The new year is a good time to evaluate how life is going and what, if anything, might need to change. Something that I’ve noticed over the last year is that no matter how good my intentions are to simplify my life and maintain some open space, life is complicated and full of shiny objects and distractions that inevitably come in and clog up the physical, mental, emotional and especially the digital landscape of my life.

When you think about decluttering, what comes to mind? Garbage bags full of clothes, trips to Goodwill, the kids rediscovering those old toys they haven’t touched in years and fighting you to keep them? Maybe you think of your desk or workspace covered in papers and books you haven’t read yet. Maybe it’s a certain spot of the house or all of the stuff in your garage that prevents you from parking your car in there. When we think of simplification, we don’t always jump right to our mental, emotional or digital clutter.

I think the reason for this, and what feels true about it for me, is because we can’t see it. We can’t hold this kind of chaos in our hands or trip over it in the dark. We don’t need to dust it or launder it. So it keeps piling up and blocking our flow of energy. Digital clutter like an inbox full of unread emails makes me not want to log into my email. Which only allows the emails to keep flowing in without me reading or deleting any of it. Mental clutter like a continuous to-do list or a spiral of worries leads to a loss of productivity or an inability to make effective or empowered decisions. If I’m always reacting to the stories and worries in my mind, I’m not equipped to evaluate each choice with a clear head and aligned priorities. Emotional clutter like unresolved issues in a relationship or frustration, fear or anger cuts me off from the love that might be right in front of me because more intense and immediate emotions are causing a kind of commotion that blinds me to the joy I’m really after.

Occasionally, I will go into my email every and unsubscribe from all the newsletters and promotional lists that I no longer read. I’ll scroll through friends’ lists and contacts and delete the ones I don’t really know. I’ll take a look at my subscriptions and cancel the ones I’m not using. 

I do this when I notice myself deleting more emails than I read. I do this when I’m not sure why certain people are showing up in my social feed or where they came from. I do this when I receive a renewal notice for a service I haven’t thought about or used in months.

One of my intentions for this year is to be more proactive about decluttering my many spaces instead of waiting for it to become too much, especially my digital spaces. I’m planning to make this a regular practice. I’d love to do it once a month, but it will probably work out to be more like once each quarter because I’m not that structured with my time just yet. And much like decluttering a physical space does, incorporating a regular decluttering of my digital space will open new opportunities. I know that when I have done a good purge and hauled away bags and boxes of things we no longer need or use, my physical surroundings feel brighter and the space helps me breathe more deeply. Because I’ve made room for new things, better things to come into it. The same thing happens when I go through my mental, emotional and digital spaces.

I’ve been looking at my digital clutter over the last few weeks and looking into ways to both identify the excess and simplify my online life. I’ve been tempted to jump into new accounts, and even though there have been times when I have leaped before I looked, most of the time, I can look at something new and say, “no” or “not yet” to it. 

I’m evaluating the tools I have been using, and asking myself what’s working and what’s not. This gives me a clearer view about what I need and want in any given program, app or tool. So when it comes time to renew my subscription or move on, I am in a position to move with purpose and intention instead of hanging onto something ineffective just because I don’t know where else to go. 

But this is one of those activities that can get really involved really quickly. I gravitate toward minimalism. So I really do try to be conscious when I sign up for new services or email lists or whatever else I might choose to bring into my space. That said, I have a whole lot of freebies sitting in my download folder that I’ve never opened after signing up for the email lists that offered them to me.

Simplification isn’t a one-time thing. It’s something that takes consistent and conscious effort to create and maintain. And that’s the lesson I’m getting from all of this. Yes, it’s important to be mindful of what you choose to consume, physically, mentally, emotionally and digitally. But it’s also important to forgive yourself for getting caught up in a moment of excitement and being persuaded to grab something that you really didn’t want or need. That’s how this whole thing works. Even simple tools, apps, games or systems can end up becoming complicated all on their own as time goes on. The game “Among Us,” for example, used to be pretty fun. It was a cute little game to play with family and friends. Now, there are more roles and more things to learn. So we haven’t played in awhile. I understand needing to keep things “fresh,” but there’s a cost that comes with the addition of certain kinds of features.

As humans, I think we’re prone to overcomplicating things. We are easily influenced by whatever the people in our social circles are doing. We want to be smarter, faster, stronger and better than we were before, and we’re always looking for ways to get ourselves there. And we’ll sign up for anything that offers us a solution, whether it will actually work for us or not. Even though most of us know that the real and lasting solution never comes in the form of a quick fix, no matter what the marketing copy says. 

Simplification is a process. Letting go is a process. So is letting in. And to have balance, we need to do both on a regular basis. By letting go of what no longer serves, we open space to receive bigger and better.

What are you going to let go of today? Are you participating in any decluttering challenges? Do you have a regular purging practice? What would you do with more mental bandwidth? An empty inbox? More counter or desk space?