Mental Clutter as an impediment

It seems that tackling physical clutter can be obstructed by the existence of mental clutter. I was wondering why I sometimes freeze up when attempting to deal with some piece of clutter in my house. It's like being stopped behind a physical barrier, in waiting mode. Wanting to move on it and yet feeling stuck in time or in a holding pattern. Not exactly fear, just a disconcerting stasis that prohibits action of any sort.

It's a creepy feeling, when you look at it, and possibly peculiar to me rather than universal. In any case, I'd like to up my game by getting past this stuck point.

Mental clutter is similar to physical clutter, in that it is composed of unexamined or undealt with thoughts, past decisions, current worries, incomplete communications, you name it. It steals your attention and your will. You hide it from yourself sometimes, and yet it hangs in your mental closet, taking up space and energy. There are hundreds of books, theories and practices that people have developed to help with clearing up mental 'hangups'.

Rather than jump to one of these, I'm going to start by recognizing the incoming flow of mental clutter. I'm defining clutter here as thoughts or feelings inappropriate to what's going on. Out of left field stuff - like the stuck feeling I described above. The first step to dealing with anything is to admit that it's there, so let's notice what's there.

Wish me luck!

How Clutter Happens

Thinking about clutter this morning. Occurs to me that part of what creates clutter is an imbalance of incoming and outgoing. Let me clarify that. If more comes into your home (space, life) than is handled, you are left with a pile of loose ends, unhandled items, ignored influences that are ever present even if not conciously examined.

So what's the game here? Looks like a clump of games to me.

First, there is the game of recognizing the flows. Can you see what is incoming? Can you let go of the outgoing? We get an influx of junk mail on a regular basis. Also incoming are bills, food, dust, sometimes objects that we purchase. I'm going to try to notice what is incoming this coming week. Outgoing is garbage from food and all that incoming junk mail. Sometimes old broken objects. Again, this week I will try to notice what goes out.

Second, there is the game of handling rather that putting off - that's badly stated - maybe the game is getting to being able to deal with the inflow. Goal being zero inflow sitting in limbo on the kitchen table. This would involve making decisions after viewing the inflow - discard, take action on, put in pending, file for reference. Non-physical inflow is another matter. (will take that up in another post) So this week, I'll up my game by getting those limbo items off the kitchen table.

Third, there is the game of recognizing and handling the accumulated clutter that's been around for awhile. Easy to look at a corner and see a pile of something that just got left there at some point in the past. This stuff is all un-dealt with inflow, or items with nowhere to go. Two separate categories. To up my game this week, I'll look at a pile each day and pick one thing off of it, decide if it's unhandled inflow (if so, handle it) or a homeless item (give it a place to go). I'm choosing one item a day because I think I can confront that. Hard to imagine confronting a whole pile or corner - small steps.

That's a start on the clutter games. Wish me luck!