Decluttered Room, Decluttered Mind

I never took the whole “messy room means a messy mind” thing seriously when I was growing up, no matter how many times my parents told me to clean my space. But I'm starting to have second thoughts. My room and I have gone through so many different phases together: there was an Egyptology phase, a black-and-red phase, and this really bizarre (and thankfully, very brief) lavender-everything phase that never made much sense. I can't really say what phase I’m in now, just that things are a strange melange of leftovers: my black comforter spills over my "Egyptian" gold spray-painted bed frame, a dragon puppet keeps watch over my houseplants, and I think there’s a dagger named Excalibur in my closet somewhere? What? A couple months ago, I mentioned that de-cluttering was a big goal for me. Too many times have I felt like Jennifer Connolly in that one scene from Labyrinth. Where to start? Like anything, I figured that it’s best to break this single massive task into many smaller ones. Last weekend, I decided to tackle my desk, since it’s my de facto office.

First impressions: it’s dusty, there’s random papers everywhere… I dusted everything down, shook out snack crumbs from my keyboard, and got rid of those random papers if I could. Whatever I needed to keep got filed away. And bonus: I ended up finding notepads I'd gotten as event freebies.

I also finally got around to putting my books back on my shelf after I moved them to take this photo:

It’s a bit crowded looking, but I’ve decided to try again at selling some of these textbooks. I’ve gone ahead and created a list of things I want to sell. The mantra of, “all you need is less” has been resonating with me ever since I purged my drawers of holey socks. Certain things, like old kid’s toys and clothes, are going to get donated, ideally before the holidays. While I don’t believe in living in a sterile, orderly environment (I like some mess, because it makes my space mine), I do think that clutter can easily get out of control and become mentally overwhelming to deal with. It can affect how you feel about work and studying, especially if clutter has been piling up for very long time like it has for me. At the risk of sounding like your parents: maybe it's time to clean your room?