[Decluttering] Reducing possessions allows you to get hooked on activities

Once I cleared up my room through decluttering, I found I could focus on what I want to do and what I need to do much better than before.

While it is true that my environment improved because distracting, unnecessary items disappeared from my field of vision, there is another major reason.

Through the process of selecting what to keep and what to discard, I gained better judgment and decision-making skills, allowing me to decide not only on "unnecessary items" but also on "things not to do".

I became able to clearly prioritize what I should focus on now and what I want to allocate my resources to.

Until then, I used to hoard books related to my current industry, read a little and stop, then buy more and let them pile up, repeating the cycle.

I vaguely thought that I might need them eventually, or that my work scope might expand someday.

As a result, even when I started something, I never deepened my knowledge and ended up leaving almost everything half-finished.

However, as I continued decluttering, I began to think that it is better to immerse myself in what I want to do at this very moment rather than blindly taking out insurance on knowledge or skills I might use someday.

And so, I took the plunge and sold off my pile of unread books.
(Though I was surprised that they only sold for 4 yen despite me buying them for 2000 yen.)

As I decided on and let go of "things not to do now" one by one, only "things I want to do now" remained properly.

It is often said that to avoid spreading your resources too thin, you should have at most three priorities.

In my case, I was able to narrow it down to two: "Extensive English Reading" and "Activities as a Neurodivergent Life Hacker".

Extensive English Reading

Extensive reading is a learning method where you naturally improve your English proficiency by reading large amounts of English text.

I started extensive reading in high school, and by university, I was an avid reader who had gone through 200 English books.

I have read a wide range of genres in English, from humanities, social sciences, and history to general novels and light novels for geeky girls.

Although I don't use English at work currently, my passion for extensive reading hasn't cooled, and now that I've organized my environment through decluttering, I've decided to master it once again.

What I have been obsessed with lately is self-sufficiency in extensive reading materials.

I write scenarios to my own taste in English, use generative AI to turn them into novels, and enjoy a one-of-a-kind extensive reading experience.

My self-made scenarios total 180 A4 pages, which serves as practice for output, an area that Japanese English learners often struggle with.

I am realizing firsthand that effort cannot beat being obsessed with something.

(I have written until 3 a.m. and even skipped lunch at work to write, so I feel like I might have gone beyond obsession into madness, haha.)

It may not be directly useful to anyone or applicable to my work right now, but since this is what I 'want to do,' I intend to nurture it over the long term.

Activities as a neurodivergent life hacker

As someone with a developmental disability, I practice, experiment with, and reflect on subtractive life hacks, starting with decluttering, and share what I have learned.

Even though I call them life hacks, they are not concrete, micro-level solutions like 'how to prevent lateness or mistakes,' but rather content that acts as 'improvement measures for vague difficulties in living' by comprehensively organizing one's life and way of thinking.

I think of this not so much as something I 'want to do,' but, to put it grandly, closer to a mission or calling.

It was a major realization for me when the things I used to think 'why only me...' about changed into 'things that only I can convey.'

In recent years, awareness of developmental disabilities has increased, and celebrities like YouTubers have begun to disclose their traits.

However, there is an overwhelming amount of information online about 'common experiences with developmental disabilities,' and I feel there is relatively little information about improvement measures, such as 'so, what should I do about those difficulties?'

I suspect there are many people looking for hints on what they can change or devise themselves, starting right here and now, rather than just waiting for society to change.

I have a super problem-solving brain, so I felt frustrated by ending the struggles of developmental disabilities with just empathy or by standing still within the difficulties of living.

That is why I want to continue sharing the life hacks I have practiced, so that they can become a catalyst for people in similar situations to proactively create an easier life for themselves.

(I have been too obsessed with English lately, so my life hack posts are at my own pace, but please bear with me.)

When you let go of unnecessary things one by one and organize your time and consciousness, you can see what you really want to do and what you should be doing.

When you decide 'what not to do,' the feeling of 'is it okay to be doing this?' that used to follow you no matter what you were doing disappears, and you become able to pour your time and focus into what is important to you.

When you are able to use your limited resources for things that have value, your daily sense of fulfillment will also increase.

If you feel like you never finish anything you start or that your time is just melting away on trivial things, you might want to decide on what you will 'not do' and either let go of the items related to those things or at least put them somewhere out of sight for a while.

Being able to focus deeply on one thing without being bothered by noise is a truly happy experience🌱