Clutter isn't just the physical mess in your surroundings; it can also manifest in your mind. Have you ever felt like your brain resembles a messy room, filled with a jumble of thoughts, worries, and an endless to-do list? You're not alone. In this episode, we explore the concept of mental clutter—having too many thoughts that make concentration, decision-making, and a sense of calm challenging.
I stumbled upon the term "mental clutter" one day while scrolling after work, and it resonated deeply. Now, I want to share with you simple ways to tame the mental clutter that often plagues our busy lives as working moms.
So, if your mind feels like it's on overload with thoughts, ideas, and tasks, stay tuned. I'll be sharing practical tips on how to lighten the mental load, clear the mental clutter, and find a sense of calm amidst the chaos.
SHOW NOTES: https://www.realhappymom.com/228
NEXT STEPS
Grab Your Freebies: https://www.realhappymom.com
Check Out the Course: https://courses.realhappymom.com
Clutter isn't just the physical mess in your surroundings; it can also manifest in your mind. Have you ever felt like your brain resembles a messy room, filled with a jumble of thoughts, worries, and an endless to-do list? You're not alone. In this episode, we explore the concept of mental clutter—having too many thoughts that make concentration, decision-making, and a sense of calm challenging.
I stumbled upon the term "mental clutter" one day while scrolling after work, and it resonated deeply. Now, I want to share with you simple ways to tame the mental clutter that often plagues our busy lives as working moms.
So, if your mind feels like it's on overload with thoughts, ideas, and tasks, stay tuned. I'll be sharing practical tips on how to lighten the mental load, clear the mental clutter, and find a sense of calm amidst the chaos.
SHOW NOTES: https://www.realhappymom.com/228
NEXT STEPS
Grab Your Freebies: https://www.realhappymom.com
Check Out the Course: https://courses.realhappymom.com
When you think about clutter, I'm pretty sure what first comes to mind is piles of paper on your desk or excessive amounts of toys scattered in the kids playroom, or maybe it's all the things on the countertops in the kitchen. But clutter can also be in your mind, also known as mental clutter. I was scrolling one day and stumbled on this word of mental clutter and it stopped me in my tracks because I was intrigued about this mental clutter. Because Let's just be real as busy working moms. We deal with a lot of things that are coming into our minds. So I learned that mental clutter means that we have too many thoughts, worries, or even things on our mind. And it makes it very hard to concentrate, make choices, feel calm. Now, mental clutter comes in different forms, like thinking too much about things or going over the same thoughts over and over again, or overthinking situations. And in all these cases, it clutters up our mind and prevents us from really showing up and being our best. If your brain is feeling a bit like a messy room, all cluttered up with too many thoughts and worries with things to remember, guess what? We are going to be talking about that in this episode. name is Toni Anne. I am the podcast host of the Real Happy Mom podcast, the podcast for busy working moms who need more time and help with achieving their big goals without pulling their hair out. And as a busy mom, your mind is swirling with thoughts and ideas, to do lists and things to remember. And all of these things add up to mental clutter. So I want you to stay tuned to this episode to learn how you can lighten up the mental load and relieve your stress. of the mental clutter. So recently I have been going through some changes at work and it has been very very stressful. Long story short, a different company has come out and bought out my previous employer and whenever there is change It can be a little stressful. So not only did I have that going on, I am in the process of planning my first virtual summit, which I am so excited about. I feel like a kid on Christmas, but this has come at a time when there are just a lot of things going on and my mind is just overflowing with things. And whenever I am in a situation where my mind is just overwhelmed and I don't think, well, I start saying like random things that don't make sense. And the person who catches on to this the quickest is my husband. And whenever I do this, he says, do you need a Snickers? And that is my cue that. I need to take a break and my brain isn't, isn't functioning right. So if you're familiar with the Snickers commercials where people who are hungry, they start acting out and then they get a Snickers and they're great. That's pretty much what he's saying about me. So I have learned the trigger words or a phrase is, do you need a Snicker? So I know that I need to stop and just pause and see what's going on. So I realized that mental clutter manifests in different ways throughout our daily life. It can take on different forms like the continuous flow of thoughts, like the thoughts that I was having about all the changes that were happening at work, or the continuous flow of thoughts of what was going to happen with my kids after school, or the continuous racing thoughts of all the things that I need to do once I get home. All of this can start to clutter up in our minds, and another way that mental clutter can show up is feeling this sense of overload or having trouble focusing. And I'm sure you probably have felt that before, where you just have so many things that are bombarding your mind, you can't even focus on the thing that is right in front of your face. Or maybe it's feeling mentally scattered and overwhelmed. All of these things are manifestations of what mental clutter looks like throughout our days. Now, I showed you how it shows up, but what are some of the causes of mental clutter? Now, especially for working moms, we, we have a lot going on. When we are multitasking, that is one of the big things that I have seen. That. Really contributes to this mental clutter. So if your mind is switching between tasks, your mind will be thinking about something else while you've moved on to, to another task. So multitasking and