4 Tips for Uncluttering your Mind

How to unclutter your mind

4 Easy Tips for Efficiency

4 Tips for Uncluttering your MindYou probably have heard those tips for uncluttering your mind before. But while many people feel stressed, only very few follow these tips in everyday life.

It is easy to lose the overview and keep your mind fresh. Every year, new communication devices crawl into our lives. In addition to our phones, we now have smartphones. We receive emails, text messages, video calls and spend a lot of time in company intranets and on social media.


New tasks are assigned to us via project management or workflow tools at a higher speed than ever before. Even the energy we use for sorting out irrelevant messages is immense.

While nobody expected us to react immediately when he sent us a letter, immediate reaction and action is expected after sending an email.

In the past, we had one conversation at a time. Especially at the workplace, we are involved in several conversations at the same time.

For our brains, this accumulation represents a challenge.

Reason enough to have a look at the newest neurological studies. I have summarized the best tips for you:

Keeping things tidy

How to Unclutter your MindI am sure you heard statements similar to: "Who holds order is just to lazy to search". "A genius reigns the chaos".

While that might be true for geniuses for the rest of us it is not. Keeping things in order and tidy helps us to focus better.

A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience explained that a tidy workplace is less frustrating and tiring than an untidy one.

Frustration and tiredness decrease your ability to concentrate and increase your level of susceptibility to errors.

Also, many people believe that the state of your workplace reflects the state of your mind.

Conclusion: Keep your workplace tidy and in order because it is good for your ability to focus and concentrate.

Sleep enough

Do you sometimes give in to a craving for sweets? If you give in to a temptation or not depends on your level of self-control.

Just like a battery gets weaker, your amount of self-control decreases during the day. Sleeping recharges your "battery". The more rested you are the higher your level of self-control will be.

Most people, especially those in managerial positions, do not sleep enough. Do you know how much sleep you need to recover? If not use the next extended weekend to find out. Go to bed as soon as you get tired and do not set an alarm.

Conclusion: The importance of a sufficient amount of sleep cannot be stressed enough. It is the basic prerequisite for staying physically and mentally healthy and delivering our best performance.

Green environment

Identify Sources of Stress

Spend your lunch break in a nice park or if possible in the countryside. That implies you do take breaks... Hint: A lunch with a customer is not a break (;

Our brain cannot relax in busy, loud or crowded environments. Researchers found that a walk in the park changes your brain patterns to "relaxed state". 
Conclusion: Take breaks in quiet places, ideally in nature. Most of the time, taking breaks pays off by increasing your effectiveness.

Identify sources of stress

Our surroundings can be a source of stress without us being aware of it. Do you in example look up every time someone walks past your office door? This reduces your ability to concentrate. 
Often it is small things that stress us that we do not recognize as stress factors. Therefore, it is important that we identify and eliminate stress factors in our environment. 
Small changes can go a long way and relieve our brain big time.
I noticed that a stress factor for me was checking my cell phone whenever a message came in. Even when I was in the middle of something else. I stressed myself and lost time picking up the thread where I left off. 
Conclusion: Identify sources of stress and apply strategies to reduce them.
If you feel tired and weak after work try one or the other tip. A small change can make a big difference. 
What are your stress factors?
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