How I’m Decluttering My Life This Spring
It doesn’t exactly keep me up at night, but like most people, I have a low-level suspicion that I’m paying for a bunch of stuff I don’t need.
At the beginning of the year, I went through all the various accounts and credit cards for my businesses, and sure enough, that’s exactly what I found.
There was an IMDb Pro account still active from a podcast producer who left three hires ago. We were paying for three cloud storage services when one would have sufficed. Somehow, we ended up with two separate enterprise Zoom accounts…and one had been upgraded to handle a large number of people on a call we were doing and was never downgraded. As I dug in, I found more redundancies, I found services that had sneakily ratcheted their fees up month after month and then just stuff I don’t think we ever signed up for in the first place.
This, of course, is a microcosm of our digital and subscription economy these days. It’s also, I think, a metaphor for life. We don’t just accumulate stuff, we accumulate drag. We accumulate drains and leeches that instead of physically taking up space, overwhelm and impede our ability to operate and think.
It turns out that the monthly cost of all these unnecessary expenses was almost enough to cover the salary of a new employee! Plus my mental bandwidth–to say nothing of the corresponding emails all these services send–was increased as well. It’s basically the same feeling I get whenever I clean out the garage or organize a doom drawer.
So that’s what I am thinking about now that spring is upon us: how I can declutter my life—physically, mentally, and emotionally—and how you can do the same.
(And by the way, I’m getting together with thousands of Stoics from around the world to do some spring cleaning as part of The Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge on March 20th. It’s a set of 10 daily, actionable challenges designed to help you clean up your life and spring forward without the weight of bad habits and vices. You can learn more and sign up here. I hope to see you there!)
Clean up your information diet. In programming, there’s a saying: “garbage in, garbage out.” The question is, what are you allowing in? Many of us absorb too much garbage—whether it’s from the news we watch, the people we follow on social media, or even certain people in our lives. Spring is a great time to ask: Where do misery, negativity, dysfunction, and chaos sneak into my life? And then do something about it. Look at your “information diet.” When was the last time Twitter actually left you feeling informed? Reddit? Cable news in an airport? If it isn’t leaving you calmer or wiser, maybe it’s time to cut it off at the source. You don’t have to be uninformed—just be intentional about what you consume and who you engage with. Personally, I prefer reading books about history and human nature (here’s a list of timely books I put together for 2025). They’re not all fun and sunshine—there’s plenty of darkness, too—but I learn far more from that than from endless scrolling. I’m deliberate about which chats and texts I participate in and who I spend time with. I aim to let in the opposite of garbage, because that leads to the opposite of garbage out.
Destroy a DOOM box. We all have them—those boxes, bins, or junk drawers stuffed with random odds and ends we don’t actually need. This is what’s known as a DOOM box—“Didn’t Organize, Only Moved.” In one of the few jokes Marcus tells in Meditations, he writes about people who accumulate so much stuff, they don’t even have a place to shit. Seneca famously said that people aren’t just weighed down by their possessions—they are owned by them. That overstuffed box in your garage, the junk drawer spilling over, the storage closet packed with forgotten things—what are you really holding onto? If you wouldn’t go out and buy it today, why are you keeping it? Grab a bag, empty the doom box, and purge anything you don’t truly need. Whether you trash it, donate it, or sell it, clearing out physical clutter clears mental space and reduces the number of things that “own” you.
Quit your vices. In another sense, we can be “owned” by bad habits. Seneca talks about how even a powerful Roman general can be mastered by ambition. Many of us are slaves to habits or substances. There’s a story I tell in Discipline is Destiny about the physicist Richard Feynman feeling a sudden midday urge for a drink. Realizing alcohol’s hold on him, he quit cold turkey. Dwight Eisenhower, a four-pack-a-day smoker, had a heart attack and simply gave himself an order to stop. He realized he was not in command—the habit was in command. Ask yourself: What has control over me? Is it caffeine, social media, Netflix, junk food—something more serious? I once heard addiction described as losing the freedom to abstain. If you struggle to avoid something you don’t truly need—as Feynman realized—you’re dealing with a compulsion. With spring on the horizon, ask yourself what you’re hooked on. Where have you lost the freedom to say no? And how can you reclaim your power by refusing to feed that habit? For some, it’s as simple as not buying junk food. For others, it may involve support groups or a treatment program. In any case, spring is an ideal time to assess who—or what—is in command, and to reassert your autonomy. If you want a happier, more fulfilling life, decide which vices you’re no longer willing to let rule you.
Limit what has access. We are way too reachable. You have Facebook messages and text messages. People can call your phone. People can call you on WhatsApp. People can hit you up on Instagram and LinkedIn and Slack and Telegram. People can send you a package at your office and send junk mail to your house. This is insane! There should not be a DOZEN ways that people can get ahold of you. Who could possibly keep track of that? I’ve limited it to three ways people can get in touch with me: You can text, email, or call me. Email is day-to-day work stuff, texts are for friends and family, and when my phone rings, it’s usually something important from either one of those groups. I no longer feel the need to check 20 different apps and inboxes 50 times a day, because I know everything that actually matters will come in through one of those three channels.
Close the loop. I have a bunch of emails in my inbox waiting on a signature, waiting on a reply, waiting on a form or a selection. Why am I just letting them sit? It always takes less time to close these loops than I think…yet I let them sit there. I’ve found it really helpful to just dedicate, say a concentrated 15 minutes, to closing as many of them as possible. The mental relief that comes from clearing them out is always worth far more than the small effort it takes to get them done.
