S1 Ep 3 Which one of these 5 types of clutter may be showing up in your life?
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Maggie: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode three of Mind Your Clutter. It is spring break here and luckily the sun has been shining, but it's been a busy week. I have been working with a client on clearing the clutter and helping her downsize. And this week as the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and the flowers are blooming, We are helping go through things that have accumulated over 40 years.
So stop and think about where you want to be this time next year, in five years, in 40 years. , where do you think your space will be? Do you imagine that you will be continuing to add things to your space, or do you think that you will have gained a handle [00:01:00] on maintaining the space that you've already created or maybe you're still working through on clearing the space?
Either way. This week really has me thinking about where our spaces, will be in the future. And I wanted you to start thinking about that as well, because even if it feels heavy, it's not gonna get any lighter by avoiding it. And this week we are talking about the five types of clutter that may be showing up in your life.
You may know immediately that one type is showing up, but then after talking about it, you may say, Hmm, yep. That is also the type of clutter that I need to work on, and start clearing and making more space in those areas so that in five years, in a year, in [00:02:00] 40 years, you are able to enjoy that extra space in those area.
But before we dive into those types of clutter, we need to think about what is clutter in the first place. And last week we talked about living with less clutter and the benefits to that. So as we're chatting about this today, start to think about how those different types of clutter are showing up in your life, and if by starting to declutter them, you can benefit.
When you do a quick search on what is clutter, these are some of the words that pop up. Scattered chaos disorder, confused, disoriented , messy. Un tidiness , space with too [00:03:00] many things. How do those words make you feel?
Do those words represent who you feel inside? Do they represent what you want in your spaces.
After working with others in their spaces, and after doing the intentional, mindful decluttering of all areas of my own life, I've started to recognize clutter as anything that exists in your life that prevents you from being the best version of you.
Because if it is clutter, you are not, enjoying the benefits that come with living with less clutter.
In fact, what is the opposite of clutter? Clear, order, straighten, tidy. [00:04:00] Think about how those words make you feel. Does the sense of clarity bring you to a place of where you'd like to be in a year, five years, 40 years?
One productivity coach, Barbara Hemphill, said clutter is nothing more than postponed decisions. So as we start to talk about, the five different types of clutter.
Think about how not making a decision, not putting thought into something, creates the clutter.
, You could find up to 20 different versions of clutter. But I have broken it down to five types of clutter because this is what I see, show up on repeat in others' lives and in my life.[00:05:00]
If we go back to some of those words and some of those definitions that come up when we're talking about about clutter, like a space filled with too many things, and we apply that to the different forms of clutter, it starts to become easier to recognize where these are showing up in your life.
Maybe one or two feels stronger and you feel that there's a lot more of one type of clutter than another. But I bet if you start working on clearing any of those types of clutter, the other types of clutter become easier to let go of. Because when you use your mind and you mind your clutter through your mindset, Your thoughts that go through your head when you are making these decisions and [00:06:00] when you mind your clutter and take action to clear these spaces, it gets easier every time you do it and you just do it on repeat.
In fact, if you go to the link on the shownotes, You can download my four step process of clearing clutter that applies to each type of clutter that we are about to talk about every single one, same process, same repeatable, four step process to clearing the clutter. But we'll dive into that another week. This week we're talking about the five types of.
The first type of clutter is the one we all know, and that's the physical clutter,
Your shoes, kitchen appliances, home decor, [00:07:00] lawn equipment, vitamins hobbies, trash recycling, the two biggest forms paper clutter and photo clutter may all sound immediately familiar to your situation. They may be items in your home that are not being used, that do not have a home within your home, they no longer work, they're missing a piece. You don't know what it is. If you look at it, it doesn't bring up positive feelings, or maybe it's useful, but getting around these items is hard, is unsafe, is not clean, it is not productive. So all that physical clutter, that's the one that is most [00:08:00] common in most homes. And when people call me and they're asking to declutter and get organized, we are working with the physical items and then through the work of the physical decluttering, we uncover other types of clutter. But the physical is the first type of clutter. and the most popular,
And then the second one that we, I would say at this point, most people have some form of digital clutter.
Your emails, your inbox, your notifications, your apps. The tech supplies that are physical, but become part of that digital clutter. So now you have the physical item that goes with [00:09:00] the digital items, online photos, articles that you want to read, notifications and alerts that are popping up, pulling your focus software that's not being used, it's slowing down your computer. Multiple emails. So that's one more password to remember. Maybe you're a business owner and you have multiple domains, files on your desktop.
If they are items that are just filling up the space, and they're not being used. They're causing a distraction. Even just opening up your phone and seeing apps that you don't use or that notification of the inbox, or opening up your desktop and seeing all the [00:10:00] folders across all that visual clutter is showing up, digitally.
And then the one , last to recognize as clutter, but when you think about it in terms of preventing you from being the best version of who you are, or a space that is filled with too many things, or even something that is creating a postponed decision.
Is the social media clutter and it's a slippery slope and it takes a lot of mindfulness to recognize it and then figure out how to clear that social media, digital clutter, and we'll dive into all of that in future episodes. But digital clutter would be the second type of clutter.
And [00:11:00] the third type of clutter is mental clutter.
