Time is one area of our lives that tends to be filled up quickly. Have you ever felt like you just didn’t have “enough” time. I’m going to show you how to be more productive through decluttering your schedule and mental clutter and emotional weight, so that you do have time for all the things you want to do and start living in your created life of time-freedom!

Time is Like a Physical Space

Literally time can be organized, planned, and cluttered in the same way as your physical space. Even though time is solely an abstract concept at its core, we have created multiple structures in our society that allow us to “control” our time.

The only problem is, we don’t generally see time as something we can “control.” More often than not, you probably feel like time is controlling you, am I right? On the one hand, this is true; time can’t be paused, shifted, or rewound. And I'm going to show you exactly how to do that.

What we have control over is the current present moment.

When it comes to our physical space, we want to be intentional with how it is set up and what we choose to surround ourselves with so we can create our desired feeling within that environment.

The goal is to do the same thing with your time. The biggest difference is that time is actually your life; how you spend your time makes up how you spend your life. How you work and feel during your work hours, influences the greater energy you feel towards your life. 

Just like with your physical space, do you live in a messy schedule? Or more important than that, do you live in a stressful, overwhelming, draining experience of time?

To live an intentional life means designing your time the way you would design your physical space... On YOUR terms.

Clearing the Past

Physical things connect us with different periods of our life.

Have you ever held onto something from a past relationship because it reminded you of the good times? But then you decided it was time to let it go and after doing so you finally able to fully move on?

Holding onto physical belongings that contain us in a certain moment in our lives can create energy that holds us in that past. This does not need to mean that the experience was negative (although often times it does bring up lower vibrational emotions). However, if there is an area of your life that you would love to be moving forward in, see if there is anything physical connected to that area that may be holding you back.

The past can come up in our schedules and clutter our time.

This can look like giving someone from your past more time than you’d like to be giving them or than they deserve. It can also manifest itself in commitments we’ve made that we now solely experience on autopilot because it’s become a habit.

Is there anything that is part of your schedule that you do simply because you’ve been doing it for such a long time? These things can also be commitments we made to other people long ago, and feel like we should be upholding.

Now is the time to ask yourself, whether you have any clutter in your time. “Clutter” represents something you have not intentionally incorporated into your life. Clearing this clutter is the first step to increasing your productivity.

Clearing the Clutter in Your Schedule

Schedules are a visual and tangible representation of our time. Regardless of what type of calendar you use or don’t use, we all understand time visually to a certain extent.

A cluttered schedule is less about the aesthetic and more about the feeling. The aesthetic plays a role if you don’t have a clear system in place, but that is an entirely separate topic for another post.

Ask yourself, how does it feel when you use, interact, and think about your calendar. Does it feel stressful because you will be reminded of the long list of things you need to get done? A great comparison here, is money; Have you ever heard someone say "If you're stressed about looking at your bank account, then you have work to do around your mindset with money" ...? In the same way, if you would rather never have to interact with your schedule and contact people about whether you can or can't make that event because you feel bad for saying no... well then, my dear, you have time time mindset to do! 

If this is the initial feeling, you have “schedule clutter.” If you see a lot of commitments that make you feel any kind of negative emotion ranging from stress to anxiety to a simple “ugh,” it’s time to get clear on your intentions and declutter.

Getting clear on your intentions means identifying what you truly love, how you want to be spending your time, and who you want to be sharing it with. Write a vision of what that looks like for you.

Next, it’s time to slowly remove all the things from your schedule that do not align or support those intentions. It’s time to become more productive by decluttering!

Clearing the Mental & Emotional Clutter

Another form of clutter linked to schedule clutter is mental clutter. Mental clutter includes everything that you are stressing and worrying about. This stuff is taking up mental space in your mind.

For instance, you may be constantly thinking about what’s next on your to-do list as you try to finish the task at hand. This can result in you trying to start various different things at once. In the end, this habit prevent yourself from really getting into the productivity zone.

Remove it from your mind:

Clearing the mental clutter happens when you have a system for “dumping” the clutter out of your mind. I teach my clients to do a “brain dump,” so that they put everything they feel they need to, have to, or should do on one piece of paper or in a notebook.

When you have a system of removing things from your mind or writing down what is stressing you out, you can start to reduce the overwhelm.

Clear it from your heart: 

This is where your emotional weight or clutter comes into play. Again, using the physical space as an analogy, there are lots of items we accumulate and just stuff into some drawer, because we did not intentionally ask ourselves if we wanted to keep them and what the value was to us.

This is the same thing that happens with emotions. Emotions from day to day experiences or bigger situations become trapped in your body when you don't properly process them. And let's be honest, society doesn't often teach us how to properly process emotions and so you may be an expert at pushing things aside or sweeping it under the rug. 

Any internalised and trapped emotions can be keeping you stuck from being productive, getting focused, staying motivated, or finding clarity in your direction, purpose, or next level goal. This is why decluttering your emotions is a key step in the process to clearing your time so that you can have more time. 

The final step is prioritising the tasks:

This is when the actual important and urgent tasks become clear and the rest can fall away.

As we discussed above, having too many tasks creates clutter in your time. In turn clutters your life by distracting you from what’s truly important.

When you get incredibly clear on what your top priorities are, it becomes easier to declutter your commitments and tasks, . This results in you having more time for actually living your life. You will no longer let your schedule be flooded by other people. You will be creating boundaries and making choices about how you allude your time.

Decluttering as a Tool for Taking Back Your Time

Using decluttering as a tool is incredibly powerful when it comes to creating your intentional life. Decluttering involves gaining clarity surrounding your intentions, aka answering the question of what is truly important to you!

Once you have that clarity you can start decluttering your schedule. In turn, you will begin taking back your time by creating boundaries based on those intentions… that’s when the magic happens!

You no longer feel like you are running behind your to-do list or having your energy drained.

You are in control of your time because you have absolute clarity on what that means to you!

Most of us feel like we don’t have “enough” time. That alone is an indication that your time, including schedule and mental, can use some decluttering.

Are you ready to use decluttering as a tool to take back your time?