5 — Minimalist Mind

“The intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it” — Joshua Becker

Most of us have heard of Minimalism. It is a way of living. A method for decluttering our material lives. What if I told you it can be used to clear your mind and improve focus?

Our working memory can only hold between 5 and 9 (7 ± 2) chunks of information at a time. Our brain has strict capacity limits, however, this isn’t to say we can’t work around them. A mind cluttered with items to remember is similar to a closet full of clothes, we often pull out dozens of items before we find the one we want, digging up sweaters long forgotten and dresses with tags still attached.

Spring cleaning your work habits can do wonders for your peace of mind and it’s not hard to accomplish. Most people have a calendar and some of us use it religiously, myself included, but if you don’t already then you should seriously consider it. It isn’t just the meetings, birthdays and holidays that you should be putting in but also that phone call at 2pm or to pick up the dry cleaning on the way home. I often jokingly say, “if it isn’t in my calendar then it doesn’t exist”, because if I don’t remind myself to make that call then I know I will be distracted and forget. It’s more than just forgetting to make a call, it’s about removing that piece of information from your ‘must remember’ list and de-cluttering your mind.

Have a to-do list. It is so simple but also often overlooked. Doesn’t matter how you do it, electronic, handwritten, on your phone etc. Record the jobs that must be attended to that day and tick them off as you go. Not only does this limit the items you will forget but allows you to visualise what needs to be priorities first. It also, yes you guessed it, removes those items from the ‘must remember’ junk that’s floating around in your head. Also, ticking stuff off a list gives us a dopamine hit and makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something.

Take the time to organise your physical and computing space. Sitting at a desk or space without clutter fosters feelings of focus and removes physical distractions. The same goes for your laptop, take the extra minute to save your files in a way that is logical and makes projects easy to find. It is frustrating and time wasting to search through folders and files to find the document you are after. This might be as simple as labelling folders by project and files by version (e.g., 1.0, 1.1, 1.2) — keep it simple!

Taking the time to remove the unnecessary clutter from our daily tasks facilitates focus, productivity and efficiency. It allows us to direct our energy and attention to accomplishing tasks which require complexity of thought. Minimalism of mind at first requires effort but with time it becomes a way of working, a ritual.

Spring clean your work habits and let what’s critical shine!

One last thing… If you liked this article, then please give it a clap!