How I Reset My Life: 4 Easy Tips

1. Remove physical clutter

First, start with physical clutter around the house. It can be very overwhelming to declutter everything in one go, especially if you're doing this for the first time.

So I think it's important to go at your own pace and declutter routinely to maintain a clutter-free home.

If you need some inspiration on what to let go of, ask yourself when the last time you used something was. Would you look for it if you got rid of it today? Could you replace it easily? Why are you holding on to it?

The process of elimination can be empowering. By default, each item that you choose to keep becomes that much more intentional. And those are the things that actually belong in your home and in your life.

One trick that really helped me to declutter my closet was to think of a typical day in my life.

What are my 5 go-to outfits for that specific activity or event? This really helped me to curate my closet and only keep the clothes that suit me and my lifestyle.

So I encourage you to coordinate a handful of outfits that you love and always reach for and turn the hangers backward for the items that you're not really sure of. In about six months, see if you have worn any of them.

2. Manage paper clutter

I learned that paper clutter is inevitable, but it helps to have a specific system in place to routinely manage it.

For my photos, I decided not to digitize all of them because I enjoy looking through these albums.

But still, I need to go through them once in a while with a fine-toothed comb and get rid of any blurry photos, ones with bad lighting, or any duplicates.

For the important documents that I need to keep a physical copy of, like my birth certificate and marriage certificate, I just have one accordion file folder.

Usually, I'll scan it into my hard drive using the Adobe Scan app to keep a digital copy of it as well.

But honestly, the best way to manage paper clutter is to keep it from coming into the house in the first place, switch everything to paperless, and get less mail from marketers.

I also signed up to opt out of credit card and insurance offers.

I noticed that a lot of my paper clutter is really meaningless, just takes up room, and I never look at it again. So instead of filing it away and organizing it, I try to get rid of most of it right away.

3. Eliminate digital clutter

Technology is meant to help us be more organized and productive, but it can work against us if our digital world is a mess.

So let's start with the phone. Since it's a tool that most of us use on a daily basis, it’s most likely to be cluttered. Look through your apps and delete any that you haven't opened in the last six months.

Then, go through your gallery and ask yourself, does this photo bring up a happy memory? Again, I back up the photos I love into my hard drive so that I can go back and access them at any time.

For social media and emails, it helps me a lot to adjust my settings, turn off any alerts, unfollow accounts, and unsubscribe from brands that no longer serve my interests.

To me, this is my way of setting boundaries and it plays a huge role in protecting my peace of mind.

4. Work through mental clutter

Where is your mental clutter coming from? Are you holding on to the past? Worrying too much about the future? Always keeping some kind of a mental to-do list?

For me, I needed to sort through some trauma I've experienced in the past, a big reason why I signed up for therapy.

This hindered everything I did in my day-to-day life, but at one point, I realized that I used it as an excuse and that I was making myself the victim through my own narrative.

During my last session, I realized that I've come so far from my actual problems in the past, and I decided I no longer wanted it to come between me and my life that's happening right now.

This has been my mental decluttering journey. It took a lot of conversations, writing in my journal, watching and reading books, and one of the best ways has been through music. Also, walking every day has been truly healing.