles, such as ‘give to a friend’, ‘sell on Depop’, and ‘donate’.

Turn to Feng Shui

Have you ever noticed that your home feels differently when you crack open a window and let all the stagnant air out? Or how you feel so much calmer when you aren’t bumping into things at every turn? This is the result of good Feng Shui.

For the uninitiated, Feng Shui is a Japanese practice that aims to harmonize your environment by optimising the way energy moves through your home. It’s achieved by balancing all of the elements around you.

Confused? Put simply, Feng Shui is about arranging your home in a way that balances the energy within it. To embrace it, you can make a few simple changes, such as clearing clutter away from your front door so that good energy can easily flow in, using a warm and soft colour palette to promote feelings of peace and calm, and adding some plants to absorb unwanted energy.

Embrace the newness… 

Close your eyes and imagine you’ve decluttered your entire home and cleaned it top from bottom. You have space to move around and everything feels organised and as though it has its own place. You know where to find things and the smell of a delicious fresh cotton candle is wafting through the air.

As you imagine this, you might notice that your shoulders relax and you feel free, calm, and at peace. You have a strong sense of purpose and you feel that there’s nothing you cannot have, be or do.

An organised clean environment is within your control. Consistency and communication are key. You owe it to yourself to live somewhere with good energy.  

This feeling perfectly illustrates how your physical environment reflects and impacts your emotional state. A quick tidy up could be the key to unlocking oodles of motivation, productivity, and joy. Pass us the bin bags!