How Clutter Hurts You (And What To Do About It)

Hey, Bravehearts. Okay, let's get right to it!

Are you clutter blind? Do you see the number of displaced objects, knick-knacks, stacks of papers and books, and baskets filled with miscellaneous items surrounding you all over in your home and workplace? We'll try as we may, clutter just like air, we'll find its way into every nook and cranny of our lives, and we have to begin to open up our eyes to see it. In fact, it's estimated that we may have as many as 300,000 items in our home.

Now, not all of that is clutter. I understand. But there may be a good portion of it that is exactly what clutter is. Excess. It's all that stuff that you really don't need, but you've just been too busy to deal with it. Clutter that fills our spaces. It's scattered, disorganized things that are all around us, and they impede our movement.

And here's the other thing. It really reduces our effectiveness in life now. A room cluttered with toys and books and mail and knick-knacks and little statues. And decor and furniture, and baskets with things in them, exercise equipment, clothing, all around us. Whew. Well, no wonder we're overwhelmed and stressed. The clutter is robbing us of our good health. I. No wonder we're not as effective as we wanna be.

Well, let's talk about the four kinds of clutter that we might have in our home. Terry Lynn Mabbott is a professional organizer. She's out of the Denver area. She describes it like this. Let me break it down for you: the four kinds of clutter.

The first kind of clutter that we might have in our home is technical clutter. This is just your general run-of-the-mill kind of clutter that causes space restriction. It's that stuff that's smashed in the corners, or when you open up a closet, it's threatening to come tumbling down upon you. This clutter just means that we're out of space. We don't have enough room. We're tempted to get a storage unit or make a little shed because we have too much stuff. Maybe we ought to reduce the amount of stuff that we have instead of building a bigger barn.

Then there's the second type of clutter. It's just life change clutter. In other words, it's something that's changed in your life that's left you off balance. Maybe it's a brand new baby and that's a joyful thing, but you have diapers and clothing and gifts and crib and new, all this new equipment, and where are you gonna go with everything? Maybe you're experiencing, sadly, the death of a loved one, you're just feeling out of sorts and depressed and out of motivation, and you don't have time to take care of all the things because your brain is tired and your heart is hurting, and you're out of balance. You're out of rhythm. It could be a divorce, it could be that you've divided things and you're living in a smaller place now and you don't know where to go with everything yet, or you've moved and you don't have a new home for all of your items, or perhaps you've started a new job. Any number of things, where you now have a different life rhythm than you had once before, can throw us out of balance and create a sense of clutter. It's also our way of controlling what feels like it's out of control.

Now what about the third thing? It's behavioral or psychological types of clutter, mood, clutter, perhaps clutter caused by depression or even attention deficit, where we just don't think straight, or we're not focused enough, or we don't. We get overwhelmed and then paralyzed because we don't know what to do with it. Maybe because you just have low self-esteem and you're struggling with a season of life where you feel like everything is futile for you, or perhaps you just have a lack of personal structure or discipline, or boundaries in your life, and you don't know how to order your life. Maybe psychological clutter. Maybe it's about fear. You know, you have a fear that if you get rid of something that you won't have what you need when you need it, or if you get rid of it, how will you be able to afford it if you ever need it again? And I'll be stuck and I won't know what to do. A lot of women struggle with trauma. Maybe there's some trauma in your childhood. It is a psychological phenomenon that women with trauma will often have trails of clutter, maybe even a clutter moat, if you will, around them, protecting them from the enemy or an intruder, or any interruption or invasion in their life. So look for that clutter.

And then the fourth area of clutter is just a time management deficiency. Poor planning. I have some people in my life who have chronic lateness, and there's clutter in their lives. There's clutter in their home because they're always out of time and they're always running. My mother-in-law used to call it a lick and a promise. I'm gonna get back to it, I promise. I'll give you just a quick little polish now, but later I'm gonna organize this pile. But when that pile becomes too overwhelming, they just start another pile. You'll know the person with maybe poor planning or potentially attention deficit, which, in that case, they're not wired for organization. And so you'll see stacks of paper all throughout their house.

Well, the problem is that clutter is not benign. Clutter does not just sit there dormant, doing nothing. No, no, no. Clutter is always active in our lives. It's not just sitting on a shelf or buried in a box somewhere doing nothing. Clutter is active and often negatively active in our lives, producing overwhelm and increased stress, making you sick.

Studies show that these things clutter negatively affect your mental health and diminish your self-esteem. Did you know that clutter does indeed increase stress levels, giving you headaches and body aches, and muscle aches? That's what clutter can do to you.

Did you know that clutter makes it difficult for you to focus? Clutter contributes to brain fog and just. This allows you the ability to focus and pay attention to the tasks at hand. Clutter can take a toll on relationships.

Studies show that clutter brings a sense of agitation and irritation, and impatience with one another. So, if your space is filled with clutter, and you find yourself kind of bickering with your partner. Take a look at it and take my challenge right here. Clean your apartment, clean your home or your space, and see what that might do for you and for your relationship.

Clutter can even affect how well you sleep because it is hard to unwind and relax in chaos. Your cortisol, your stress hormone, is pumping through your brain when you feel uneasy, not relaxed, and not at peace. This disrupts your peaceful sleep at night. And when your outer life is a mess, it impacts your inner life. It can make an emotional mess. Yes, the mess brings stress.

