Simplifying is about streamlining your life; removing the distractions that aren’t important to you. By freeing up time, money, and energy, you can give more attention to staying well and to your highest priorities. If there is complexity in your life, then it will affect your ability to cope with depression. A good tonic is to simplify.
If you want to rationalize then the place to start is your goals and values. What is really important to you? How are you going to spend your allotted time on earth?
In my view “simplifying” is synonomous with “removing clutter”, and there are 3 kinds that I take to.
1. Physical clutter
When I buy something it owns me, not the other way around. My time, energy and effort goes into looking after it. What can I throw out instead? If this is you, then ask yourself what something will do for you every time you’re about to buy. Will it add to your life somehow? Or will it quickly become obsolete and a burden?
2. Lifestyle clutter
Are you committed to so many activities that you rush from one to the next, often running late and feeling stressed? Do you work back each night, bearing more and more of the workload? Do you find it hard to say no to new committments? Busyness is the new disease of the western world, but we, especially we, need to wake up and smell the roses. The stress of a rushed life is much harder for us mentally ill people to bear. We need to straighten our priorities, learn to say no, set reasonable schedules and not feel guilty about it.
Over the last few years I’ve learned the beauty and power of the word “No”. It’s OK to say no, and I’ve found that it actually garners respect. Everyone has to set boundaries on their life, but boundaries are only respected if you hold firmly to them. We need to focus on the most important things in our lives, like key relationships or spiritual growth.
3. Mental Clutter
I often have lots of things buzzing around in my head, but nothing gets my full attention, and nothing gets finished. (No doubt my love of strong, locally grown coffee is partly to blame.) When I start to feel overwhelmed I ask my wife to help me gain perspective. We work out the things that I actually need to do, not just things I’ve compulsively collected in a real or imagined to-do list over the previous fortnight. Some of the things are so menial, but they get put on a list and find a corner of my cluttered mind in a weak or manic moment. All of these have to go, so I can feel in control again. This has a wider application, as many depressed people have the same feeling of loss of control. I know that my very worst depressive episodes have been accompanied by this. Putting my mind into some kind of order, or decluttering, is a great help.
More reading:
http://zenhabits.net/2007/08/peaceful-simplicity
http://zenhabits.net/2007/09/simple-living-simplified
http://www.slowdownnow.org/
Canadian Coco 3 Mar 2008 @ 9:54 pm
Very helpful post, thank you! That’s so true for me about feeling that horrible lack of control when I’m having a depressive episode.
Jace 4 Mar 2008 @ 12:30 pm
Found your blog through the Bipolar Wellness Writer’s. Thought you may be interested in a mental health campaign I’m helping to start called everyminute.org that is fighting stigma in trying to organize a grassroots lobbying force to secure more research funding. We just launched our website last week at http://www.everyminute.org I’d appreciate any of your thoughts and perspective. Please keep up the good work on your blog. Thanks!
Jace
Julie, writer Surefirewealth.com 4 Mar 2008 @ 11:15 pm
Having too many things on your or having too many on your plate does not always mean you will have a better life. What I realized over the years is that simplicity can lead to a very rich life as well. You get to savor more and you get to appreciate the events in your life more as well.
vincent 8 Mar 2008 @ 9:02 am
I have found that there are credible alternatives to orthodox medicine when dealing with depression.
Simplifying ones life by clearing physical and mental clutter has worked wonders for me.
Counting my blessings and reaching out to people who are less fortunate that myself also helps to mitigate my depressed state.
I also find that early morning and afternoon exercise, fresh air and sunshine, and ensuring healthy bowel movements keeps me bright and cheerful.
I find that it’s impossible to feel cheerful when I spend most of my time indoors and I’m carrying pounds of purifying toxic waste in my gut.
Confabula 1 Apr 2008 @ 11:11 am
You’re ZEN-deliciously right – cant’t say otherwise.
tg 19 May 2008 @ 10:28 pm
Really could relate to all three types of clutter.
I think the hardest one for me is lifestyle clutter (saying no, etc.). Really trying to work on that one now. Can really relate to mental clutter and the need to organize the “arbitrary to-do-list and realize what absolutely has to be done now and what doesn’t! I don’t have a big problem buying useless items, just getting rid of them once I have accumulated them! Any suggestions on that?
james 19 May 2008 @ 10:37 pm
Yes. I’m trying very hard to not spend any money on non-essentials, partly because we have to save a lot at the moment and I’m writing my spending down each day. That makes you more conscious of the value of what you buy.
The other thing is that I’m committed to the idea of owning less than 100 items. (Yes, each book, each shirt, each CD – 1 item). This started on another blog somewhere and even though I’m not a minimalist or anti-materialism I love the idea. So far I’ve purged my wardrobe and past study notes.
As for getting rid of the possessions? Back up the truck.
linda B 1 Oct 2008 @ 12:46 pm
came across this page on clutter – when I was in need of encouragement – and inspiration. I shall look at it – and use the comments within, many thanks.