3 Questions To Declutter Your Mind Completely in 20 Minutes

I’m an obsessive person, and over the years I’ve directed that obsessiveness in a number of directions. 

One of my greatest passions was minimalism. I started a blog in college and proceeded to strip down my life to the studs, trying to find what really mattered.

I learned an immense amount from that experience. More than any formal education, actually. 

But it didn’t scratch the itch I was reaching for. At the core, life still felt messy and cluttered, and I couldn’t understand why.

From there, as I entered the professional work world for the first time, I realized that the clutter kept me from focusing on my work. 

So I tried every system under the sun to maximize my productivity and tame the disorder I felt in my mind.

I can now say, from this vantage point, that one of the chief pursuits of my adult life has been to bring order to the messiness I felt.

 I thought simplifying my physical environment would help— and it did, to a point. And then I thought I could master myself with systems— and that helped a little.

But despite this insatiable quest for simplicity, I carried around a cluttered mind all those years. 

What’s craziest of all is that I learned you could declutter your mind, and when you did, all that other stuff sort of fell into place.

I’m not claiming to have mastered this like some sort of zen master. But I can say, when I’m “on” in these areas, I feel like I’m living life on a different plane of existence. 

And when I’m off, life is on “hard mode” and my brain fog never seems to disappear. 

Once you know, you know. And then all it takes is a 20 minute reset to miraculously clear out the clutter in your mind and feel that incredible lightness again.

There’s no secret to achieving this state— it’s just a matter of self-reflection which I think the following question will get you there quickest.

 It’s my best attempt at distilling what I’ve learned through so much trial and error.

#1: What tasks am I avoiding that I could take care of or eliminate altogether?

What are you avoiding this minute? 

What’s the thing you know you should have done but you didn’t?

 More than almost anything else in life, the thing you’re avoiding drains you of energy and motivation. You feel repulsed by the task you’re avoiding, and too guilty to work on anything else… so you become stuck. 

There’s only two ways to get unstuck. The first is to just do the task. Push with all your might in the opposite direction of your avoidance. Pay the brief cost of boredom, fear, uncertainty— whatever it is. And you will be free again. 

The other way is to eliminate the task. Decide you can’t do it, won’t do it, shouldn’t have anything to do with it. If that decision is within your rights and aligns with your values, then what are you waiting for?

#2: What is my ratio of creating to consuming?

One of my biggest reasons for getting mentally “clogged” up is when my consumption/creation ratio gets out of whack.

When you fill your brain constantly with new ideas, whether from books, podcasts, or feeds, your brain begins to carry around the psychic weight of everything you don’t have the time or energy to do.

There’s a quick fix to this: take a few days without consumption and just create something— whatever that means in your life. It could be writing an article, cooking a meal, tending a garden, fixing something, or investing in a real world relationship.

#3: What goals am I pursuing for reasons that don’t align with my deepest values?

Over time we tend to absorb the goals and interests of the people we spend time with, or more likely in today’s world, the people whose content we follow online.

This can be great for inspiration, but there’s a risk that we’re accumulating all these perspectives without doing the hard work of deciphering what we really want out of life.

There have been various points in my life that I thought I wanted to get into music, construction, cars, traveling, and learning a 2nd language. 

Not a single bad thing in that list, but also not how I really wanted to spend my limited time. 

Only in a fantasy world without tradeoffs or constraints would I be able to pursue all those things and be a faithful husband, father, and friend.

Next step: make some decisions.

If you’ve never made a serious attempt at physically decluttering your home, you already know the hardest part is making decisions about what to keep and what to throw away. 

If it was as simple as getting rid of everything, it would be easy. 

But many items are sentimental or nice to have or possibly useful in the future, and we can hang up emotionally about what to do.

Mental clutter is like that too. The reason we’ve held on to this stuff for so long is because it brings us a degree of comfort. 

Unfortunately, it’s also holding you back and weighing you down. 

My best advice for these moments, when you’re ready to face your mental clutter, is to imagine yourself as someone who is insanely decisive, and just let that imagined energy propel you into the real thing.