We often associate stress with work deadlines, family problems and a lot of other things that are beyond our control.
But what if I tell you that clutter contributes equally to the stress in your life?
Clutter is proven to have an even bigger impact on the mental health of moms who have a load of responsibilities sitting on their shoulders. And since the stress caused by clutter isn’t deemed as something important enough to be addressed, we keep overlooking it until we have time to deal with it.
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Visual clutter often acts as a mental block even if it isn’t the direct cause of stress in your life. You can’t hope to function at your fullest when your work desk is covered in paperwork. You can’t hope to cook efficiently if the entire kitchen countertop is cluttered with appliances, utensils and excess décor.
Clutter builds up in your mind faster than it does in your home. And by choosing to push off the task of decluttering for when you get time, you are allowing clutter to pile up further. I know most of you all would agree that a cluttered home affects your mood and your overall energy.
Here are some ways how clutter contributes further to the stress in your life:
1. Difficulty In Carrying Out Normal Activities
Cooking is no fun if the countertops are cluttered with junk mail, excess décor and unwanted utensils. You will hate trying your hands at new recipes because your pantry is so overly cluttered that it’s almost impossible to find anything in it.
A cluttered home also means that you tend to lose your stuff very often. Don’t you feel frustrated trying to look for lost objects in your home, and even more so if you have to run to the store to make repeat purchases for these lost items?
Now think of all the fun that you could have had with your family in the living room if it wasn’t overly cluttered with random items. And by the way, lack of fun gives way to more stress. Add to it the time and efforts you have to put into cleaning a home that is full to the gills with clutter, and you’ll realize that clutter does nothing but alleviates the stress in your life.
2. Fear Of Someone Stopping By Unexpectedly
When your home is holding a mountain of mess waiting to be dealt with and you are doing nothing to tackle it, a feeling of fear will creep in. You’ll feel scared with the idea of someone stopping by unexpectedly because you know that your home isn’t welcoming enough. No matter how much you try to evade the embarrassment of living in a cluttered home, it will somehow creep in if you don’t deal with that ever-rising pile of mess.
3. Stress Caused By Guilt
The fact that you don’t have time to sift through those knick-knacks or declutter your kitchen cabinets doesn’t mean that you don’t feel overwhelmed by clutter. The inability to make time to declutter your home can make you feel guilty of being a clutterbug. You may even find yourself staring at the mess piling up in your home and blame yourself for allowing it to control your life.
No matter how hard or challenging it is to for you to cut the clutter in your home, try doing it on priority if you want to cut the stress in your life.
4. Clutter Causes Arguments
If I were to speak out of my personal experience, clutter always causes arguments in my home. None of my siblings want to own the clutter caused by them and no one is ever willing to take charge of clearing it. This often causes arguments that make way for stress. We’ve somehow come up with an arrangement where we all come together to do a quick clean-up every night before sleeping.
5. Clutter Affects Mood
No matter how much you deny it, you can’t hope to function at full capacity if you are constantly being confronted with clutter in your home. If your work desk is piled up with office supplies and paperwork, you are bound to feel distracted which can affect your productivity levels.
When there’s no open space on the flat surfaces and the drawers are overflowing with clutter, you will find yourself feeling bad for having failed at turning your home into a relaxing sanctuary for yourself and your family. This negativity always ends up reflecting in your family and work life, and it’s never a great thing for your mental and physical wellbeing.
6. Clutter Costs You Money
How often do you find yourself running to the store to buy storage for your home? If the answer to this is ‘very often’, it’s a sign that the clutter in your house is getting out of control and needs to be tackled with. Holding on to clutter is never good for your finances. The unpaid bills will somehow lose themselves in a pile of unwanted items forcing you to pay the late fees and penalties. A messed-up living space also makes it easy for you to lose items and you will often find yourself making repeat purchases.
7. Digital Clutter Affects Your Work
I hate going through a cluttered email inbox to find that one important file I need to meet my work deadlines. As someone who gets stressed by the smallest of things, I would often find myself frustrated with the digital clutter that had taken over my life.
For the last one year, I have been cleaning my digital devices on a regular basis which has somehow helped me cut the stress. I now delete the junk mail immediately after reading it and spend a few minutes every week sifting through my phone gallery. Digital clutter needs as much attention as physical clutter, if not more, so make sure that you are always dealing with it on a regular basis.
Now that you know how clutter impacts the various aspects of your life, I hope you feel prompted to make the needed changes to be able to handle stress better. Even if you feel overwhelmed or not driven enough to take up decluttering, push yourself to just begin somewhere.