dividing our attention can easily get our mind cluttered when we have multiple things going on at one time. Now, another cause of having mental clutter is the wonderful world of smartphones and computers. As much as I love technology, it is a really great thing, don't get me wrong, but it can definitely contribute to the mental clutter. We get tons of emails notifications from social media information from the news. Our notifications are constantly going off on our phones for different apps. All of these things can start to clutter our minds and when we're trying to deal with all of this information all at once, this can definitely make our minds feel messy. And lastly, another cause of mental clutter is after a hard day's work, we come home to the family and you know, with all of the emotions, especially from, from everyone else, it can really start to stress us out and cause anxiety. And this, these big emotions and all of the stress can really add to the mental clutter because your mind starts to. ruminate or get preoccupied with some of the negative emotions and stress that is going on and clutter up your mind. So I just talked to you about how mental clutter shows up. I just talked about some of the common causes of mental clutter. So let's move into some ways that we can break free and start to clear the mental clutter. Cause just like we want to declutter our kitchen and get rid of all of the unnecessary spatulas that we have, there are some things that we can do to declutter our minds so that we can operate and show up our best without all the mental clutter. So first thing I would definitely say is daily prioritization. Now there are several different ways that you can do this, but this is the way that I have found to be very, very effective. So when you are feeling like your mind is just going all of which ways and you just don't even know where to start because it's just so much going on first, stop, set a timer for give yourself about five minutes and just literally write out. Everything that's going on in your mind, everything that you need to do on a piece of paper. So I know you've heard me talk about brain dumping, but it has literally saved me many, many times from having a nervous breakdown because it was just too much going on in my brain. So literally taking all the things that are going on inside of your mind and putting them on paper. One, this will help to relieve your, your brain of all of the things you have stored up inside and start to clear things out. But it doesn't stop there. Next, you want to look at all the things that you've dumped out onto this piece of paper and start to organize things. What are some things that are similar or things that you could actually put together in a group? Like, for instance, if it's certain phone calls that you need to make, or there's certain errands that you need to run, or maybe there's certain things that you need to do for the kids that can be found at a certain place. Whatever those things are, try to see if you can start organizing things into different groups. And then start to prioritize things and see like what actually needs to get done right right now what can be done This week and what can be done whenever Because a lot of times we are having thoughts of things that we need to do that don't even necessarily need to happen right now Because I know there have been many times where I am stressing out about things That are literally like months away or years away like Tonyann Why are you stressing out about what college your kids are gonna go to like my kids are only 7 and 11 like Calm down. Like, yes, we, we want to be prepared and be proactive, but getting yourself all stressed about things that are happening out in the future is not something that is going to be productive for you. So look and see what are some of the things that you can prioritize that needs to be done here pretty soon. And then lastly, we're still not done yet. Lastly, we want to start to schedule things out. Schedule out when we can get some of these things done so that we don't have to store these things in our brains and and have it cluttering up our minds When are some things that we can get when it's some time rather that we can get these things done Maybe you can batch all of your phone calls one day. Maybe you can batch, you know, all of the errands that you need to run after work or maybe you can Schedule out time to actually sit down and really plan out how you want to have your kids next birthday party Or whatever it is that you have coming up Look at what you have on that list that you've already organized and prioritized and see when you can start to schedule out these things So you can relieve your stress of the mental clutter And then lastly, I would say planning some catch up days because whenever we make plans, life tends to life, life happens and it's going to throw you off. And I don't want you to feel like just because you plan to get certain things done when you were scheduling things out and it just didn't work because the kids got sick or, you know, the AC stopped working or, you know, you had to work late at work, whatever it is that can. throw things off. Plan in some catch up days where you can get caught up if there are still some things that you haven't gotten done because life happened. So that is the first actionable step that I would say in tackling the mental clutter. So let's move on to the second thing. The second thing that I know has been very, very helpful, at least for me, especially when there is a lot of mental clutter is journaling. This is something that is free and easy to do. You can journal right on your smartphone, just open up the notes app and just start typing away or take an old notebook and just write out what you're feeling. Now, writing out your thoughts and feelings is an easy way to get those things that are in your mind out and on to a piece of paper. Journaling has been proven to improve mental health, reduce stress and anxiety, and increase creativity amongst many other things. So take some time to just sit down and just write out. How do you feel today? What's been going on? What's been bothering you? What are some things that you can look forward