It’s amazing how often a sense of stuckness or listlessness or internal confusion can be remedied (at least in part) by cleaning, reorganizing, and getting rid of stuff.
Sometimes this stuff will be intangible: heaps of digitized media, open tabs and saved links, or maybe a bazillion newsletter subscriptions and other e-missives that threaten to overflow your inbox on the daily.
Sometimes it will be more concrete: too many clothes, too many kitchen appliances, too many unused art supplies or unread books or underutilized exercise gadgets.
By taking the time to do a little tidying—to shuffle things around and get them in orderly, useful formation—we put ourselves in the proper spot and frame of mind to cull the excess (and maybe even hand off some the superfluous to those who might actually find some value in our neglected possessions).
This general concept applies to things like activities, relationships, and responsibilities, too. We accumulate all sorts of stuff over the course of our lives, often because it makes sense to do so in the moment.
If we don’t periodically invest time and effort in trimming our stockpiles, though, our caches will become hoards, and our otherwise sensical, navigable world can suffer as a consequence of all that befuddling bloat.
We might think about this process not as simply getting rid of stuff, but instead as clearing the way for other things.
When we free up physical space in our closets, we’re making room for other clothing (which will perhaps suit us better than our existing options), but we’re also making it easier to see and use the things that remain: no additional purchases necessary, just more value imbued in the garments that survive the donation pile because they’re no longer hidden amongst all those less-than-ideal options.
Rearranging and cutting back the growth in our intangible lives can also make what remains more pleasant and maneuverable. By liberating our calendars, we make space for new projects, passions, and experiments. Our inboxes (and other digital stomping grounds) are easier to navigate, reference, and maintain after we put some effort into pulling the e-weeds.
A lot (though not all) of what we own, what we keep, what we stack into piles and store for long periods of time made sense for us at some point in our lives.
If we want to reorient, evolve, and clarify things, though, it’s helpful to have the space (physical and mental) to maneuver, and to know there’s room in our lives, in our homes, and in our hard drives for whatever we choose to fill our days (and ourselves) with, next.
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