Author Topic: Decluttering mentally  (Read 4512 times)

Linea_Norway

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Decluttering mentally
« on: January 30, 2018, 03:13:21 AM »
Hi.

We have the decluttering thread that stimulates everyone to declutter their house for stuff, which is great. I would also like to declutter mental things that cause stress in my life. Today when I walked to work, I listened again to a podcast about the happy filosofer who cut out watching the news and facebook. I like to make some of these changes in my own life.

My stressful elements/challenges to solve:
- Facebook
- TV
- Forum(s)
- Board membership

Facebook:
I am active in some groups that are beneficial for my hobbies. One of them is from a sports club that I am a member of, displaying training times and places. There is no other place to read where they train. The other group is helping me to learn new skills and people are actively teaching me, while I get the chance to teach others. Then there is a number of other groups, like the one about my local neighbourhood. It is displaying useful stuff, like telling weather the steep roads are cleared for snow, or weather some cars are stuck and blocking the road. But it also contains a lot of noise about less important stuff. I am also in a group that shows where ski trails are prepared near our cabin, which is very useful. I also like reading science articles, so I follow the IFLS group, which displayed articles pretty often.

I used to have a personal facebook group for another of my hobbies. I had a couple of members, but no one else than myself would ever initiate a posting on it. I have already deleted the whole group a couple of weeks ago, telling the people that there was too little activity to keep it running. It was actually causing me some stress.

We (DH and I) are currently not active in this sportsclub, but would like to go back to it later. My idea is to maybe choose some function in Facebook to stop following updates from this group, as I don't need to see them at the moment. But still be a silent member somehow.
Task: Find a function to stop getting updates from the sports club facebook site.

I guess I would like to keep the groups of that other hobby, as I learn so much from it and can teach others.

I should rather reduce the amount of other groups, like "your best pictures", "historical local pictures", "Norway is beautiful", "Build networks". We have a friend who tends to add all his contacts (including me) to all kinds of groups that he likes. This is how I ended up in them. I will reduce them.
Task: Start unsubscribing from uninteresting groups.

The there is the friend thing. I have become facebook friends with a lot of people, amongst others people from those hobbies, but also old friends and relatives. Some of these people are just not my kind of people anymore. I am slightly worried that unfriending them on facebook might seem offensive, while it is not meant that way. Maybe there is a way to do it carefully without them getting a notification.
Task: Start unfriending people on facebook that I am not interested in anymore.

TV:
We have only three TV channels, that we pay for by a general tax (mandatory). I like to watch a number of programs on it. They also have a good web TV to watch programs when it suits you. But there is also a large amount of sports on it. DH likes watching sports, but I am getting less and less interested in seeing the same people doing more or less the same exercises against each other, week after week at another location. We have an issue there that DH likes to have the TV on, showing sports, and I would prefer to turn it off when something uninteresting appears.
Task: Discuss with DH how I feel about meaningless sports programs.

We also tend to watch the 7 o'clock pm news, which take 45 minutes. It is on a state financed channel, so no commercial things are involved. But still. Most of the new is not interesting at all. I hope I can convince DH to stop watching this and rather watch the shorter 10 minute new bulletin later in the evening.
Task: Discuss with DH the alternative for 10 minute news bulletin.

I also like to read the online newspaper when I eat breakfast. But the free paper that I read is a typical paper with a lot of sensation/gossip articles, so 90% is utterly uninteresting. Of course, reading the news when eating is nice, but it is also a form of multi-tasking and therefore little mindful. If cut out, then how to be updated on the news? I have noticed that my colleagues sometimes read the paper during work. They tend to tell others when something shocking happens. My DH still reads papers a lot. He can also update me on important stuff. Of just the 10 minute news flash.
Task: Cut out newspaper reading during breakfast.

Forums:
I am a member on several internet forum, related to hobbies of mine. Currently I am only active on this one, as FIRE has my highest priority at the moment. As I just don't log into the other forums, I don't need to make any changes.

Board membership:
This is a huge stress factor. I am the board leader of our local private road with many households. One of the neighbours recruited me last year, telling that every household had to contribute in the board at some time. And somehow the older board members didn't want to take up the leader position. I volunteered, but now I understand why they didn't want it. What a constant stream of input, and so many politics involved. I absolutely hate it and get depressed every time I think about it. Currently 3/4 of the first year have passed and I have another 1 1/4 year to go. I hope I can convince someone else to take over the leadership position. I guess I will just have to sit it out.
Task: Call in for new meeting and let the others know I don't want to continue as leader.