to? Or maybe what are some of the things that have been running around in your mind and taking up space without even paying rent? What are those things? Write those things down and journal it out. So that was number two. Number three, I would say is delegate some of the mental load. Oftentimes as moms, we feel that we have to take on. I'm going to be doing everything ourselves, but I encourage you to share some of this responsibility with some of the other members in your household, as well as people at work. You can let people know like, Hey, like I can't take on this project right now. Like I'm already to capacity, like I can't do any more. Don't sit there and stress yourself out. And you know, Accumulate more mental clutter by taking on more tasks and projects when you don't even have the capacity to do it. So speak up, let people know like, Hey, I need help, or, no, I can't do it. Not today. So number four, I would say, is clearing out your space. Now I know we've been talking about a lot about mental clutter, and in the beginning I brought up about physical clutter, there is this correlation between physical clutter and the mental clutter that you feel. And that is just because our minds see all of the clutter that's going on and it gets us all distracted and makes it hard for us to focus and concentrate. So if you are working at your desk or maybe you're in the kitchen, wherever it is that you're working, just try to get things just a little bit more organized. So your brain isn't just going bonkers with all of the things that are going on in your physical space. And then this will in turn help to clear up some of the mental space so that you don't have all of that mental clutter. Now my last tip for you is to leave some room for margin throughout your days. And what I mean is that I, I know that we are really ambitious and we have a lot of things that we want to get done. And, and many times we will look at our days and see that we have. So many hours and think like, yeah, let me just jam back in with all this stuff. Like, you know, I can do this during work. I can pick up the kids. I can do this. I can take them to, to their practice. And while they're at practice, I can do this and this and this. And we will jam pack so many things and think that we can get all these things done on our to do list. And that really takes up a lot of the mental space and gets us pretty stressed and overwhelmed, especially when there's a lot going on now, don't get me wrong. There are certain times. Especially in our cycle when we are like superwomen and we are just doing everything, but you can't function like this all the time. So leave some room for margin, leave some room for you to rest, leave some room for potty breaks. Because I, I'll be honest with you and raise, raise my hand that, you know. I had my primary care kind of give me a little, a little talking to because I was developing UTIs and it was just because like, I just was working and not stopping. And she was like, I understand you're in healthcare, but you got to take care of yourself. So leave room for you to have some space, space to just rest, space to just be, to breathe, to think, just have some room. in your days, in your schedule in your weeks for that room for margins so that you can have some breathing time. All right. So those are my tips for you to help you with relieving yourself of the mental clutter so that you can show up and be your absolute best. Now if you have some other things that have been helpful for you and relieving the mental clutter, please share it with me. I'm back on Instagram, so definitely send me a DM you know, comment on the post that may be related to this particular episode and let me know what. It is that you are doing to help clear out the mental clutter. And then lastly, if you haven't already gotten your free ticket to let's get more time, I want you to stop what you are doing right now and go to the description of this podcast episode and click the link to let's get more time to get registered and get your free ticket. Let's Get More Time is happening February 22nd through the 24th. It is a free online virtual event for busy working moms who need more time to get things done without feeling overwhelmed and tired. This virtual event is three days and there are three themes that are going on with this event and I'm so pumped to share it with you. So the first day is all about mindset because before you can even start to implement any strategies We got to change our mindset and I have some phenomenal speakers that are gonna help you with tackling The mindset that has been getting you to feel and say I don't have time On the second day, we are going to be implementing some routines. So experts are going to share some time saving routines for you so that you can get more done without feeling more stress. And then lastly, on the third day, we are going to be talking about different apps that are going to help you with getting organized and saving time. I am so excited about this because I love, love, love Trello, but there is also several. other apps out there that can help you with saving time. And I have several experts that are going to share with you how you can save time using apps. So three days, like I said, for let's get more time, that is going to help you gain four hours to your week. And it is completely free. So make sure you get the link in the description to register for this event. Like I said, it's happening February 22nd. I don't want you to miss it. I really want to see you there. This is my first virtual summit. I am beyond excited about this event and I really would appreciate if you would show up and tell your friends, tell your family about it because you know what they say, sharing is caring. Now that is it for this episode. I hope that this one has been helpful for you. Make sure you stay tuned for next week for another episode where I will be sharing some clips from the presentations that are featured in Let's Get More Time. I promise you they are all so, so good. So, so juicy. So make sure you register for Let's Get More Time and stay tuned for next week for another full episode. That's it for this one. Take care and with lots of love.