Declutter Your Mind: How to Stop Worrying, Relieve Anxiety, and Eliminate Negative Thinking

by S.J. Scott

Why are we filling our “to do” lists so we can hurry up and enjoy the leisure time that never seems to materialize?

We feel guilty if our hours aren’t packed with “productive” activities that are either income-producing or ego-enlarging. Doing nothing for any extended period feels like failing, even as we continue to develop time-saving technology, gadgets, and devices. The time we gain is quickly sucked up to quell the anxiety created by not enough to do.

“Individualistic cultures, which emphasize achievement over affiliation, help cultivate this time-is-money mindset. This creates an urgency to make every moment count,

We get trapped on the treadmill of tasks and obligations, leaving little time for those things that allow us to be present

The first step in cutting back is embracing it as a worthy endeavor—acknowledging that busyness is contributing to your mental clutter and accepting that less really can be more.

Here are eight strategies to declutter

your schedule so you can enjoy more of what’s ...

Rather than trying to “fit in” your life priorities around your busy schedule, create space for your priorities first.

Don’t allow that time to be violated without good reasons that you define in advance.

Before you allow a priority to be dislodged for something “really important,” take a deep breath and think about it. Does “something important” take precedence over your life priorities?

If you keep something on the list because you feel guilty, obligated, or uncomfortable, test letting go of it anyway to see what happens.

You can certainly tackle more if you accomplish your three daily goals, but having just three set in place gives you a sense of control, inner peace, and accomplishment without the feeling of overwhelm and urgency.

Strategy #4. Build in sacred time.

Give yourself time during the day to do absolutely nothing. Sit in a chair and stare out the window, or walk outside and listen to the birds. You don’t have to meditate, bre...

Americans “put in more hours at our jobs than any people in the industrialized world, except Koreans.

that people who put in too many hours at their jobs, either by choice or by requirement, become inefficient. With rare exceptions, they burn out and lose their creative edge.”

If you are putting in more hours than are required by your job, or you find you’re sacrificing other life priorities because of the time you spend working, then you might want to reevaluate your work hours.

flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

During this activity, they feel “strong, alert, in effortless control, unselfconscious, and at the peak of their abilities.” They are highly focused and undistracted.

The flow state can be equated to a meditative state during which you and the activity are one, and your actions feel effortless.

Your mind becomes so absorbed in the activity that you feel transported and almost forget yourself because you are so immersed in the present moment.

He identifies various elements involved in achieving flow, which include: