Remove Clutter to Reduce Stress (+ 5-Step Decluttering System)

Get rid of clutter to make yourself more focused, relaxed, and productive. Use our simple decluttering system to unleash your mental energy and creativity.

The Psychological Reasons We Hang On to Clutter

Let’s face it, we live in a highly materialistic society and it can be very hard to resist all its trappings.

We are bombarded with hundreds of ads per day telling us that the right stuff is going to make us happier, healthier, more attractive, and more successful. (1)

You may think your decision to buy most things is based on logic, but in reality, it’s usually far from it.

A classic sales quote is that "people don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves."

Our possessions embody our memories, hopes, and dreams, who we believe we are now, and who we plan on being in the future when our best self finally shows up.

So, getting rid of things you’ve bought can be an admission of your failings.

For example, tossing your skinny jeans or your exercise bike means you’ve finally admitted defeat in your battle to lose weight.

The main underlying reason for hanging on to things is fear. (2)

The things we own are wrapped up in our feelings of security, status, comfort, and love.

We feel guilty for money wasted, so we keep our stuff to justify our purchase.

We are particularly afraid of regret. (3)

What if you throw something out and wish you hadn’t later?

This "just in case" syndrome can paralyze you, keeping you from making the decisions needed to declutter.

The Tipping Point: When Clutter Causes Stress

There’s no doubt that clutter causes a lot of people stress and emotional pain.

One survey found that one-third of respondents admitted that they avoided spending time at home so they didn’t have to deal with their mess. (5)

Another found that 90% of Americans feel that clutter has a negative impact on their lives and work. (6)

It’s estimated that getting rid of clutter could reduce the time spent doing housework by a whopping 40%!

Americans spend a mind-blowing nine million hours every day looking for misplaced items. (7)

Clearly, this is not desirable!

At work, if you can’t think when you sit down at your desk, if you waste hours looking for lost items, or if you aren’t as productive as you should be, clutter is controlling you.

On the flip side, it’s possible to be too organized and rigid.

A little chaos can actually be a good thing.

Traits like flexibility, spontaneity, and imagination go hand in hand with a certain degree of chaos and can boost creativity.

But too much chaos has the opposite effect of shutting down creativity.

The sweet spot is a matter of balance and is different for everyone and can vary by place as well.

Steve Jobs famously lived in an austere home, yet pictures of his office reveal that he had a messy side.

How Clutter Contributes to Stress

Using MRIs and other diagnostic tools, research shows that clutter affects your brain’s ability to concentrate and process information. (8)

UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives and Families (CELF) explored the relationship between 32 families and the thousands of objects in their homes over a period of 4 years.

Researchers concluded that clutter has a strong effect on mood and self-esteem. (9)

Women in the study were particularly stressed by the presence of clutter.

When they were asked to talk about the clutter in their homes, their level of the stress hormone cortisol shot up.

In fact, according to the CELF study, the amount of stress they experienced at home was directly proportional to the amount of stuff they and their family had accumulated.

Similar to multitasking, physical clutter overloads your senses, makes you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively.

Clutter robs you of mental energy, leaving you feeling anxious, tired, and overwhelmed.

It frustrates you.

It makes you lose things and waste time.

It ruins your focus and concentration, drawing attention away from what’s important.

Clutter is a nagging reminder that your work is never done, reinforcing negative self-talk that you are lazy or a procrastinator.

It’s a constant "should" hanging over your head, burdening you with guilt.

Learn more —
How to Reduce Cortisol, the Stress Hormone

Why Your Brain Loves Order

While a little chaos is beneficial, the human brain is wired to respond positively to order.

Psychotherapist and professional organizer Cindy Glovinsky says that order feels good, in part because it’s easier for our brains to deal with.

In an organized space, your brain doesn’t have to work so hard.

This leaves you feeling calm and energized.

When you enter a pleasing, uncluttered space, you can more readily concentrate and focus. (10)

Decluttering often acts as a gateway to taking better care of other aspects of life.

