The fourth area on the wheel of health is your physical environment.
Physical environment includes…
Home
Virtual
Work
Transportation
Community
Natural Environment
I prefer a clean, clutter free, visually appealing environment. I am able to better focus and enjoy whatever else I am doing in this kind of environment. I also love a fresh start...a new journal, a clean piece of paper, a freshly vacuumed floor. It sets the tone for a clear experience. I also believe we are not separate from our environment, and the clutter around us is a visual representation of our ability to make decisions, allocate time, create systems, and follow-through.
My objective is to help you create and influence your environment in ways that allow you to feel safe, free of distraction when it’s time to focus, and simply enjoy your physical experience. This begins with making decisions and owning what suits you and what doesn’t. It’s about sending a message to yourself that boundaries are good. We don’t need to like, do, and keep everything. We get to choose what we interface with.
Let’s begin with our home space and approach it from a decluttering perspective.
1.Assess where the bulk of clutter is…
Papers
Clothing
Books
Kitchen Items
Toiletries
Kid Stuff
Other
2. Decide how much variety vs. minimalism you prefer in this area.
-Even if you enjoy loads of variety it’s still possible to find a creative solution that respects the amount of space you have to work with
3. Brainstorm a system that has flow.
-Allocate space for donations such as a hamper
-Only bring things into your space you love
-Create a storage system you “shop” from if you love variety
4. Experiment and adjust your plan.
5. Integrate and generalize
You can then apply the same technique to other areas such as your virtual space.
1.Assess where the bulk of clutter is…
Email Files
Photos
Bookmarks
Apps
2. Decide how much variety vs. minimalism you prefer in this area.
-Decide how much you need and want to keep
3. Brainstorm a system that would support this that still has flow and doesn’t get bogged down.
-Move everything to an external hard drive that you are not directly interfacing with right now
-Create clearly labeled folders
4. Experiment and adjust your plan.
Once you have done an initial decluttering to all areas, it’s much easier to keep things that way if you apply the new systems you have implemented. I suspect you will find you have decreased your overall mental load by taking the time to do this, which frees up energy you can then focus elsewhere.
Resources used for this episode:
The Mindful Diet by Ruth Wolever, Beth Reardon, and Tania Hannon
Yours In Health,
