Why Digital Clutter is the Modern Equivalent of Blocked Chi (and How to Clear It)
In Feng Shui we discuss Chi to describe energy; energy doing what energy does - moving freely and flowingly, balanced and unblocked. You can block Chi, or energy, so that it doesn’t flow. Unblocking it is usually a delightfully easy solution, and it is wonderful because instantaneously you can feel the energy flow open up; that is your hallmark - it feels lighter, easier, or sometimes more rich and inviting. I usually get a feeling equivalent to clapping my hands with delight and glee. There is a little taste of feeling empowered too! Like - "hey, I could do this over here, and over here, and it would be easy and I would be happier", and then you are on a roll. Chi – natural and super fun to play with.
Now, quick honesty break — is the Chi flowing when you open your laptop, your email, your file structure? If not, worry not. I'd like to share some honest stories of reclaiming my own digital creative spaces, and give you some fresh ideas for providing this for yourself.
Digital Clutter and its Impacts
Digital clutter is a drain on your focus and energy. Every time you can’t find your work, are unintentionally exposed to 10 loose ends before landing in your project, or have a million decisions to make before starting your day, this all wears on a person, and their pristine focus, so that there isn’t much left to move the needle.
In this way, I see productivity as a form of self-support.
Yes, flowing energy takes attentiveness and maintenance. It will signal to you by way of feelings of stuckness, fuzziness, or feeling low.
I can't kid myself into thinking I reach some structure or organization and I'm done and it's perfect. Oh gosh I have wanted perfect so many times for my systems. I guess I am ready to say the only place perfection exists is in the stillness of a Friday night after everyone else has long left the building, and I get my tasks, emails, and to-do's into some decluttered stillness ready for the heat of Monday morning. And within an hour it is on the move again. This is where I learned - maintain your space. Take the time. Take the hour, or day, or in this upcoming instance, two weeks! I have bought into, and will again, each software app's promise of perfect digital cleanliness. But you can't buy it. You can only own it.
I want to share with you a really practical example of this.
My Two Week Digital Rehab
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop everything and fix the infrastructure that's making work hard. One honest look at what wasn't working changed the entire feeling of my creative digital home.
Recently, last year, I came to see my entire operating system software was in the way of work feeling easy, streamlined, supportive. I was using a specific software that is not built for small business, but rather for organizations that have allocated administrators who actively maintain the backend. Over years the pattern was clear - it was frustrating to accomplish almost everything it was supposed to do. But because of the history I had using this software corporately, and how successful they are, I thought there was something wrong with me, and I just had to eat it up. This is life online, I thought. The software company clearly states that THEY are the solution, it must be me!
But one particular issue grew and grew; and there was absolutely no way around it. And it finally dawned on me - this is making work HARD. Unacceptable.
My Intuitive Truth
I was ready to start creating my course “Your Personal Productivity System: A Simple, Adaptable Way to Turn Ideas into Finished Work”, and I knew that learning course creation, instructional design, filming, editing, teaching on camera, all the tech and everything alone, as a solopreneur, all those tiny little friction points from my old operating system might actually cost me my whole project. This was clear to me. So the decision was an easy one. I share this because I suspect it might illuminate for you where this might possibly be happening in your own setup.
Yes, I will have to pay more in putting together a few different platforms. But if I am literally in tears trying to setup a simple workflow that other platforms are doing with excellence? No. I stopped everything when I had that realization, all my other important goals and priorities stopped fully and were paused (because I had them in my Trello account, I knew they were safe and would be easily accessible in future). And I took two weeks of doing nothing else in order to extract myself as quickly as possible; lift all my files out, create a whole new file structure (lots of outdated stuff didn't need to be migrated), and a complete divorce from my software.
This was a big project. Years of old work to honour and store. Some uncertainty. Had to get an independent tech support company for the first time in my life.
But on the other side now - I feel freer.
I found some absolutely delightful new software that is innovating in ways those big giants aren't (hello Craft!!) and could support me in ways I never dreamed. I am supported by my infrastructure. I can create joyfully and I can design within Craft to make things beautiful in a way that my brain just LOVES!
What is that worth in my life - to easily and joyfully use my digital tools? For me, it means self-expression, vs tech support phone calls into infinity.
I have done this kind of major overhaul of my spaces a couple of other times. After reading Graham Alcott's “Productivity Ninja” the first time (one of two books I took to my photoshoot with me). In here he walks you through "Getting Your Inbox to Zero", and it is one of the best systems I have ever adopted in my life - I live for this, and strongly recommend.