Organizational experts report that their clients often lose weight, stop bad habits, and get out of toxic jobs and relationships after they’ve decluttered their environment.

The Link Between Clutter and Psychiatric Disorders

Clutter doesn’t just stress you out, it can make you physically and mentally unwell too.

Clutter provides a haven for dust.

Shockingly, the average American home accumulates 40 pounds of dust every year! (11)

This dust consists of pollen, hair, dead skin, pet dander, dust mites (and their debris), fibers, dirt, and whatever else you drag in from your environment.

By providing a dust haven, clutter can affect your health by contributing to inhalant allergy symptoms such as brain fog, coughing, sneezing, asthma attacks, and itchy eyes.

Recent research has found that allergy sufferers have a 66% greater risk for depression and anxiety, with the common thread thought to be chronic inflammation. (12)

According to research done by George Washington University, typical household dust contains more than 45 toxic chemicals, some of which are linked to behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders, especially in children. (13)

When Clutter Becomes a Hoarding Disorder

For most people, not being in control of clutter is only an annoyance, but it can be a sign of a psychiatric disorder such as depression, ADHD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). (14)

Currently, hoarding disorder is considered a subtype of OCD, but this categorization is under evaluation. (15)

It’s estimated that one in four people with OCD also are also compulsive hoarders.

To the non-hoarder, it’s hard to understand why these people can’t just throw things out.

But brain scans show that a hoarder’s brain reacts differently to decluttering than that of a non-hoarder. (16)

Learn more —
How Natural Remedies for OCD Compare to Standard OCD Treatment

These decisions light up the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in decision making, causing debilitating stress and anxiety.

Fortunately, help is available.

A recent study found that six months of cognitive behavioral therapy resulted in a dramatic decline in the clutter of hoarding patients. (17)

How to Get Rid of Stress-Inducing Clutter

The experts agree that decluttering is a skill that anyone can learn.

But they don’t always agree on the best ways to get rid of clutter.

Most organization experts like Cindy Glovinsky and Julie Morgenstern recommend creating pockets of order, doing one area at a time.

They suggest getting started with the area that bothers you the most — even if it’s an area as small as your purse.

Julie admits that she was naturally disorganized and that her first step to getting organized was tackling her baby’s diaper bag!

Marie Kondo, author of the international bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has a different point of view.

She believes that decluttering piecemeal sets you up for defeat.

Instead, she recommends having a decluttering marathon and doing your entire house at once to prevent relapses.

One of Marie’s mantras is that everything you surround yourself with should "spark joy."

A Simple, 5-Step Decluttering System

We’ve had a fair amount of experience with decluttering.

In one of our previous careers, we were real estate investors and rehabbers.

Sorting through copious amounts of clutter accumulated by the owners of houses we bought was a regular part of the job.

(In case you need another motivation to declutter, note that clutter can significantly reduce the value of your home.)

Here’s how to go about it:

First, get a generous supply of heavy duty trash bags and boxes.

When you’re ready to get started, set a timer and work for 30-60 minute bursts, depending on your stamina.

(Setting a timer and working in concentrated bursts is a popular concentration hack called the Pomodoro technique.)

If you try to make too many decisions at one time, you’ll get stressed and wind up with a case of decision fatigue.

Decluttering Tips

When deciding how to sort an item, a few questions you can ask yourself can help.

• If this item was lost or destroyed, would you spend money to replace it?
• Would you pay money to buy skinny jeans that don’t fit you now or that exercise bike you use only as a clothes rack?
• Is there someone else who could make better use of that item you rarely or never use?
• Would a homeless person appreciate that coat you never wear?
• Would your library welcome a donation of books you won’t be re-reading?

A mindset tip that can help is to give away with an attitude of gratitude rather than of fear.

Feel grateful that you have SO much stuff that you have the ability to give to others.

And remember that gratitude is a great way to reduce stress!

Feeling and expressing gratitude reduces stress and increases emotional resilience. (18)

If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to control clutter, you might employ the help of a professional organizing consultant.

You can find one in your area by googling "professional organizer near me."