Why Your Clutter Is Stressing You Out & The Remedy For Relief

There’s not much I can tell you about your life with absolute certainty. But one thing I can tell you is that your clutter is stressing you out.

Clutter does affect each of us differently. There are some people who love having a little clutter around, while others prefer completely bare surfaces. Personally, I fall in the middle, I avoid “clutter” but I do enjoy decorating and making my home cozy.

However, no matter where you fall on this spectrum, excess clutter is affecting you and increasing stress in your life. 

Numerous studies conducted in recent years have shown that there is a direct link between excess home clutter and higher stress levels.

However, the problem is that our consumer-driven society makes it easy to accumulate far too much “stuff”. The clutter that results, takes a toll on our stress levels. This is true for me as much as it is for you!

Even after years of focusing on reducing clutter in my home and developing shopping habits to help me avoid bringing in more clutter, stuff still accumulates. This means wasted time and effort to store it,  clean around it all, organize it all, and more. Of course, there’s also the guilt over not using all the stuff. 

Our home is supposed to be our comforting space, a private refuge from the outside world. But when clutter invades, our home ends up overwhelming us.  

The good news is: if your clutter makes you feel overwhelmed and stressed out now, that means decluttering has the potential to make you feel happy, and more at peace in your home! 

So let’s look at some of the reasons why your clutter is stressing you out. Then we’ll look at how you can eliminate that clutter and remedy that stress!

Why Your Clutter is Stressing You Out

I mentioned a few basic and more obvious reasons clutter stresses us out above. It requires us to waste valuable space in our home to store it. We have to spend time cleaning around it all, organizing it all, and caring for and maintaining it. There are also less obvious reasons as to why your clutter is causing you so much stress. 

By understanding the subtle ways your clutter is stressing your out, you’ll be able to tackle the clutter once and for all! 

Don’t Know Where to Start

Overwhelm happens when we don’t know what to do or where to even start. It creates a sense of lack of control which in turn increases our stress levels. 

With clutter, it’s easy to become completely overwhelmed by the thought of decluttering when you have no idea where to even start decluttering.

Every time you try to declutter, you feel paralyzed and can’t figure out what to do. Most of the advice you’ve read just doesn’t work. There is no easy space to start decluttering and it all just feels too much because there is clutter everywhere. 

Not knowing where to start decluttering is completely normal when you are first starting out on your decluttering journey. I’ve got your back and we are going to learn exactly how to get started!

Clutter Increases Anxiety

Feeling anxious lately? Look around your home, it’s most likely that clutter is the culprit.

You come home after a long day, you go to put your purse or keys down and the table is covered in papers, half-filled cups, and twenty other things that all need to be put away. There are sweaters and coats on the back of the chairs. The floor is littered with toys, backpacks, and unworn shoes. You’re instantly exhausted just thinking about the enormous effort required to do something about it.

Rather than feeling a sense of comfort and relaxation at arriving home, you have a mini panic attack. The clutter feels overwhelming, like entering a battle you can’t win. 

The positive here is that you can reduce clutter induced anxiety. 

Clutter is Overstimulating

Our environment has a big impact on how we feel and think. We are naturally conditioned to engage with our environment. As a result, various stimuli are too much to take in at times. We end up in sensory overload and the body’s natural fight-or-flight response activates. Our senses become sharper which in turn causes our muscles to become tenser.

This is exactly what happens with excess clutter. Clutter is a direct trigger for this sensory overload at home. This is because clutter bombards our minds with excessive stimuli causing our senses to work overtime. 

Decluttering your home helps to decrease unnecessary stimuli. 

Clutter is Distracting, Making it Difficult to Focus

I don’t think people realize how much clutter affects our ability to focus. When you’re surrounded by clutter it is very distracting. 

It might be true that there is no immediate negative effect when you look around at your clutter. However, over time and as clutter accumulates it becomes a major distraction. This distraction, in turn, makes it difficult to focus on daily tasks.

All of the stuff in your home is competing for your attention. The result is that you have a harder time narrowing your focus and staying on task. The worst part is that clutter prevents you from being “present” in your home because of all the distractions and focus on the clutter. 

Clutter Makes You Feel Shame and Guilt

When we look at how we identify clutter, we know it’s those items in your home and life that provide no real value. When you have a lot of clutter, this means your home is full of stuff that’s not serving you or your family. 

Every time you look at that growing pile on the dining room table you silently beat yourself up for not being on top of things. You know the mess exists because there’s no place to put everything, but you can’t stop thinking about how you let it get to this point.

You know you’ve spent good money on all this stuff that you don’t even want and the guilt overwhelms you. All of this triggers guilty feelings and increases your stress levels.

Guilt is a strong emotion that causes shame and stress. The only way to combat the guilt and shame is to actually get rid of the clutter!

Clutter Makes Daily Living Tasks More Difficult

When you have too much clutter in your home it’s nearly impossible to be organized. This makes finding what you’re looking for, whether it’s an unpaid bill or missing sunglasses, a constant struggle. 

Figuring out what to wear for the day becomes a challenge because you have too many clothes in your closet. The sink overflows with too many dishes and cups. You have to pull 10 things out of the cupboard, closet or drawers just to get to what you actually need. Then of course you have to put it all back. 

