I’ve decluttered a lot of my life for the past two days, and something was nagging at the back of my mind. Like many people, I’ve been amassing an extensive collection of clothes, boxes, and old trinkets over the years. I thought that I had already gotten rid of many things I didn’t need anymore, but last week I opened a drawer and realized I don’t remember the last time I wore anything inside of it. That made me look at my bookshelves, in my closet, and around my computer, and I saw many things that I either hadn’t touched in a long time or some things I meant to throw out but was too lazy to bother with. So, I set out to correct my room and calendar, thinking that deep cleaning my life was what I needed to do today. I mentally prioritized my goals & tasks and then cleaned & cleared out a lot of unnecessary things from my room, but my days felt incomplete.
The first thing I did was to clear out my closet and dresser. I then bought a rolling rack and hung only the clothes that I’ve worn regularly, over the past few months, on it. I offered the leftover clothing to other people who might want them, and then I bagged the rest for donation. Everything I wear consistently fit on that one rolling rack, and my closet and dresser were utterly empty. I organized everything by type and kept all pants, t-shirts, button-ups, sweaters, and jackets on the rack. I put all my sweatpants, shorts, and misc in my dresser, which left me with two empty drawers. I used the last two drawers to store medicine and self-care products.
After sorting and minimizing my wardrobe, I set about cleaning the rest of my room. I made space where I could, removed what I no longer needed, and found that I needed a lot less than I initially believed by the end of it. The most rewarding part was sweeping, mopping, and dusting my room, which are things I rarely did. The space that I spend most of my time in felt clean and uncluttered. But, the strangest feeling was when I finished all of that; I felt like I missed something. It felt like I could do more, but I could not find anything else to either throw away or reduce in quantity.
Since I still felt unfinished, I set about organizing my calendar and creating a task list. I updated any upcoming bill due dates, cleared out old reminders and made new ones, created a daily task list and a “Get Done Now” to-do list, and even then, I still felt like my day was incomplete. I checked, double-checked, and still couldn’t figure out what I was missing for the day. It lasted so long that I thought I would never “finish” my day, and it would bother me late into the night.
That is, of course, until I started writing today’s entry. It took me until right now to realize that writing was what I needed today. I missed four days of journaling, and my body and mind started to feel uncomfortable because I wasn’t sticking to the plan I laid out for myself. Not being consistent is a strange feeling since I spent a lot of time not doing anything before I set my daily writing goal. Before I decided to write something every day, all I did was go to work, come home, play games, binge-watch YouTube, and repeat. So, I felt uneasy and like I hit a roadblock today because I haven’t been writing, and that feels both alien and encouraging for my future.
When I started this journey to devote myself to these journal entries, I was in high spirits and eager to make it happen. Recently I talked about bad habits not going away just because I started taking medication, and I fell right back into one of my worst habits ever. I procrastinated and then justified it to myself that I was “taking a break” or “off work on the weekends,” and that laziness leaked into my weekdays. I almost stopped writing altogether, and I probably would have too if it weren’t for my subconscious kicking my butt for breaking my promise. So, remember, if you feel like you forgot to do something and after exhausting every form of searching for the answer, you might have forgotten a promise you made to yourself and should continue to do what you set out to accomplish. Otherwise, you’ll just beat yourself up deep into the night for forgetting something.
Or, you did forget something and should probably backtrace your steps or check your to-do list because it might be important. But, don’t procrastinate!
