Clean Up Your Act

Can never find your keys? 

Worry too much about something? 

Always put off tasks? 

Here’s a simple solution

Frankly I was unprepared for the range of responses to last week’s column, in which I warned about getting trapped in repetitive thoughts. While I will try to respond individually to specific queries, the more common ones will be addressed in forthcoming columns. Do remember that Open Mind cannot offer solutions. It will, however, stimulate your own thought processes enabling you to get the best out of yourself.

Ruchi Mittal, Mumbai, wants to know how we arrived at the figure of 60,000 thoughts per day. Can we really ‘count’ thoughts? Technology comes to our help here with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) which produces images of blood flow in the brain to reveal which areas are active when certain tasks are performed, including thinking. fMRI may some day even unravel the exact genesis of thoughts!

For now let’s focus on a fairly common aspect of our lives : Can never find your keys? Worry too much about something? Always put off tasks?

There is an easy solution to this. One simple way to enhance our own individual performance and get an increased sense of well-being is to declutter your thoughts. What de-clutter means is to just remove all those things that you don’t really need.

De-cluttering implies developing the ability to be able to identify and sort out our own thoughts, including the stray, unproductive ones.

A systematic yet simple way of doing this involves making a list, especially if you’ve got a large number of things to remember and do, rather than store them in your head. This will help declutter your mind by allowing you to ‘empty’ all your ideas out onto paper.

Writing all your thoughts down clears up space in your head, so that you will be free to use your mind for more satisfying and meaningful reflections. Simply set aside a certain amount of time each day for your writing session in order to regularly de-clutter your mind.

You can do this on the computer too — you’ll be less likely to lose the list! Plus, you can set up your computer to give you a reminder message when you need to complete a particular item on your list.

The next important step is to get organised. If your mind is often full of thoughts such as, ‘Where did I put my keys?’ or ‘Do I need to order groceries?’ they can sap your mental energy if they build up too much. To avoid this get organised. There’s nothing more annoying than misplacing an item – your keys are probably the worst culprits – so always put important items in the same place.
Clutter and procrastination are closely tied together. One of the worst ways of cluttering up your mind is putting off tasks. They just sit there in your head and you can never quite concentrate on another task that you are doing at the time.

So just do whatever it is you need to do as soon as possible. Get it out of your mind and focus on the next task, or you’ll often put more energy into thinking about doing something than actually doing it! And it’s amazing how quickly you can do something once you finally commit yourself to doing it.

.
Thought for the Week

“Get a purge for your brain.
It will do better than for your stomach.”
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
.

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times