Delete the loop. At the same time, I have a bunch of emails that I told myself I was going to reply to but honestly, I don’t need to. Or too much time has passed for it to be worth it. So another 15 minutes where I just go through and mark these as read—or better off, delete them—is time well spent, too.
Make amends. This is actually one of the challenges in Spring Forward: identify any grudges we’re holding—conflicts, disagreements, or sources of animosity in our lives. How can we clean those up or clear them out? What can we apologize for? Years ago, there was someone I got into a big fight with over one of my books. I eventually emailed them, saying, “Hey, here’s what I’ve been carrying, and I wish I’d done it differently. I feel bad about the consequences for you. I’m sorry.” I’d love to say we became friends afterward, but they didn’t accept my apology—instead, they hurled more anger at me. It was obvious they still carried a lot of resentment, but making amends is also a gift you give yourself. I said what I needed to say, so I’m no longer ruminating or waiting for an apology from them. I owned my role in it. I tried to be who I want to be. If they aren’t there yet, that’s okay—I did what I could. As Marcus Aurelius said, the best revenge is not being like the person who wronged you. Maybe they’ll never see your side, but at least you won’t turn into them. We can’t change the past, but we can take responsibility: acknowledge our mistakes, own the pain we caused, learn from it, practice empathy, and try to repair it. We also have to forgive those who’ve hurt us and seek forgiveness from those we’ve hurt. What we can’t do is pretend it never happened. Clearing away that emotional clutter is part of a true spring cleaning—a deep clean for your life.
Get out in nature. There’s a Japanese term I love—shinrin-yoku—which translates to “forest bathing,” getting outside in nature. Marcus Aurelius talked about “washing away the dust of earthly life,” and getting outdoors is one of the best ways to do that. Whether it’s a long walk, a bike ride, or just a quiet moment outdoors, nature has a way of clearing away a cluttered mind. I live out in rural Texas partly because I love the beauty of the natural world. Seneca called it a “temple of all the gods.” Yet so many people spend their lives in cubicles, offices, or cars—one sealed environment to another—missing the world’s beauty. Recently, during a trip to Utah, I went for a run, cut through a cemetery, and spotted deer running by. I returned to my hotel feeling amazing. So the question is, how are you making time for nature? You might get dusty or muddy, but you’ll come back feeling cleaner and clearer than ever.
Delegate and automate. Something I often find myself asking myself, is this something only I can do? If the answer is no—and you can afford to, delegate it. If you can’t yet afford to, automate it. Time is the most precious resource. You have to find people who are good at things and empower them to help you. You have to be strong enough to hand over the keys, to relinquish control so that you can keep the main thing the main thing and not be distracted and weighed down by the rest.
Eliminate a pointless, recurring meeting. The recurring meeting gets on our calendar for a good reason or with a clear purpose. But it doesn’t take long for it to become a “wretched habit,” as Musonius Rufus said. Take a look at your calendar. Ask: is this meeting still necessary? Or could the same result of a dragged-out meeting be accomplished in a couple of minutes over email? If so, time to eliminate it.
Be protective of your time. One question I regularly ask my employees—and myself—is: What’s eating your time, and is it really a good use of it? A brief “time audit” can be eye-opening. Think about what you spend the most time on. Maybe it started small but ballooned into an enormous time sink. Just like a nutritionist might ask, “What are you eating?” and have you keep a food diary, try to keep track of how you spend your day. My screen-time app, for instance, might show how much time I spend on texts, email, Instagram—then I have to ask, Is that the best use of my time? As we head into spring, it’s not just about decluttering physical items; it’s also about shedding “time sucks.” Marcus Aurelius gives us a test: Ask yourself, if I were to die soon, would I be afraid because I couldn’t keep doing this? The truth is, we often spend our time on frivolous or wasteful activities. At work, I remind my team—and myself—that if something’s taking up too much time, maybe there’s a better way. Now, before life gets busy again, is the perfect moment to identify those time drains.
Simplify your to-do list. When we were working on What You’re Made For, George Raveling told me that once in a meeting at Nike, the president asked the team, “Would we be better off doing 25 things good or 5 things great?” George said he still applies that day-to-day. “My day really revolves around just three or four things…I try to declutter the day and say, ‘Okay, if I can get these four things done today, it will be a good day.’” As for me—every day, on a notecard, I write down 5-6 things I want to get done that day. Every day, I cross these off and tear up the card. That’s it. That’s the system.
Eliminate the inessential. We have a lot on our plates: emails to answer, calls to make, meetings, errands, groceries, kids to drop off, social media—the list goes on. Marcus Aurelius said if you want more tranquility—if you want to improve—you have to ask: Is this essential? Most of what we do or say isn’t. If we eliminate the inessential, he says, we gain the double benefit of doing the essential things better. So, to declutter your life, you have to say NO more often. Remember: No is a complete sentence. You don’t need to explain or justify it. As Seneca reminds us, many of us live in a state of “busy idleness,” endlessly doing things we don’t need to do. So as spring arrives (and every other season, too), keep asking yourself, Is this essential? What if you said no? How much more productive, happy, and content could you be with stronger boundaries and clearer priorities? You only have one life—stop wasting it, and stop letting people steal your time. Say no, and do less.
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That’s some of the things I’m doing to declutter and find clarity in my life.
If you’re ready to take your own efforts to the next level, I’d love for you to join me in the Spring Forward Challenge from Daily Stoic.
It’s packed with powerful exercises rooted in the best Stoic insights and strategies, and thousands of people around the world will be participating.
Sign up at dailystoic.com/spring—we start on March 20th. I hope to see you there, ready to clear out the clutter and make room for what truly matters.
