Are you spending your free time doing things you don’t enjoy?
Even the most organized and highly productive people have negative thought patterns and bad habits toxic for their mental outlook.
Start 2020 with a detox plan to change the course of your life. Create a plan customized just for you, and you’ll feel more at peace in the new year.
Keep reading for our guide to freeing up mental space and making room for more things you enjoy!
Table of Contents
When to Start a Life Detox Plan
It doesn’t have to be January first to start a life detox, but the best time to start is following a new life transition.
A new year can be a great time, as it’s an opportunity to start fresh with a new calendar. Let go of old, toxic thought and behavior patterns. Declutter your social life and focus on the people and activities that you feel good about.
If you start at the beginning of the year, you can evaluate your goals at the end of the year to see the impact of the changes you made.
Digital Devices
We’re all surrounded by clutter in our physical lives, but have you ever stopped to think about your digital life? Think iPhone home screens, email inboxes, documents, and apps on your laptop. Yikes!
You could spend an entire day organizing all of this digital clutter. Here are a few tips to guide you through the process.
Email Inbox
Are you one of those people who never delete emails?
If so, going through each individual email is very overwhelming. Instead of pouring through thousands of junk emails, start fresh with these steps:
- Search for important emails by searching for important keywords and senders (i.e. family members, your bank, your landlord). Reply to any outstanding emails and sort those right away.
- You know those daily newsletters that you subscribed to long ago, but ignore every day? Unsubscribe. It will take three seconds and you’ll thank us later.
- Delete the rest of the emails or archive them just in case. Most email providers offer an ample amount of free storage for this.
- Determine a system for checking your email and cleaning up your inbox each day. This way it’s never an overwhelming amount of emails to sort through.
Laptop
There are many apps available to help you get rid of clutter on your computer. Download a few and see which ones meet your needs. You can also:
- For documents, trash anything that isn’t important and arrange the others in folders sorted by topic.
- Consider cloud storage so you never have to worry about losing your important documents. Plus, it’s convenient to access important documents from anywhere.
Phone Apps
Before you start, delete apps you don’t use or need anymore. Then organize the rest in a way that makes sense to you. For starters:
- Put your most-used apps on the home screen and create folders for different topics, such as travel, social media, and photography.
- Use a cloud-based photo storage application to organize your photos. They will help you delete pointless screenshots and other clutter that has accumulated on your camera roll.
- Then, delete all of your images from your phone and promise yourself to stick to a regular photo organization process.
- Check into your storage settings to determine what takes up the most space on your phone. The most likely culprit is content downloaded within apps, such as podcasts or YouTube videos.
Physical Space
Now, it’s time to address your physical space. The state of your living space can have a dramatic effect on your mood and mental wellbeing. Start small with steps like these:
- Try the KonMari method. Go through each item one by one, throw them into a big pile and throw away or donate anything that doesn’t bring you joy. Also, get rid of anything you haven’t used in over six months.
- As you clean, use all-natural products and safe alternatives to pesticides and fertilizers. You can learn more about minimizing the toxins in your home from this website.
Toxic Relationships
You can’t detox your life without examining your relationships. Increase your mental happiness by removing negativity caused by toxic people in your life.
Social Media
Your online presence might be the most difficult aspect of your life to detox, but it’s easier if you take it one step at a time.
- Unfollow people on social media you know aren’t good for you or that you don’t know.
- Come up with a personal system for maintenance. Limit your social media use to an amount that works for you. Maybe turn off your notifications or mute groups you’re no longer interested in.
Real Life
Yes, you may be a victim of toxic relationships in daily life. How do you determine who lifts you up in life and who brings you down?
- Make a list of the people you spend the most time with, then ask yourself how you feel about spending time with each of them.
- If you’re not excited about spending time with them, or you associate them with negative feelings, it might be time to let go of those friendships.
- Ending a friendship doesn’t have to be abrupt. You don’t need to tell the person you don’t want to spend time with them anymore. You can slowly detach.
Detox for Life
This life detox plan is only a guide. Customize it to match your goals and desires for the new year.
Make the changes you implement a part of your daily routine and eventually, you won’t even realize you’re enacting them. You’ll be on your way to a happier and healthier you.
Tasteful Space is a blog devoted to lifestyle, beauty, fashion, and everything in between. If you want more content, follow along on social media!