Linea_Norway

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2018, 03:52:46 AM »
I have done the first thing: I have removed all my memberships from facebook groups that I don't want to be a member of. And I have disabled notifications in many others. Only the ones I am interested in are left.

Mongoose

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2018, 07:10:59 AM »
Just wanted to pop in with some encouragement. We cut way back on information and mental clutter and it is nice. Facebook was cut to just a few friends being on the newsfeed by hiding those who post everything. We cut TV altogether when we moved to a location with no free TV. The TV news was super stressful. Now we keep up by briefly scanning the headlines of an online newspaper. If your DH wants to continue to watch the news, is there a quiet spot for you to get away from it?

The board leadership sounds like the worst part of all of it. The good part might be that once you have served your time, you could firmly state that you have done extra by being the leader and are definitely done.

Laura33

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2018, 07:28:53 AM »
I would like to follow this, because mental clutter is something I really struggle with.  But I don’t feel like I can “join,” because I don’t have ideas or a plan to fix it!  I feel very out of control right now — I tend toward ADHD (the “old” version, without the “H” part), and I feel like it’s getting worse, so all of the home things and work things and kid things just sort of circle, and I have a constant low-grade tension because I’m always afraid something important is going to fall through the cracks.  So I have started just keeping running lists of work and home tasks so I can jot stuff down when I think of it, and anything that involves an actual due date or DH goes on our shared calendar.  But it’s not good enough, and the mental noise is still there.

The funny thing is it is not about the time - work is slow right now, so I have plenty of time to plan and get stuff done.  But most of the stuff that needs to get done is annoying, so I’d rather spend my free time hanging out will all y’all.  :-).  And even when I buckle down and spend a few hours clearing stuff out, more stuff always takes its place. 

So I am open to ideas for something to set as a goal for myself to help get this stuff out of my head.  Because if I knew how to do it myself, I’d have done it already.  :-)

NoraLenderbee

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2018, 10:19:02 AM »
In Facebook, go to the page of the group and click "Unfollow." This stops updates from appearing in your Facebook feed. The group will still be in your list of groups. To read the posts in it, click the group name. You're still a member of the group--you just won't see constant updates.

Linea_Norway

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2018, 10:52:20 AM »
So I have started just keeping running lists of work and home tasks so I can jot stuff down when I think of it, and anything that involves an actual due date or DH goes on our shared calendar.  But it’s not good enough, and the mental noise is still there.


Are younusing separate lists or a getting things done app? I have Doit.im, which lets you define projects, tasks, contexts and when to do it. I like it a lit to write things down in.
But like you said, I also have time to do all my tasks, but I prioritize the fun tasks and delay the not fun ones.

Linea_Norway

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2018, 10:56:51 AM »
In Facebook, go to the page of the group and click "Unfollow." This stops updates from appearing in your Facebook feed. The group will still be in your list of groups. To read the posts in it, click the group name. You're still a member of the group--you just won't see constant updates.

Done that with the groups. Is there also a similar method for friends? Now I just removed a person as friend, but can I also just remove thatbpostings ofvthatvperson appear in my news feed?

Mialao

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2018, 11:23:19 AM »
In Facebook, go to the page of the group and click "Unfollow." This stops updates from appearing in your Facebook feed. The group will still be in your list of groups. To read the posts in it, click the group name. You're still a member of the group--you just won't see constant updates.

Done that with the groups. Is there also a similar method for friends? Now I just removed a person as friend, but can I also just remove thatbpostings ofvthatvperson appear in my news feed?
You can unsubscribe from a friend's posts by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner of their post. There you can find an option to hide posts from that person from your newsfeed.

I think they also introduced a feature to "snooze" people i.e. to hide them temporary

Linea_Norway

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Re: Decluttering mentally
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2018, 12:15:19 AM »
In Facebook, go to the page of the group and click "Unfollow." This stops updates from appearing in your Facebook feed. The group will still be in your list of groups. To read the posts in it, click the group name. You're still a member of the group--you just won't see constant updates.

Done that with the groups. Is there also a similar method for friends? Now I just removed a person as friend, but can I also just remove thatbpostings ofvthatvperson appear in my news feed?
You can unsubscribe from a friend's posts by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner of their post. There you can find an option to hide posts from that person from your newsfeed.

I think they also introduced a feature to "snooze" people i.e. to hide them temporary

I have now unfriended some people on facebook. I have also gone in on the site of a number of friends and chosen "don't follow this friend". But the next time I go into their page, it looks like I'm following them. I have also used the three dots in the posting on one of my friends who publishes stuff many times a day. We'll have to see whether that works.