Having to go through so much hassle just to meet your daily living tasks is incredibly stressful. To make matters worse, there really is no way to get your home organized when it’s filled with clutter. Is there any wonder you feel stress?

Clutter is Stressing You Out Because It’s a Constant Reminder of Your To-Do List

Clutter constantly signals to our brains that our work is never done. The mess just keeps beckoning to you causing you to feel like you have so much to do. 

Obviously, when you can’t get a handle on your to-do list, stress ensues. You find yourself asking: “How will I ever get all of this done?” and as you look around your home that thought keeps looping through your mind.

What happens next is procrastination. Before we know it, we’ve spent an hour scrolling through social media and the clutter remains untouched.

The only way to conqueror this kind of stress is to conqueror that to-do list and get rid of the clutter!

So let’s look at how to do just that!

Remedies for Relief When Clutter is Stressing You Out!

Now that you understand why your clutter is stressing you out, it’s time to do something about it!

While the stress and overwhelm that clutter causes is very real, there are remedies that will help you eliminate that stress and overwhelm. 

It’s time to break down decluttering projects into manageable tasks. But before we get started there is one thing I want you to remember: it took time for your home and your things to get to the point where they are today. So it’s going to takes some time to declutter and organize!

At the same time, I promise you that even the smallest effort can have a big impact on your life and decrease the stress and overwhelm that you’ve been feeling. 

Start Decluttering With a Sweep of Your Entire Home

The first remedy to eliminate the stress your clutter is causing is to do a quick sweep throughout your entire house. During this time you are going to get rid of all the things you know do not belong in your home.

This is not the time to make any decisions. You are just going to grab a box and a trash bag. Now as you walk through your home the only thing you are going to do at this point is to grab the things you know do not belong in your house.

This may be trash, things that have been outgrown, things you have borrowed, or things you want to donate. Toss in your box or trash bag anything you come across that you no longer love and anything that is broken or damaged beyond repair.

Remember this is not the time for making decisions or cleaning anything, you are just clearing out the things you know do not belong in your home. 

This should only take you between 15 to 30 minutes max. If it’s taking you much longer than that, you are going too deep, this is just a sweep of the immediate visual clutter.

When you complete this initial sweep you’ll feel a quick boost of motivation! 

Go Through One Room at a Time

Now you’re going to do another quick sweep, but this time you are going to go one room at a time. Grab a basket or box and enter each room in your house. It does not matter which room you start with. 

As you enter the room you are looking for anything that belongs in another room. This means any cups or dishes that are anywhere other than the kitchen, clothing left out in a room other than the bedroom, papers on the dining room table, etc. Pick up all of those items and place them in your basket or box. 

Again you’re not making decisions at this point. Now is not the time to worry about whether to keep or declutter the items you’re collecting. Your only focus is finding things that don’t belong in the room you are in.

Once you’ve finished your sweep in a room, return all the items you’ve collected to their proper room. That’s it!

Returning these items to their proper room is going to make the actual decluttering process much easier and faster. Plus you’ll have a good start on eliminating the visual clutter!

Commit to Decluttering 15 Minutes a Day

When your clutter is stressing you out, even the thought of decluttering feels extra hard!

One of the major reasons decluttering feels so hard is that we anticipate all the time it will take to complete. And we can’t imagine how we’ll find the time to accomplish all the tasks. Whether physically or just in our heads, we create these giant lists of every area of our home that needs decluttering, The list itself becomes stressful and overwhelming. The anxiety of trying to tackle so many tasks overwhelms and we’re ready to quit before we even start. 

The key to overcoming this feeling of overwhelm is a simple mindset shift. You have to see how much you can accomplish in small increments of just 15 minutes a day. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but I promise you can make a big impact in your home as long as you stay consistent. 

Fifteen-minute decluttering sessions are completely doable! These short sessions keep your focus on the task at hand and don’t feel overwhelming in the way an all-day decluttering session might. Even if you don’t finish cleaning up the area you’re working on, you’ve put a dent in it. And that’s a step in the right direction!

 Yes, at some point you may need to take a little more time on certain decluttering projects, but when you get to that point you’ll be in a much better place to do that. For now, know that you will accomplish so much in those 15 minutes a day that those larger spaces will not be nearly so overwhelming. 

Keep Flat Services Clear

While there’s no question that unseen clutter, that is clutter hidden away in closets and drawers, causes a tremendous amount of stress, reducing the visual clutter is the quickest remedy for relief from the current stress you’re feeling!

To do this, you are going to focus your 15 minute daily decluttering tasks on the clutter covering your flat surfaces, floors, and furniture. 

Focusing on these areas first will go a long way toward eliminating a lot of the above causes of stress because you’ll be eliminating that visual clutter. In addition to eliminating stress, removing the visual clutter helps motivate you to go deeper into decluttering areas of your home that may take a little more effort and work. 

When your clutter is stressing you out, making the effort to declutter your home will help lower your stress level. Decluttering your home is the first step in making your home a place you enjoy being in. These little efforts will help you decrease your home’s stress levels by creating a more calming, and peaceful environment. I would love to hear how it goes for you!