Activate your noise filter

I am coming to terms with one of my biggest vices: I collect way too much information. As a result of this, I have a lot of noise in my life. I do my best to file things away, particularly information that seems like it may be useful at a later date… big mistake! The irony is that in my quest for inner calm as a foundation for creativity, I am adding too much mental clutter to my life. My home office/music room falls victim to this all too often.

Yesterday, I followed Cyril and Gretchen’s noble advice and I decided to purge the physical clutter from my office. My husband looked horrified at the mess that I’d created but he let me be and I painstakingly went through every manila folder, every ring binder, every piece of sheet music and asked myself:

Do I use this?
Will I ever use this?

If the answer to question 1 was no, and the answer to question 2 was ‘it may be useful later’, then I recycled it. It was tedious. It was scrupulous. It was so good for me! I filtered out all of the information noise that I currently possess and I felt lighter. As a result, I now have a space which is conducive to creativity: a space that I will happily light a scented candle and spend hours playing the piano or working away in. I also restyled it to suit my new season of growth. I have chosen a soft blue/turquoise palette which reminds me of the ocean and of tranquility.

One of the best things that came out of my noise filtering process was finding nostalgic memorabilia. I came across old scrapbooks, souvenir programmes, photos, letters from dear friends, and a lot of memories that made me smile. In particular, I found an old poem I wrote for a cabaret show in 2014, and I found my Wanderlust journal which I bought in Singapore in the summer of 2014. In my travel journal, I meticulously documented every day of my experiences during my Philippines/Singapore holiday and I even pasted in random magpie creations such as ticket stubs, photographs, boarding passes, stickers…etc. Reading back through my journal from 2 years ago was an affirming experience.

I am now in a great frame of mind because I tackled a nagging task which was weighing over me and affecting me subconsciously. As I type this blog entry in this very room in which I laboured over the past 24 hours, I smile with excitement as I feel like my inner creativity is glowing. Ideas are dancing around in my heart waiting for me to bring them to life. I love that January allows me this personal time to explore within my own heart what I want to create this year.

I hope that everyone reading this feels inspired to look within their own heart and find the simple treasures that lay dormant. Activate your noise filter and your joy will be easier to find within the ever changing maze that is life.

declutter #denoise #creativity