Many things have been written about the impact of the pandemic, positive and negative. I have reflected on the pandemic from various view points in my blog posts over the past 10 months. I choose to share one aspect of the pandemic, decluttering my life.

I had developed the habit of filling all documents such as bank statements, a habit I learnt from my father. This was way before personal computers entered our life. Once computers arrived I was used to storing all files I created and received as well as emails that I thought would be required I the future. This habit started when I started working in 1982 and has been going on for the past 38 years.

I realised my house, files, laptop as well as external connections were continuously getting filled up. Multiple computer crashes over the past few years has also resulted in my files getting scattered, lost, getting stored in to external drives etc. When we had decided to work from home 14 years ago many files, documents and books were shifted to my home office. Due to my extensive overseas travel that occurred about twice a month, I had not paid too much attention to the cluttering taking place. Perhaps my busy-ness prevented me from noticing the clutter and doing much about it.

After having got trapped in Bangladesh due to airport closures I finally arrived in Sri Lanka on the 24th of May and got home on the 8th of June after two weeks of quarantine. Meanwhile I had got busy doing online work and the need for decluttering did not occur. However things took a sharp turn when some of our windows that were open during a severe storm, broke for the pressure. We had a choice of repairing the broken windows or replacing all windows with French windows to let in more light and air. The transformation was amazing. My life too felt lighter and brighter. That made me realise the need for decluttering.

This was around September 2020 and since then it has been one clean up after the other. Throwing old cloths, furniture, kitchen utensils, files, books, machines, etc .etc. Every time we clear some thing there was more space. I re-modelled my home office space by bringing together all my work related items such as books, file and equipment that were essential. Furniture and walls got painted. By Christmas the entire house was so spacious, decluttered, bright, airy and my life felt the same. I had also de-cluttered my finances by doing some financial planning and got my customer service processes organised. This has resulted in almost no anxiety, high productivity and feeling alive as I worked at home and spent time with family. From the beginning of January I started focusing on my computer files and organised everything, removing duplicates, deleting loads of unnecessary files and putting old files that may be need in cloud storage.

As I write this I feel a feeling of total clarity, lightens, and aliveness. I plan to continue decluttering as things arise so that it becomes an integral part of life and I believe that will continue to give me space, clarity and energy to do the purposeful work I am called upon to do.

Wish you a decluttered life and purposeful living.