Our Lives Are Filled With Junk

It’s true what they say, “Garbage In, Garbage Out.”

It’s been dragging on me for a while. Every day filled with…junk. I’m not talking about the junk on your desk, pieces of debris, scribblings, paper clips, staples, pens, unanswered cards. Anyone with a desk knows what I mean. That gets swooshed into the circular file weekly.

This is not about everyone decluttering your house because you’re home. When you open up the cabinet to get tupperware and your family finds you in the plastic avalanche days later.

I’m talking about that crap we fill our lives with. It comes at us in different forms. The reason I’m bringing this up is as many of you know, I’ve been a bit under the weather. The stories I’ve wanted to write, the emails to get and respond to, the freelance jobs on top of my day job, seemed to get left behind until this week.

I tried, I really did, to keep it all under control. Throwing my hands up, I decided enough. This has gone on far too long. Let’s give my computer a diet. Stop filling it up with empty carbs and diet sodas.

I started by taking a page out of Ryan Holiday column recently and decided to do a calendar clean up. If it wasn’t someplace I needed to be, it wasn’t in my calendar. I was putting tasks, deadlines, all sort of things in there. No more!

I would open my calendar up in the morning and come to a screeching halt. Now, it’s nice and clean and it clears my mind. I’m not overwhelmed by all the little things that really didn’t need to be there.

Next, I went into my Evernote and made notebooks out of my notes, consolidated, deleted, and organized. It made me feel awesome. The more I cut and got rid of, I saw a trend.

I had accomplished more than I thought I had. Stories, plays, scripts. I had done them. Next I opened up my Project List and put my completed projects on it. I keep this so year-after-year, I can see what I’ve actually done.

I got rid of the websites that were sitting there in limbo. I develop websites so I had several for myself and many no longer applied to anything I am now doing and just sat there, abandoned. Gone, along with the emails associated with them, which all come to both of my main email boxes.

I kept the three. Two are main ones, but for different aspects of my life — one business, one creative. I keep an old yahoo one because every now and then someone will buzz me who only has that one. Mostly it’s junk.

Next, and the second hardest, I began cutting away at the junk that comes into my email daily. Retail sites I thought were interesting and gave them my email address, later realizing I had no intention of buying from them; sites about cool writers, who later just wanted me to purchase their workshops and classes; negative people who just wanted to spew. Gone, gone, gone.

Now, the actual hardest. Writers and creatives who I love reading about but over the years have become so negative or profit based that I have to let it go. It was a drain to read the negatives every morning. It’s hard enough without getting a “one-two punch” when I read from previously positive people.

There are many who are going through a hard time and write about it and the hope they are finding. I keep those. Others, as mentioned above, started with information and positive upbeats. Within a month, constant “things are bad, come and buy my workshop, I can help you!” You can’t help yourself, how can you help me?

I stayed because of the information. Many of the writers whose emails and posting I have kept have affiliations, but don’t cram it down my throat. They are full of information as well. I do buy some of what they are selling. Others, just no, please stop.

I haven’t taken the deep dive into Facebook yet or any of my social media. I think I’ll need a glass of wine for those and more energy than I have right now.

As I decluttered my computer life, I found myself more positive, upbeat, and organized. It helped my creativity as I wasn’t bogged down so much. I’m still doing daily cleanup on emails coming in.

Try it. Declutter one small thing a day and see how it makes you feel. Good luck!