ProdPod: Episode 43 -- How to Kick-Start Hardcore Decluttering: Psychic Clutter and Digital Clutter

In our last episode, we discussed the first part of Hardcore Decluttering, recognizing physical clutter and determine its cost to you financially and emotionally. In this episode, we'll turn to two additional kinds of clutter for you to recognize and tackle.

That second type of clutter is that which resides in your mind. Start a bucket list in a single, good-old-fashioned paper notebook. This isn't a task or project list. It's a list of all your emotional memories as they come to mind, your current emotional state, anxieties as you feel them, and worries about the future. Ruminating is a clear symptom that you're in need of psychic decluttering. Writing it down with pen and paper (in my experience and observations of others) is the best way to counteract these unhealthy stores of emotional baggage.

Finally, there's no doubt that as our lives become ever more digital, there's bound to be more data on our computers, our mobile devices and the Web about us that we have to manage. I remember when everything I owned in digital data could be held on a single "Microfloppy"...which, for you Millenials and younger, those were 3.5" floppy diskettes that held a whopping 1.44MB! Those were the days. I'd carry that "Microfloppy" with me everywhere and I felt like I held my entire world in my pocket. Well, today, I carry a smartphone that holds literally 22,755.5 Microfloppies worth of data and there's countless more data on the Web about me.

That doesn't mean you can't find ways to get rid of massive amounts of dead-weight data and organize it so that it's no longer clutter, but meaningful data that you can protect and use effectively. The first step is admitting to yourself you have digital clutter!

I know this is just a primer on how to start hardcore decluttering but my hope is that it sparks action and you can come up with new, innovative ideas about how you're banishing clutter. I'll be covering clutter type specifically--physical, psychic and digital--in future episodes so stay tuned!