4 Ways to Declutter Your Mind and Encourage Inner Peace

I have found happiness using these strategies.

Do you ever feel noise running through your brain? Do you find it hard to go to sleep at night but can’t explain why? Do you experience brain fog? All of this can be caused by having a cluttered mind. You have too much activity in your life and your brain simply can’t relax.

You’re not alone. I used to experience this, too, and so do many others. I used to be so overwhelmed with my brain fog that I would cry by myself at night. I would be mentally exhausted all day, every day.

The good news is I am out of my brain funk, and you can be too. The best news is that it really is simple to declutter your mind and to finally get some clarity.

Here are four ways to get rid of the brain fog:

1. Declutter the home.

Having a cluttered home impacts you beyond just the lack of physical space; it also clutters your mind and causes inner turmoil. Research shows that visual overload impacts our memory and cognitive functions. Furthermore, sleeping in a cluttered home causes sleep problems, which impacts your thinking skills.

My husband and I used to live in a very cluttered home and we were in a vicious cycle of acquiring more things, but not being quite sure of what to do with it all. We hated being at home.

One day we decided enough was enough and we made like the Minimalists and got rid of almost all of it. We went through each room and ruthlessly donated or sold anything that we hadn’t used within the previous year. It took several weeks to get our house just right, but my lighter mind began the very first day we decluttered the first room.

We’ve since maintained the clutter-free house with kids, and we all have better mental clarity as a result.

What to do:

• Go through your home and complete a thorough declutter. Remove anything you haven’t used in the previous year. This is the time to be ruthless.
• Empty all items from every drawer and cupboard. Put them back and designate a ‘place’ for each item. Every time you take out an item, it needs to be returned back to its place.

2. Do a “brain dump.”

When you have tons of thoughts racing through your brain at once, you can’t think properly. I personally find all of these thoughts creeping on me at night time, but they can wreak havoc in your head at any time of the day.

This is where the brain dump comes into play. A brain dump is when you write out all of your thoughts in one go. Just transfer out anything that is in your head onto whatever medium you like, such as a handwritten journal or a word processing software. You can organise your thoughts into lists and give due dates when items need to be actioned. You can do one as often as you need to. I like to complete a brain dump weekly.

Brain dumps are beneficial because they clear your mind, improve focus and productivity, and relieve stress and anxiety. My favourite thing to do is make a list of all the things that I am feeling angry or upset about and tear up the list into tiny pieces. That is a huge stress relief for me.

If you are interested in doing a brain dump, I highly recommend seeing this step-by-step process on Hustle to Startup. I’ve followed a few methods in the past, but I found this one to be the clearest for me.

What to do:

• Write down everything in your head into lists. Give each list a category.
• If some of the listed items need to be actioned, write down a due date.
• If you are just generally feeling angry, stressed or upset about anything, make a special list for these items. Rip up the list into tiny pieces to symbolise you overcoming your problems.

3. Minimise decisions.

Decision fatigue occurs when you have so many choices to make throughout the day and your ability to make good decisions runs out. Experiencing it leaves you feeling stressed and overwhelmed with all of the new decisions you have.

Have a look over your day and roughly count how many decisions you make. Include mundane decisions, like what to eat for breakfast, as well as huge business decisions. If you find you have too many that you are becoming overwhelmed, that could be the cause of your brain fog.

I suggest you minimise the number of decisions in your life. Get rid of the mundane decisions altogether.

Have you ever wondered why some of the great thinkers, such as Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs wore virtually the same outfit every day? It was to make way for the choices that really mattered. When questioned about his plain, repeated attire, Mark Zuckerberg said, “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.”

The easiest ones to simplify are food and clothes. For example, I’ve made a six-week rotating meal planner. Each week comes with an accompanying shopping list. I never have to decide what to cook for dinner and buying groceries is easy.

I also simplified my clothes to a capsule wardrobe. Everything I own and be mixed and matched. I don’t really need to decide on what to wear. So long as it is weather-appropriate, I could blindly pull out any item of clothing from my wardrobe and know it’ll look good.

What to do:

• Minimise simple, “low-stakes” decisions. Could you simplify your wardrobe? Make a week-long meal plan?

4. Schedule your day.

Have you ever wondered why schools run on a schedule? Or why small children tend to wake and nap at similar times every day? People thrive on routines and schedules.

Now, routine doesn’t mean having a 9–5 desk job and not trying different things. It doesn’t have to be boring. According to Thought Catalog, “your routine could be travelling to a different country every month. The point is not what the routine consists of, but how steady and safe your subconscious mind is made through repetitive motions and expected outcomes”.

Having a routine keeps you de-stressed and helps clear your mind, allowing you to think clearly. Once you establish a routine you will find that you are less likely to live your day-to-day in a constant brain fog. Furthermore, living in a routine improves the quality of sleep, leaving you clear-headed every morning.

For myself, I created a block schedule following Jordan Page’s video on YouTube. The block schedule has the times when I wake up, work, play with my kids, spend time with friends, eat and go to bed. It is a rough schedule and I am not so strict that I panic if there’s a variation to my day. However, it is just really nice having a day-to-day routine to make my life a little bit easier.

What to do:

• Create a schedule using a planner or by following a productivity guru like Jordan Page (as mentioned above).
• Schedule the rough times when you’ll wake up, eat, work, have outings and go to bed, and anything else you would like to add to spice up your routine.
• You can also make an alternate schedule for holidays, too.

These four tips have really changed my life. They are really big life changes, so it took me about a year to implement all four of them. However, I’ve found that once you implement them, they are really easy to maintain.

My recommendation is to start by implementing them each one at a time. Perhaps start with getting into the routine of doing a weekly brain dump. Once you have that in order, move on to the next tip you wish to implement.

What other tips do you have to clear your mind?