Afternoon 2 pm. 

beep beep .. message from friend 
Friend: wassup buddy. I am sitting in a boring meeting. 
Me: nothing much .. it’s blogging time . So thinking ..
Friend: Oh ! Trying to find a topic ? How do you decide on the topics to write about?
Me: Well, I have a problem deciding which topic to not write about!

He laughed out loud (I mean not literally, but send LOL on the WhatApp message and I kept imagining how funny it would have looked if he had actually LOL in between the meeting he said he was attending. ) 
I ended up LOL in the process. 
Friend: keep writing buddy. keep writing about all the topics that come in your mind and that way you can de clutter your mind.” 
Me: Bye.. You concentrate on the meeting… 
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Declutter your mind! Big words i must say! Hey, I think I just picked my topic for today.

But what can I write about such a  vast, well discussed and yet mystic topic?

A coincidence is that I had been watching a lot of youtube videos on how to declutter one’s home and give it a fresh new look. Those videos can help me declutter my work space. But what I wanted to do was way more tricky. I wanted to declutter the work space in my mind.

I decided to give it a shot. And I decided to use the same theory that I can use for decluttering the physical space. Let’s see how it works..

There are supposed to be around 60,000 thoughts that cross our mind each day. Let me make it very clear that I am talking about dealing with thoughts specific to a particular topic. In my case, I am trying to deal with the thoughts regarding the topics that I would like to write about.

Step 1: The obvious first step is to get everything out. And that has to be done by writing down every single topic that is lingering in that place. Without giving it a tag of useful, not useful, to be discarded etc, just get out all those thoughts into an xl sheet.
Disclaimer: Unlike while cleaning up a place, where there are a fixed number of items to be pulled out, in this process of mind cleaning, there could sprout up a lot of new thoughts and ideas while you are in the process. Please do not ignore them. They are sometimes the most fertile thoughts. Some topics sounded funny but I decided to put it down because if it has come to my mind, then I should be able to do something about it..
Step 2: The second step in cleaning up a place is to put the things that you have pulled out, into 3 boxes:

1. Very useful. (To be kept in a place very handy). These are the topics that I need to give immediate attention to. So I put an “urgent” tag to it and color it in bright orange. These are the topics that I could publish in the next couple of weeks.
2. Useful but not regularly used ( To be labelled and kept safe). These are the topics that I have to work on a regular basis and may be, research and find out more details about. These are typed in bold and color coded green. I also prefer to put a date by which I will do the required research for these topics. That way, I will make sure I don’t ignore these topics.
3. Random items. ( Which can be given away or shifted to another place in case of items in the room ) Very important and useful thoughts which can be developed into some unexpected and wonderful ideas. I color this with different bright colors and write down some notes as to when and how that particular thought cropped up. That helps in taking the idea forward.

Step 3: Once the sorting is over,  everything gets back to its designated space. I also wrote an introduction for some of the topics. That will help me in further developing it.
I believe that the thoughts that are penned down are more likely to become a reality than the ones that just linger out there.
Step 4: Add some decorative pieces to your work space to make it more welcoming.  Whenever I sit to work, I listen to some good music, or watch a motivating video or read an interesting article. That works as that “welcoming decorative piece” for my mind office space.
I simply loved the process. I feel more sorted out now. That feeling of entering a new space resonates in my mind.
Testing the process:
I have been thinking of writing about a particular topic. I got this idea when I saw a pineapple. Now, each time this thought/topic came into my mind, the successive thoughts would be : “Oh! thats a nice topic”, “I have to remember to write about it” , ” I can write about it next week” , ” the introduction to this topic should be ……….. ” ” i should remember to include the story about how this topic came int my mind”,  etc etc etc …And funnily, these thoughts repeated each time I thought of the topic.
Now, after the cleaning up process, whenever I think of the “pineapple blog”, the successive thought is : “oh yes! it is sorted.” ” I think I should be able to finish it by the next week”  . STOP.
I proceed to the next thought. phew… what a relief.
TESTED OK. 
I never thought that a random message from my friend, sent during a boring meeting would lead to such a productive activity for me. I have:

• cleaned up my work space.
• cleaned up my thoughts regarding the different blogging ideas.
• structured my thoughts into easy to write topics.
• achieved my target of one blog entry every week.
• am ready to think about fresh new ideas and topics.

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