I had a married friend whose house was not only dirty, it was cluttered. Everywhere you looked there was something. The kitchen counters were loaded with stuff, every shelf was full of knickknacks and garbage, and their ‘office’ was so cluttered, only one person could fit into it. It was interesting to see how their cluttered home affected their life. They both had a hard time focusing on anything, and they were very unproductive both in their work and personal life. Coincidence? Not at all.
A Cluttered Home Gets In The Way Of Productivity
My friend and her husband weren’t blind. They noticed their cluttered home. They noticed that it was hard to walk around and easy to bump into stuff. The fact that their home was cluttered was on their mind, and it was an added stress to the stress they already felt.
In addition, their cluttered home was something that demanded their attention so that they didn’t need to focus on being productive in their lives. In other words, it was an excuse not to do what they needed to do. I can’t count the number of times my friend, who was an artist trying to sell her work, told me that she couldn’t find paint or a paintbrush, so she wasn’t able to paint.
But, she had a valid point. You can’t find anything in a cluttered home, so you can’t do what you need to do. It’s just another way a cluttered home gets in the way of productivity.
In short, clutter affects your productivity because:
- Clutter affects how you feel about the one place that is supposed to be a retreat from the outside world, which impedes your ability to relax and rejuvenate in your home.
- Clutter can promote stress and affect your ability to concentrate and get things done.
- Clutter can be hard to see past. For instance, if you are trying to focus on a task at home, clutter can literally get in the way of that focus and demand all or part of your attention.
- Clutter in the home can cause mental clutter, which is a state of mind where you can’t get rid of information that is not relevant to your productivity.
- Clutter can keep you from welcoming people into your home, which can affect your ability to maintain and nurture relationships important to your productivity.
- Clutter can cause stress that causes you to seek comfort from unhealthy foods.
- Clutter can affect your attitude, which has a major impact on your productivity.
In short, clutter can impact pretty much everything that impacts your productivity.
Getting Your Home Uncluttered Takes Time And Then Saves Time
It’s not going to happen in a day. Decluttering your house requires you to go through your stuff, throw out or donate what you don’t need, and organize what you are keeping. That takes time.
The beauty is that once you get your house uncluttered and tidy, you will understand the value of having what you need and keeping things organized. And, you will only have to focus on putting things back where they belong – because you won’t need to ever do a huge declutter session again.
A decluttered house will also save you time on cleaning. Yes, you still have to clean, but everything will be in order and cleaning won’t involve as much tidying up as actual cleaning.
And, by the way, getting into little habits with your cleaning, such as morning cleans where you focus on the bathrooms and evening cleans where you focus on the kitchen will help you save time cleaning too. Fly Lady is a great place to get some killer cleaning tips and get your house organized!
Tidying is a special event. Don’t do it every day. – The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up
There are so many different books and programs that will help you unclutter your home. The life-changing magic of tidying up is one of them. It’s always a best-seller on Amazon. Everyone I know that’s read the book and used the principles loves it. In fact, my mother was the one who introduced me to the book. She loved it so much and still quotes insights and principles from the book.
Alejandra.tv is a great place to go and get some help decluttering. She has some videos on YouTube as well that can help, but if you want an organized way to go through your home, then her website is better.
And speaking of YouTube, if you feel like you can do it on your own and without a structured plan, all you need to do is search for Organize Life and you will find a ton of videos to help you declutter your home and anything else that needs decluttering – 2.35 million results as of this post.
