3 Ways to Free up Mental Space

There are 3 things I have done at the start of this year that have felt really good and intentional and have freed up so much mental energy I know they will have set me up for a focused and productive year ahead.

And though they haven’t been directly business-growth activities or even items on my priority list for the start of the year, with 3 kids at home on extended Christmas holidays (and then extended even further with all 3 of them quarantined due to you-know-what), this was a “gentle” way to ease back into the business and create some mental space.

This is not your typical “start of the year” priority list.  BUT, whether it’s the start of a new year or anytime during the year, I highly recommend taking a few hours to do these “tech” decluttering activities:

1. Unsubscribe from as many email lists as possible  

Here were some of the kinds of emails I was getting that I unsubscribed from:

- People who have the same or vaguely similar kind of business to me.  I am done with "being curious" as to what other people are doing.  It's never a good idea.  It makes you question your own content, focus, plan, pricing - everything!  In my case, I unsubscribed from anyone who is a life and/or business coach (except my own life/business coaches!)

- People whose content I had outgrown.  There were people I had been following for a while, whose content was useful when I was first starting out in business or first changing my niche, but I am in a very different place now.  I have decided to say a virtual thank you to those folks and leave their worlds.

- Those random people I had downloaded something from.  From the days of freebie hunting and feeling like I just didn't know enough, I downloaded tons of stuff.  There are people who send me emails now that I have no idea who they are or what they do and their emails don’t resonate or add any value to my life or business.

- Online shops selling stuff I am no longer interested in - like stuff for babies or little children (mine are past that stage thankfully!) or random sports gear or household shops.  I seemed to be on a lot of mailing lists for shops or people selling stuff that’s just not relevant to my life.  

- Subscriptions/marketing related to my "past life" (in corporate).  I don't know why 10 years on I was still receiving these kinds of emails.  I think I didn't want to let go "in case" and because that career was so much a part of my identity.  Now, my business is established and strong enough I feel I can fully leave that whole part of my life in the past.

2. Leave all the Facebook Groups I don't participate in

Now, I need to say that FB does not make this easy for you to do. 

I did discover that if you click on the “settings” icon under Groups, there is an option to “Manage Groups” and your “Membership”.  If you do this, it will give you a pop-up and you can sort your groups and do a one-button click to leave any that you select (one by one).

My goodness, I sort of knew that I was a member of a lot of groups but I had NO IDEA just how many. 

So here are the criteria I used to leave:

• Groups I had not visited in the last 6 months (there were some groups I hadn’t visited in over 3 years!) 
• Groups that were no longer relevant or that I was no longer interested in.  This includes groups for my previous niche, groups for mums of little kids, groups for city-dwellers, groups for my previous career, etc.
• And the most tricky to figure out were the groups that could have still been relevant but that didn’t sit well with me.  The leader of the group didn’t resonate or the community wasn’t one I wanted to be a part of for whatever reason.  Sorting through these took the longest as I had to visit each group, scroll down to see some of the discussions and content and then make a decision.

The result is that I left probably 2/3rds of the groups I was in. 

I can now actually SEE all the groups I am a member of. 

That means I can focus on participating in these communities intentionally rather than allowing FB to decide what appears in my group feed and the content I see.  

3. Unfollow people on social

Now, this is something I highly recommend to all my clients, but I personally hadn’t done a filter of my social media in a while. 

As we enter 2022, there is definitely social media fatigue in the air and I am not immune to this at all.  As a non-social media user prior to establishing my business, getting on social media has required a lot of mindset work and it’s been a slow journey for me which has felt heavy at times.

That said, I had already previously done a cull of my social accounts and unfollowed a lot of people whose posts didn’t have a good effect on me.  Some rubbed me up the wrong way, some left me feeling really judgemental, some left me full of self-doubt. 

So my rule is, unless someone’s posts make me feel good - either inspired, motivated or just happy (because it’s social and sometimes it feels good to be social and see friends’ posts!) - I unfollow. 

That’s not to say you need to “feel good” when you’re on social.  But for me, that was an easy measure.

And it goes without saying, definitely unfollow anyone who is a competitor or in the same space as you, unless it’s your own mentor. Like being on their email list, it’s just never a good idea!

So there you have it, the 3 things I’ve taken some time to do at the beginning of this year to get me off to an intentional start. 

No, they haven’t been revenue-generating or business growth-focused, but they are about maintaining the best mindset for these activities and personal wellbeing.

Other potential “tech decluttering” activities out there on my non-priority list that I’ll tackle one day and that you may also want to consider are:

• Organising my Google Drive/Dropbox/iCloud/Computer.

    Putting everything into Folders and deleting all outdated or unnecessary documents.

• Reviewing all software subscriptions

  (like streaming apps, calendar apps or stock photo subscriptions) and cancelling any that I don’t use or no longer need.

• Reviewing all the apps on my phone/computer

  and deleting those I don’t use.  I don’t know about you but I have tons of apps on my phone I don’t use and swiping through the pages of them each day feels unnecessary.

Perhaps in other years, I would have gotten off to a more standing start, but with everything that has been going on and 3 kids confined to the house, this was something I could do that didn’t take too much mental energy and felt AMAZING to have done.  It wasn’t a priority, goal or even on my to-do list, but it feels SO GOOD to have done it, leaving me feeling lighter, intentional and ready for the year ahead.

What about you? Have you done a tech declutter recently?  Or do anything else to free up mental space?  What did you do and how did you feel afterward?