Transcript

Spring clean. Start at one end of the house and touch every item,

Do I still want it?
Do I still need it? Have I used it in the last year?

No? Then give it to charity. Yes, even the T-shirt that you think is so sentimental.

Dust and wipe and clean, re-arrange everything.

The charity bag gets bigger, overflows. The neighbors are grateful for their new books. The recycling pile is full of half-finished moments from your past.

The smell of a clean home. The calm luxury of space. New found appreciation for old things.

Space for new stories.

Welcome to a quick pause. A weekly podcast offering a moment of reflection, a chance to care for ourselves and to show up for each other.

Each week I'll offer you an inspiration and a practice to try.

Over the last months, a lot of us had a spring clean moment or two. Maybe you deep cleaned the house, organized your books, painted walls or planted your balcony...

Getting rid of clutter isn't just cool enough to warrant a whole bunch of Netflix shows, it really helps us find calm and focus, too.

Declutter your home, declutter your mind. One helps the other.

So whether or not you already had a Maria Kondo moment this year and organized your home, this week I invite you to spring clean your mind.

Here's one way of doing it:

Take a piece of paper, or a double spread in your journal. Make two lists of things on for mind.

Things you think you should do on the left. Things you feel you want to do on the right.

Let's call them the Should-Dos and the Want-Tos

And before you do anything else, just notice which list is longer.

Then do through the lists and ask yourself:

Can I clean this away, or trash it?

Then, just cross it out.

Do I need to recycle this?

Can you take a Should-Do and look at it from a different perspective? How does it change? Do you really feel you want to do it? Or do you think you should want it because someone else told you?

Which ones can you do right now?

Are there any small things you can get out of the way? Ticking something off the list right now will motivate you so much more than overthinking it all. Write that text you've been meaning to send, or take the trash out.

Once you're done, rewrite your lists. The Should-Dos and the Want-Tos.

Use these lists as a base for your daily check-in this week.

Some things just need to get done. But not everything needs to get done today. Set yourself a realistic goal of what you can do today. Pick the tasks for today, highlight them, and keep the rest for a later day.

In the evening take a moment to look at your list, tick everything off you achieved and give yourself a little pat on the back.

If you picked up more than you could handle today, check in with the things you didn't do. Why didn't you do them? Do you still want to do them? Or maybe you can trash some of the left-over items on your list?

And notice if you have done more Should-Dos, or more Want-Tos. Allow yourself to make time for what brings you joy.

Tomorrow, repeat from the start.Your Should-Do and Want-To lists might change quite a bit throughout the week, that's fine. Make sure to re-write your lists every morning. The magic happens when you look at the things on your list again and again. Especially if you have to consider if it's worth re-writing something, or if it's easier to just cross it out and let it go.

That's it. If you want to dive deeper, sit down first thing in the morning and just fill a page in your journal with anything that is on your mind. Write sentences, sketch, anything. Just don't stop until the page is full. Start to notice what's on your mind, what distracts and what feels important. Then go write your lists.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. Now, go on, get rid of some of that mental clutter.

Until next week,

I'm Jonas Haefele and this was a Quick Pause.