5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Mind

You know it’s a good idea to spring clean your house, but have you ever tried to spring clean your mind?

Research shows that spring cleaning your space can help reduce stress, boost immunity, improve your mood, prevent injuries, and lead to more relaxing sleep.

Spring cleaning your mind can do even more for you as a writer. It is the source of your creativity, but it—like your house—can get bogged down with clutter that over time, piles up to block new ideas and slow inspiration.

To get your creative brain humming again, try these five spring-cleaning tips.

1. Spring Clean Your Mind by Trashing Negative Thoughts

A large part of spring-cleaning your home is getting rid of stuff you don’t use anymore, or stuff that no longer “sparks joy” as author Marie Kondo says. We writers need to do the same with our minds.

After being in the writing world for a while, it’s easy to experience a buildup of negative thoughts. With each rejection, poor review, or lackluster book launch, we can begin to worry that we’re not good enough, we’re not devoting enough time to writing, or we’re not cut out for marketing.

Unfortunately, the more these negative thoughts pile up, the more they can drag us down, stealing our writing energy and motivation.

Here’s an exercise to try: Set the timer for 10 minutes and quickly jot down every thought about writing that comes to your mind. Double-space your answers, and limit each one to just a few words. Examples may include, “Writing is hard,” “I like to write,” “I never have time to write,” and “I can’t get published.”

(I encourage you to do this now, before going to the next step or you’ll bias your results.)

When the 10 minutes is over, look over your list and mark each thought as either positive or negative. If you find you have more negative thoughts than positive ones, it’s time to clear those out.

Start by cutting out the written negative thoughts and literally throwing them in the trash. Keep only the positive thoughts you had, and for the next week, spend 10 minutes every night adding to that list of only positive thoughts.

Gradually train yourself to think far more about the positive than the negative ways writing affects you. This will help boost your creativity and your energy and give your writing life a lift. (Read more: “How to Rephrase Your Self-Talk to Boost Your Writer’s Confidence.”)

2. Spring Clean Your Mind By Clearing Out Distractions

Your distractions are likely causing you stress, and stress kills creativity. Not only that, distractions rob you of time to write.

So what is a distraction? The dictionary defines it as “a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.” In today’s world, we have more distractions than ever before, all of them vying for our attention, and many of them scientifically designed to pull us in over and over again.

Try this: Start by spring-cleaning your smartphone. Remove all of the apps you either aren’t using or want to stop using. (Which ones fail to “spark joy?”) Clear the space on your home screen so it looks open and uncluttered.

Next, do the same to your computer(s). Clear off the home screen, put up a new piece of wallpaper that makes you happy, and dump any old files or programs that are dragging you and your machine down.

Finally, spring-clean your approach to your writing sessions. From now on, turn everything off before you start to write. This includes your internet connection, phone (or at least place it in another room), the television, and anything else that might draw your attention away from your story. No exceptions! Allow yourself to sink completely into the imaginary world you’re creating.

3. Spring Clean Your Mind by Decluttering Your Morning Routine

Do you check your phone first thing in the morning? If so, you may want to consider changing that habit.

How you start your day has a big influence on how the rest of your day goes. If your mornings are stressed, hurried, and full of distractions, it’s going to be very difficult to recover that sense of calm, relaxation, and focus you need when it’s time to write.

Try this: Imagine your perfect morning. How would it go? What would you do? What would you not do? Picture this perfect morning in your mind. Then write down what that morning looks like. Be very detailed and answer these questions:

• What time do you wake up?
• How do you wake up? Do you use an alarm, music, light, or just wake up naturally?
• What is the first thing you do after you wake up? Think carefully about this step, as it’s important. Instead of looking at your phone, consider writing for 15 minutes. Or try meditating for that time, or writing a gratitude list. What you do first can set the tone for the day.
• What is the second thing you do after waking up? Again, try to make this a thoughtful, purposeful activity. Maybe you take a jog or do some other form of exercise, or you enjoy a nutritious, unhurried breakfast.
• How do you feel after a morning like this? Imagine your best mood and energy level, then strive to achieve that each day.

Once you have your perfect morning in mind, do your best to achieve it. On those mornings when it doesn’t happen, forgive yourself and then try again. Over time, you’ll be able to clean out those old stressful habits and incorporate new, creativity-inducing ones.

4. Spring Clean Your Mind by Getting 7-8 Hours of Sleep Per Night

New research shows that when you sleep, your brain conducts its own cleaning process. Scientists from Boston University reported that while you sleep, “something amazing will happen within your brain. Your neurons will go quiet. A few seconds later, blood will flow out of your head. Then, a watery liquid called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) will flow in, washing through your brain in rhythmic, pulsing waves.”

Another study from the University of Rochester found that not all sleep is equal, however, when it comes to the brain’s cleaning ability. It’s most efficient during deep, REM sleep when you’re dreaming.

In other words, if you’re not getting a good night’s sleep that includes deep REM sleep, you’re probably waking up with your brain still dusty around the edges. That not only increases the risk of brain health problems like dementia and Alzheimer’s, but it can reduce your creative energy when it comes to writing, too.

Try this: Make getting 7-8 hours of sleep per night a priority. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Keep all technological gadgets (including televisions and phones) out of the bedroom, and make your room dark and cool.

5. To Spring Clean Your Mind, Make Space for New Thinking

One of the benefits of spring-cleaning your home is creating new space. With everything that you throw away or donate, you gain more space. Then you have the choice to either enjoy that space as is or fill it with something that is good for you.

Imagine your brain as your dream home. Right now, it’s probably cluttered with negative thoughts, worries, things to do, old routines, and more. That leaves little room for anything else.

To experience the benefits of a spring clean, you need to make new space in your brain. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a physical way to drain, trash, or donate our thoughts, but we can clear things out another way.

Try this: You know the many benefits of meditation. It’s been linked with improved health and cognition, and it’s the one technique that can help you create new space in your brain. Maybe you’ve tried it without success.

I urge you to give it a go one more time, but in a different way. Simply light a candle, then sit down in front of that candle. Set the timer for 5-10 minutes, start it, and spend the time staring into the flame. Let it burn behind your eyes. Think only about that flame. When other thoughts occur to you, let them go and return your attention to the flame.

This exercise is a simple form of meditation that helps quiet your mind and yes, create space in your brain. The more you practice it, the more you can master the technique of quieting your mind when you want to. This can be very helpful say, before a writing session when you need to open up space for your characters and your story.

How do you spring clean your mind?
_{Photo by Kelvin Valerio from Pexels.}