Spending inordinate amounts of time at home without escape can make even the most seasoned homebodies anxious and uncomfortable. The seemingly endless stream of negative news weighs on all of us, leaving us with understandably little motivation to be productive. Now is not exactly the time to worry about productivity.
Still, we must find a healthy way to cope with our anxieties. Of course, the answer isn’t to ignore the news altogether, but we need to process it in a way that doesn’t consume all our mental bandwidth. Instead of constantly wearing ourselves out over things that are out of our hands, we can give our minds a much-needed break by focusing on things we can control.
One of the few things we can do to regain that sense of control is to clear our closets. It’s a project that’s easy enough to do within a few hours, yet affects our daily experience in a noticeable way.
Make it a mindfulness exercise
Doing something with our hands is a great way to take a break from our chaotic minds. Make your decluttering time a momentary reprieve from all your worries by focusing on the task at hand. Avoid looking at your phone or listening to the news; fixating on these things will not be helpful as you go through your closet. Put on some instrumental music if you find that it helps concentration. The more focused you are, the faster you’ll get through decluttering and the more triumphant you’ll feel.
Choose your beneficiaries
Decluttering might seem like a slog in a time of global distress. Choosing your beneficiaries—that is, deciding who you want to donate your discarded items to—might be enough motivation to get you started. At the end of the day, getting decluttered doesn’t just benefit you; it benefits those you’re generous to. Do remember to donate and dispose of your discarded items responsibly.
The answer isn’t to ignore the news altogether, but we need to process it in a way that doesn’t consume all our mental bandwidth.
Go through each item one by one
Feel like you can’t get rid of anything in your closet, even though it’s brimming with clothes? You might look at your closet and think “There’s nothing here that I want to get rid of.” But a single, cursory glance isn’t enough to know whether or not you want to keep everything in your closet. To be effective at decluttering, you must ask yourself whether each individual thing is worth keeping. You’ll be shocked at how much you’ll end up decluttering using this approach.
Clearing our closets doesn’t seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But when nothing seems to be going right, setting ourselves up for an easy win is an invaluable tool for keeping our hopes and spirits high. And let’s be real, we need morale now more than ever.
