Religious Zen

Our minds can become very messy places.

Whether it is trying to remember to pick up the milk after work, recounting the different people who’ve offended you throughout the day, or even just to get housework done- we often carry many, many worrying, and agitating thoughts in our mind in our daily lives. We end up thinking more about where where we have been, and where we are going to be, then where we are now. This causes mental fatigue, physical exhaustion, and even depression.

Up until very recently I was like everybody else. I carried much mental baggage in my head that weighed me down. When I began to focus on decluttering my mind, and learning to simply be in the moment, my life changed almost entirely. Suddenly I didn’t worry so much about the future! I was actually content with what was going on.

Follow these tips, too, just like I have. You will be able to think more clearly and effectively. You will stop stressing out about the 100 things you need to get done before next week, and be content with the one thing that you’ve got in front of you. Your mind will thank you for it!

1. Take life one step at a time. This is the easiest to say, but probably the hardest to put into practice. Focus on each stage of your day rather than the whole picture at once. It’s perfectly fine to plan ahead (and you should!), but it is counterproductive and even hurtful to carry around those 100 things at all times. When you get up in the morning, think about getting into the shower and getting ready for the day. Don’t worry about your job while eating breakfast! Take the time to enjoy breakfast. Work will come on it’s own.

Worry about your job when you get to your job. Don’t focus on the household chores that lay ahead of you. This will allow you to perform better, which will lead to a raise and promotion! Once you get home- don’t worry about making dinner until dinner time comes! By now you are beginning to see the idea. Let each event in your life happen as it happens.

We often wear our minds out by creating each and every possible scenario that could go wrong throughout our day. “What if I’m late for work?” “What if I don’t have ingredients for dinner?” The list could go on and on. Spend less time worrying, and more time enjoying what is before you right now.

2. Make a to-do list, and forget about it. That’s right! Write down everything you need to do throughout your day, week, or month and forget about it. Well, not the list, but what you put on it! Document all your work or school deadlines, schedule those appointments, and write down what you need on grocery day, and stop thinking about it. The idea is to let the paper (or computer) remember, rather than your mind. You can only carry around so much information in that noggin’ of yours, so it is best used to focus on the task at hand, rather than something in the distant future.

I tend to write down my blog articles and the day I’d like them to be done. My wife writes down dates that bills are due and puts money in an envelope to pay for them when they come up each month. I write down specific dates for volunteering my time, and what my duties are. You can write down quite a bit of things! You’ll find that when you do this, your mind eases up and spends less energy trying to keep them in memory, and more time strategizing about how to get that specific thing done. Why worry about how to remember a deadline when you can focus on completing it?

3. When possible, complete big jobs ahead of time. Often it is the very idea of having something to do that scares us off from doing work altogether, and we end up vegetating on the sofa staring at a TV for hours on end. This is no way to live! It is also the big jobs that tend to be the most stressful. If you’ve got a deadline looming on the horizon that you simply cannot get out of your head (even when you write it down), and you can complete it, then go ahead and do it! We often have much more time in our day then we think. Allot some time for it, and get it done.

Once it is, you will have that much more time available to get those other tasks done for the day/week/month. Getting a big project done is also a great way to motivate yourself to tackle those smaller things like housework, changing the car oil, or any other things. You will find yourself moving at superhuman speed because of the confidence of eliminating one stressful thing from your life. Try it, it really works!

4. Meditate! I have probably recommended meditating more than anything else on this site. I’ve covered it in this article here, so I won’t go into detail on it yet again. You don’t need to be religious to meditate! It is simply a very, very powerful way to declutter your mind and sharpen it at the same time. You could also take up an active meditation technique and lose weight while you are at it!

The benefits of meditation are nearly endless, and it is practiced by hundreds of millions of people around the globe, so at least consider trying it out. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s fine, at the very least you will have tried something new.

5. Hire a personal assistant. No, you don’t need to be a high-powered CEO to get a personal assistant, or even wealthy! The average joe nowadays can afford to hire someone to take care of day-to-day tasks that will free him up to get more done, and in the end declutter his mind.

Timothy Ferriss has written extensively in his book, “The 4-Hour Workweek,” on how to go about getting a personal assistant. I’m not being paid to endorse this book, by the way, but it goes into great detail on the how, who, and why of getting one. There are more and more working class folk outsourcing things overseas, so it is not something uncommon anymore! Need someone to pay the bills? Schedule movie tickets to arrive at your door? What about someone to take calls for you and only forward the important ones? All of this and more can be done by a personal assistant!

Check out Google for some more fascinating information about this new trend. Why not? If somebody else has to worry about it, your mind will definitely feel all the less cluttered for it!

6. Declutter your physical clutter. It is not my opinion that somebody who has a messy desk has a messy life, and therefore a messy mind. Sometimes people just get busy! It is a great stress reliever, though, to sit down at a sleek and clean desk, clear of all the clutter. Once I began maintaining a constantly clear desk, the very act of sitting down at it allowed me to think more clearly and increased my sense of well-being.

It is a very powerful thing to do! So go ahead and do the spring cleaning early (or late!). Get those things that you never use into the closet or into storage, and out of the way. The old saying, “Out of sight, out of mind,” is very true! If you aren’t staring at it, you generally won’t be thinking about it.

7. Give your mind a rest. Sometimes, just like our bodies, our minds need rest. Consider taking a Me-Day- something I wrote about here. A regular vacation will sometimes help, but only if you can forget about the worries that you left behind! At any rate, just get away from your everyday routine. Shake things up. Stand on your head and view your bedroom upside-down if you have to. Disrupt the monotony in your everyday life.

Believe it or not, routine does more to wear a mind down than you realize. Even simple animals have been shown to develop depression if they have nothing to stimulate them. So do something different with your life. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it is different. Do something that will shock your family, even! Go see that movie that you said you’d never see. Go to a service of a religion that is different than yours. Read a book that goes against your own perceived notion of reality. Whatever it takes to take that 8-ton anvil off of your mind!

A decluttered mind is a happy mind. These are some of the biggest steps I’ve taken in my life in order to have a clear mind. Use what works for you, and ignore the rest. The idea is still about simplicity, and freedom! Do what makes you, well, you. With the weapon of a sharpened mind, nothing can stand in your way. You will notice all areas of your life improve when you’ve won the battle over your own mind.

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