When I moved from London to Edinburgh I went through a huge process of throwing out as much physical stuff as I could. Some of it potentially useful but not entirely necessary; a lot of it pure tat.
It took plenty of effort, but I was mighty pleased with the result and impressed by the sheer volume I sold, binned, or otherwise got rid of.
And yet…
I couldn’t quite believe how much was still left over.
Seven years after that clear out — despite feeling like I’m successfully living a relatively minimalist life — I’ve acquired huge mounds of new stuff again. It has a sneaky way of building up gradually over time without me really being aware of it.
It’s relatively straightforward to notice how easily and relentlessly physical clutter builds up in our lives. But there’s another type of clutter that’s harder to spot — and which leads to much more serious consequences.
Our minds accumulate stuff at an alarming rate — and we mostly fail to notice.
New habits. Tasks. Ideas. Thoughts. Hopes or worries that worm their way in one time, then set up permanent camp in our head.
It’s a never-ending process of absorbing things from our environment and our friends. From the media we read. And from our experiences.
Let’s be honest. Most of this doesn’t serve us well in the first place.
Some of it is just junk. But a lot of of it is downright harmful.
And even the ‘harmless’ stuff clutters up the space. It obscures your ability to identify the few things that really matter. Your key positive thoughts, goals, habits, and the like.
The good life is a simple life. It needs your mind to be clear and simple too. So you can’t sit passively back and let this happen — you need to actively oppose this mindless accumulation.
The first step is to carry out the equivalent of a full spring clean — clear out the mind junk.
Next, resolve to filter what you take in. Don’t let things take up space in your mind without your consent.
You can do a lot this way. [Top tip: don’t make this about willpower — manage your environment instead. I can’t resist pigging out on all sorts of junk food if it’s lying around the house. But I can resist buying it in the first place. Do the same with the ideas you expose yourself to]
Unfortunately, that’s still not enough…
You’ll never manage to maintain ceaseless vigilance and filter everything out. Just like me and my physical possessions, you can have the best intentions in the world and you’ll still get a slow, steady drip drip drip of unwanted mental clutter.
Like silt building up on a river bed one grain at a time. So gradually that you never notice it — but inexorably choking off the water’s flow nevertheless.
So your mind will go on telling you it’s ‘lean’ for a long time after having done this exercise. While the reality is it’s now ‘bloated’ again…
So regular decluttering is required.
And while it’s tempting to make this a big project every once in a while — much more effective is to make this a permanent ongoing state of mind.
As Bruce Lee put it: “It’s not the daily increase, but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential”.
Not only does this level of vigilance keep you constantly on top of things and prevent large levels of crap from ever building up in the first place…
It also keeps you much more mindful of what you’re taking in.
And that’s really what we’re aiming for here. It’s not like you can ever realistically hope to get to a stage of enlightenment when useless thoughts etc stop assailing you. But you can get to the point where you spot them for what they are almost instantly.
Is it easy to keep this attitude up over the long-term? No. Not at all. But the rewards are great.