Can Clutter Affect Your Mental Health?
Have you ever questioned how significant an impact clutter can have on your mental health, and how many people struggle with clutter on a daily basis?
Clutter can be everywhere, and we don’t even see it. It can be at work with piles of paper work on your desk, or a pile of documents that need to filed. It can be at home with clothes covering your bedroom floor. Clutter can be in your kitchen, on counters, in drawers, or in cabinets.
Don’t forget about a cluttered garage. Garages are spaces that easily become cluttered with items not in need at the moment or are out of season.
Jaime Hord Founder at Horderly Professional Organizing once said, “Clutter and mess can consciously or unconscious affect you mentally”.
Hopefully, these decluttering tips can help relieve some stress and provide you with motivation to organize your surroundings.
How Did It Start?
Sometimes we don’t realize what causes so much stress, anxiety, and a feeling of being overwhelmed. Realizing what caused the clutter in the first place, plays a big part in avoiding making the same mistake repeatedly. You need to ask yourself how did I allow this to happen?
We all create life projects. Unfortunately, many turn out to be unfinished projects; never completed due to unexpected life changing events, or a lack of motivation, or even depression and anxiety.
With everything going on in the world around you, it tends to clutter your mind is with ideas, thoughts, and half-finished plans. Sometimes clutter can turn into hoarding……..Not knowing how to let go of items. Some people even start gaining sentimental with items they do not even have a need for.
Baby Steps
Decluttering can be overwhelming, so start with that one small area. Clean out a single junk drawer. Starting there, you’ll quickly find yourself cleaning another area, then another, and finally, an entire room is done. Noticing how clean and organized one area turns out almost leads to an addiction to get the rest done.
Taking baby steps like these is a great and healthy way to start decluttering. If you try to get the job done all at once, you will only overwhelm yourself. Taking one area at a time, setting reasonable expectations has a much better likelihood of leading to success. Trying to do too much will only slow you down. Pick a small area and start by getting rid of those items you don’t need or are in less than perfect condition.
We have all said, “I’ll reuse it again”. Be honest, we won’t reuse that rundown item even if we can find it again among all the other items we have said that about. It is just taking up space. Donation is a great way to give back and allow others to actually take another turn with it. But only rent a storage unit if you have things worth storing. Otherwise, you can set up a table for free at one of our periodic garage sales and turn those unwanted items into cash.
Clearing out the first space, even if it’s a small area, it will bring some calm back into your life and motivate you to keep going. The first step is the most critical in the entire process.
You’re Not Alone
Do not hesitate to ask for help. When we are struggling to get control of a project, we feel alone, afraid to ask for help, afraid people will judge you if they see what you’re dealing with. It is exactly the opposite. People like being needed, and having an extra hand or a support system can really make the process fun. Help is closer than you think. There are companies that specialize in decluttering projects and a consultation from one of them is extremely helpful. Accepting that you could use a hand is a big step in reducing you sense of being overwhelmed.
Make It A Habit
Everyone has several routines they do every day. Create a schedule. Make decluttering a routine. Schedule a half hour at the same time every day for a week then move on from there if necessary. Samuel Johnson once said, “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
When you’re dealing with the anxiety clutter produces, take a deep breath as you approach that half-hour of your daily routine when you declutter. It’ll become easier if you remind yourself, you are only dealing with a small area. It is just a few items, most of which you really do not care about. Before you know It, you’ll be done. Having a clean and organized space, you will feel a sense of relief. It will feel like you can breathe again.
Achieve The Purpose
It is often said, “Clutter is not just the stuff on your floor its anything that stands between you and the life you want to be living.” You can’t improve your life without letting go or changing the things you don’t like. As we get older we realize what we truly want in life and frequently all those meaningless possessions are getting in the way of seeing what is truly important.