Big projects. Daunting. LOTS of reasons not to do it.
Payoff? Life changing. Confidence? Up. Joy? Up. Ease, flow, mischief? All there.
The Solutions: Where to Actually Start
You don't need a perfect system — and I don’t think that is possible. You need to care about your pain points, and put time and care into fixing them in a practical way. Let’s start with the infrastructure that touches your daily life most, and talk about function. Soon you will get the hang of it and be creating, and maintaining, with ease.
Here it is again from my earlier post on How to Focus Better When Working From Home where I talk about my physical desk supporting my focus: my personal prescription - If you want to get something accomplished, make that space and those tools the most beautiful, joyful, fun, cozy place on earth to be, and you will be drawn to them.
Recommendation #1: Find Tools You Actually Love
I would start by playing with new software and finding an interface that you love, that draws you in. When you think about starting a book club, or a new hobby, where and how would you document your findings, notes, and to-do lists? Have a place for your most daily and engaging tasks that feels fun. Like meal planning, chores list, to-do's. Just easy to pop into and enjoy from whatever device you use most.
I have gone out of my darn way to make sure I love my bookkeeping software interface. I have ditched apps everyone swears by because I am simply not returning to them when I have a problem to solve. If you dread opening it, it isn't the right tool — full stop.
My current love is Craft — innovating in ways the big giants simply aren't, and beautiful enough that my brain just wants to be in there. And here I finally get to share a Feng Shui fact I have been dying to tell someone: did you know the very first page in Google's Professional UX Design Certificate cites Feng Shui as the origin of UX? This is what I am talking about — flow. Design that supports the human using it.
It is so exciting. For me, anyways. I am truly excited by the UX solutions being offered by modern, and thoughtful, designers.
Recommendation #2: Build a File Folder Structure You Can Feel Good Moving Through
Next to the above, here is my most impactful on the day-to-day: a useful file folder structure. With that in place, you can easily find what you need, and your time is not spent frustratedly digging down through a mess of unfinished business in your files. At this point, we’ve all heard the stats on searching for files and the time lost there.
Here we have a fabulous use-case for Claude - let Claude know your needs, and ask for a file structure to satisfy these things. Remember to push back and continue to iterate and simplify until you get something functional.
For me, I start with something SUPER high-level: Work vs Personal. I also include files on that top tier that straddle both, so files can't get buried under one or the other and I start having files in two places - BIG no-no. And then under each it is easy: Education, Finances, Health: still high level. Next level: more specific. Education has my professional certificates, my yoga and qi gong, other classes I take. For finances, I have a spreadsheet straddling years at the top, and then each tax year in its own folder. Most things should be 4-5 clicks away. It’s a travel through my supportive system, with good flow. And there you have it - that is the energy, the creativity flowing.
If you get a bump in that walk down that trail, that is just good information that you can make this even more functional for yourself somehow.
Recommendation #3: Make Access Easy. Be Kind to Yourself.
A small physical example, in case it helps. About a year ago I stopped storing our linen table napkins in another room from where we actually eat. I found a lovely big wooden bowl, stacked them lovingly inside, and placed it right in front of where we eat every night. Now we just reach for them.
Don't store your toilet paper in the garage.
Apply this same logic digitally. The things you reach for most should be the easiest to find. If something feels like friction every single time — that's not life being difficult. That's information.
This Isn't a One-Time Fix
A well-organized digital life isn't a destination — it's a practice. The maintenance is the point AND you get to have a great cup of tea and gain perspective in the process.
I fell in love with productivity when I realized that it was an opportunity to create digital spaces for myself that felt cozy, lived in, loved, spacious, clean, decluttered, accessible, and customized.
And, creating these spaces may sound like work, but people, I will tell you the time and agitation I save in not having to go searching for buried files more than makes up for it. They go hand-in-hand: make it cozy, make it clean. I will reiterate again, it isn't just the user interface of the software - it takes TIME and INTENTION to keep your digital Chi aligned and flowing. Watch for pain points, or subtle friction.
That infrastructure will hold you when things get kicked up, and will bring you INTO your work as a respite. Here is your home for your work, ideas, planners, schedule, inspiration, creativity, achievements, manifestations. And, if you are anything like me, which I strongly suspect you are, a place to play.
If you are interested in my personal productivity system - I made a course on that, because I keep returning to it after finding nothing works better — and it’s right here. Built for a team of one, tested over years.
And if you missed last week's post on my physical desk Feng Shui — the companion piece to this one — it’s here. Same philosophy, but more analog.