Your to-do lists, those thoughts that are running through your head constantly, even when you're trying to fall asleep or in the middle of the night when you wake up. That distracted mind. The mental clutter is what a lot of people for mothers call the invisible load. That managing of all the things.
So the mental clutter can be with you from the beginning of the day and follow you all through the night, and it's just those constant thoughts, things you need to. Things you need to remember are all up in your mind as mental clutter.
And then the fourth type of clutter is emotional clutter.
And [00:12:00] I would say second to the physical clutter, emotional clutter is what shows up, quite often. It's the clutter that no one's expecting. It's the clutter that no one actually recognized was connected to their physical clutter. It's the sentimental feelings. It's the feelings of guilt. , it's the negative self-talk that this is too overwhelming. I can't get organized. I'm not an organized person. I can't let this go. I would feel bad letting this go. I have so many memories of this person or this event that I couldn't possibly let it go. It is a tradition that this is something that I am now responsible for, or maybe this is something that has come [00:13:00] about from loss or trauma or fear. We could go on for days about each one specifically, but right now we are just looking at an overview. But that emotional clutter is the feelings. So if you think about the mental clutter, those are all things that are up, up in your head. But when you start to feel it physically within your chest, within your heart, you know that you're tapping into emotional clutter and just because you're having feelings and just because you have some of these thoughts does not necessarily make it clutter. It's identifying if that feeling or if that thought is being useful to you and being the best version of yourself.[00:14:00]
And the more that you start to be mindful and take action and make decisions on what you are actually thinking about as you go throughout your day, it is much easier to start recognizing when that emotional clutter comes up, what makes it come up, and how you work through it to start to let go of any of those feelings. And then thoughts that are not helpful. So emotional clutter was the fourth clutter.
And then the fifth clutter, commitment clutter.
Commitment, clutter. It gets really tricky and can be really hard to clear because you may feel that obligation. to show up in different places. You may have [00:15:00] overscheduled yourself, you may feel overworked, over committed, overextended with the amount of time, like there's not enough hours in the day.
There aren't enough of you to go around to be in all of these places. And this is something that shows up, when you are not being mindful and prioritizing what matters most, and it's not easy, but starting to slow down and recognizing that by saying yes to something is a no to something else.
By saying yes, and adding something to your calendar is taking away time from something that matters most, and finding that balance of saying yes to what actually matters is a journey of a lifetime. [00:16:00] So buckle up buttercup because that one is not. an easy one to identify, to be honest with yourself, and then to take action to change it, because the commitment clutter really is when you are starting to realign yourself, your time, your priorities with a different lifestyle.
So you may have already worked through your physical clutter. You may be mindful of your digital clutter. You may have been working on mental clutter and emotional clutter, but when is the time that you have to focus on the things that matter most? And just by thinking about the fact that you may have commitment clutter in some form, at some level is a step in the right direction because [00:17:00] all forms of clutter is a, it's a process to identify it, to let it go, to prevent it from rebuilding. From figuring out different ways to manage what is in your life, so what doesn't turn into clutter. And again, within all of those five types, physical, digital, mental clutter, emotional clutter, commitment, clutter, we could break those in two 10 different subcategories.
We've got people who want to come and talk about each of these specifically. It's their work life to help other people let go of these types of clutter.
And like I said, when I am working with someone in person, The majority of that is physical, but [00:18:00] by working through the physical clutter, you start to uncover the other types of clutter and start making room in more ways than one.
So how are any of these types of clutters showing up in your life? Do you feel that one is stronger than the other? Do you feel that one may be easier to start to declutter and start to clear than the others? Do you see how they're connected and how your minds and your actions can actually have a big impact on the amount and the intensity of each of these types of clutter, .
And going back to where I started at the beginning of this episode, in a year's time, in five years, in 40 years, how do you want these [00:19:00] different spaces showing up? How do you want your physical space to feel, to look? How do you want your digital space to and to look? How much space of digitally do you really want to be giving your digital space? Is that feeling cluttered now? If you started now, could you see how you could find space down the road to feel less of that?
Your mental clutter? Dealing with a lot of physical clutter may increase your sense of mental clutter. And that's going back to that saying that a clear space leads to a clear mind because there's just that much less to do, less to manage, less, to think about less of your time and energy.
Your emotional clutter. Is there one specific feeling thoughts that [00:20:00] you're having that you could start to work through on your own with a therapist? How could you improve that space so that in a year's time, in the five years, in the 40 years, it's not filled with too many things and there is that space and that clarity to work through it, even if it's, you know, never gone. Maybe there's just more emotional space to process things.
And then the commitment clutter. What are you saying no to by saying yes to something? Where do you wanna be spending your time in a year? Because what you say yes to today can very much affect what's your calendar and what your commitment looks like next year, in five years, in 40 years, what does that look like to you?
Where do you see yourself spending [00:21:00] your time? Are there things that you have to start saying no to now so that you can slowly, gradually clear some space in the calendar so you can spend more time, money, energy on the things that actually matter?
And I'd love to hear from you! What was obvious to you? Where can you put your actions into play to start clearing those spaces? So send me a DM on Instagram. I'd love to hear how maybe you are gonna start working today, one small step in the right direction of clearing the clutter.