To simplify your life, you must master the art of conscious clearing. Briefly, this means learning to let go. Enjoy the liberating feeling with these easy ways.
How to Simplify Your Life: Easy Tips to Master Conscious Clearing
If you want to simplify your life, it is honorable and necessary. To be successful in anything, you must have a clear path. Besides, your environment has as much to do with success in life as how you maintain your mental and physical health. These tips can help.
Learn to Let Go
When most people think about de-cluttering their surroundings, they often feel regretful. Whether an item holds sentimental value, was too good a deal to pass up, reminds you of times past, was once your favorite, or might one day come in handy, it’s clutter. You must consciously clear clutter from your space to simplify your life.
“Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.”
Buddha
What to Do:
How does this work? How do you learn to let go? Strip emotions from the task and look at things with an unbiased eye.
- That kooky, clunky, garishly painted end table you got for a steal at a garage sale, which serves as a constant conversation piece, must go.
- The much-smaller-sized pair of jeans you looked so good in five years ago? It’s time to give it a new lease on life by donating or selling it.
- Correspondence or files in banker’s boxes stacked up in the garage or closet are a huge space-waster. If you must keep them, digitize the records. Otherwise, start shredding.
Be Zen About It
When you come into a room, how do you feel? The goal is to feel peaceful, serene, and calm. To accomplish this, be Zen about conscious clearing.
“The only Zen you find at the top of the mountain is the Zen you bring with you.”
Zen proverb
What to Do:
How can you be Zen about clearing?
- Focus on clearing alone, not a half-dozen thoughts.
- Be compassionate and grateful as you consciously clear. This is all about simplifying your life.
- Notice your body, breathing, thoughts, and actions.
- Remove cleaning materials and leave no trace.
How to Simplify Your Life: Feng Shui Your Most-Used Room
The ancient Chinese practice of Feng Shui can significantly simplify your life and make conscious clearing more enjoyable. Briefly, Feng Shui is life energy. Everything lives, including your spaces (home, office, outdoor space, health and wellness).
What to Do:
The goal is to create a positive flow of energy.
- Ensure the area is well-lit.
- Create space so the mind can feel at ease.
- Clear away clutter.
- Use pleasing colors and shapes.
- Place furniture strategically.
- Add plants for visual appeal and to clean the air.
Employ the High-Low Approach
How you arrange things in your room should be visually appealing. Besides looking great piece by piece, a good strategy of conscious cleaning involves using the high-low approach. Avoid having all furniture and accessories at eye level. That’s boring, cluttering, and stressful.
What to Do:
When you walk into a room, you want your eyes to see the surroundings moving up and down.
- For example, a sofa can be low and the coffee table lower, but the lamps draw your eyes upward.
- A wall photo or artwork should take your gaze upward and then in successive sweeps to different levels for other room items.
- Strive for a smooth flow, not an abrupt up-down movement.
How to Simplify Your Life: Clear One Room at a Time
Avoid a gung-ho approach of tackling the entire house simultaneously to simplify your life. You’ll likely give up long before you make significant headway, and instead of simplifying your life, you’ll experience frustration, a sense of defeat, and more unease than ever.
What to Do:
The solution is easy: Work on one room at a time.
- Begin with the room you most want to change. This can be a bedroom, kitchen, family room, office, garage, patio, or bathroom.
- Think of this as your inspirational project. Once you finish, the accomplishment will motivate you to clean other areas consciously later.
Use Closet Space More Efficiently
Open your closet and take in the view. Are items hanging haphazardly, crammed together, with no order, piled on each other? This space cries out for conscious clearing. Besides, a clean, inviting closet makes it easier to simplify your life.
But it’s a mess. How can you ever tackle this?
What to Do:
Borrow some professional tips on how to use closet space more efficiently. These include:
- The all-in-one approach or one-at-a-time method. Sometimes the job is too big for one day. Split it into sections or categories, or allocate a very long day to get it done.
- Get different organizers for specific uses. Practical organizers include drawer dividers, hooks, shelf dividers, stacking, soft-covered, or slimline hangers.
- Clear during daytime. The lighting is better, and you’re better able to spot stains, rips, tears, and other clothing damage.
- Remove things that don’t involve the room’s primary purpose. The bedroom closet, for example, isn’t the place for board games, power tools, books, or other items unrelated to getting dressed.
- Take sentiment out of the process of conscious clearing. If the item is one you never wear, can no longer fit into, the color or style is no longer in fashion (but may one day be back in style), get rid of it.
