I have an external hard drive where I store all of the video and audio files for my podcasts.
This past week, a little message popped up on the screen that said, “Memory Full.”
I checked how much space was left, and sure enough, there wasn’t much. In fact, there wasn’t enough room to store another video.
So, I began digging through folders, looking for files I could delete. After a little time, I had thrown away enough files to free up some much-needed space.
As I looked through each saved item, I found myself asking a few questions:
Is this important?
Is this a duplicate?
Do I need this anymore?
When was the last time I used this file?
Little by little, those questions helped me create room for new videos and fresh content for my podcasts.
As I thought about my hard drive running out of space, I began thinking about how often the same thing happens to me.
Aren’t we all born with a hard drive we call a brain?
Yes, our brains are incredible. They can take in an unbelievable amount of information from our lives and the world around us.
But if you’re like me, there are times when your memory feels full. It feels like there’s no more room to take in one more thing.
Unlike a computer hard drive, we can’t simply drag things from our brains into the trash.
So how do we make more room? How do we clean up our human hard drive?
We declutter.
We can declutter our brains by talking with a friend.
We can declutter our brains by journaling.
We can declutter our brains by voice-recording our thoughts.
We can declutter our brains by simply talking things out loud when no one else is around.
So often, we think holding onto all the clutter in our minds is the responsible thing to do.
But maybe the responsible thing is creating space for what really matters.
Just like my hard drive, our minds work better when there is room available.
My challenge to each of us is to start freeing up some hard drive space.
Begin decluttering the unnecessary thoughts, worries, and distractions that are taking up valuable space.
You might be surprised by how much space you actually have once you start deleting what you no longer need.