So, my wonderful, dear, braveheart friend, what would happen if you decluttered your life? Well, I'm so very glad that you asked that question because I'm here to tell you some of the good news.

Now, what happens when you declutter your life? Well, first of all, you're going to reduce your stress and your anxiety. 80% of all doctor visits are stress-related. Why not get ahead of that and declutter your home? Because you can unwind with stress in a clean, comfortable home or a clean space, and a clean office space.

Number two, you know what? A clean space, a decluttered room, and a workplace will help you feel more in control. Now, we know that control is an elusive thing, but the sense of helplessness or being outta control is very scary and frightening and very uncomfortable, but having a sense of control brings peace. So, a decluttered room can help you find a place where you let down the vigilant stress, you release the guard, and allow yourself just to be at ease.

You'll also next boost your mental health and elevate your self-esteem. We call them self-esteem projects around here when we declutter and clean something, and sometimes, when the room is clean, we just wanna sit in it. For a minute and stare at it, because why? It brings joy. It brings comfort, it brings a sense of pride. Your self-esteem goes up. You just feel good about yourself. And interestingly, it brings a sense of hope. Cleanliness, no wonder they say it's next to godliness. You're not gonna find that in the Bible, by the way, but it's a worthy statement.

Alright, so ordering your space brings peace. That's the next benefit you're gonna have peace, we've been talking about that already, but your environment is one of the best places to gain peace, your safe space, your home, your happy place. So, promote a sense of calm and clarity for you by having that place, especially when your home is decluttered. Your eyes finally know where to rest. I've been in places where there is so much clutter on the wall. There are so many knick-knacks that my eyes are constantly darting, and I don't know where to find what they call white space or calm space, where I can actually be. Stop stimulating my brain and allow it to be at rest, and my body at rest will follow.

So, practically speaking, you'll also get many benefits. First of all, you can find things when you declutter your home, and when you can easily find things because everything has a place and a place for everything. You end frustration and you end exasperation, and it's just such a joy to go there and find what you put there and put it back where it goes. Discipline yourself. Develop the habit of when I have something, I put it. Back where it goes. I don't promise myself I'm gonna put it back later. Very often, I'll go to get something and it'll be there, and I say to myself, I love it when you're organized. I love it when you love me in the future, and you take care of me so that you know I don't have to experience this frustration and this stress later on.

Practically speaking, it's gonna save you time. When you declutter your space, the average woman saves about 55 minutes a day. That's an hour a day when her home is in an orderly place. I have a friend who struggles with ADHD, attention deficit disorder, and so I do wanna be loving, she will send me little videos and little memes all the time, and sometimes she'll title them of my daily experience, my everyday life, my current situation, and it's a video of somebody just walking in the door and walking out and saying, okay, I'm leaving by. And they come right being, I forgot my lunch. They leave again. They come back, I forgot my keys. They launch a campaign, or they leave, and they come back and say, I forgot my purse. She goes, this is my everyday existence. I understand that that's a different situation, and yet still we work together helping her create habits that help her stay as organized as she possibly can be. So order not only saves you time, it saves you money. And who doesn't wanna save some dollars? An organization saves you money because you know where to find it. Instead of saying, I don't have time to look for it, I think I still have it. I don't know where it is, and so I'm gonna buy it again, or, because I don't wanna experience the frustration of looking all over the house, I'm just gonna buy it again. Declutter your home. Declutter your space, organize your space, and guess what you'll find that you are saving yourself. Money.

Here's another thing: when you eliminate that excess and that clutter, by the way, generational clutter, the stuff that you're saving for your mom, or the stuff that you're saving to give to your kids, guess what? Get rid of it. Your kids don't want it. Your mom won't miss it. Generational clutter. When you eliminate that excess, you're gonna find that you have more energy because the stress is gone, fatigue is gone. You're gonna feel a sense of energy, and that's energy saved for you, for your personal development, for your ability to create now really great habits for you to go work out at the gym because you don't say, oh, I really should stay home and organize my house energy for you. Instead of picking up after yourself every night, you get to sit and read a book. One of those books that are sitting on your bookshelf that you keep thinking, yeah, I gotta get to that. You'll have more energy for your growth, your dreams, and your goals.

Next on the list is that when you get rid of clutter, you will find you are more creative. Yes, you will be more creative. You'll have more brain space for ideas and reflective thought and dreaming and scheming, and planning. So get rid of the clutter and find yourself more creative. And we mentioned it already a moment ago. You will find that you have better sleep and less agitation in your own life.

So, who's ready to declutter their home? Well, how about if I just give you a few tips as you're ready to do this? Because decluttering your space will bring you to a happy place. You will be ready to soar into some destiny that's been awaiting you simply because you got yourself. Organizing your dream is going to begin with cleaning your space.

So here's a tip. Don't treat your house like a storage unit. Make your house beautiful, let it be that it's soothing to your eye and pleasing to you, so that when you come into it, it feels like an oasis. Not only for you, but for your family. That people, your company, that when they come into your place, they say, I feel the presence of peace in this home. Your home is just warm and soothing, and inviting. It's beautiful here. It doesn't matter. What type of home do you have, how old, how new, how large, how small, how quaint, or how modern? If your space is beautiful by being decluttered, you have an inviting, warm, and soothing safe place.

Number two, use this as a mental trick. Pretend you are moving. When you're moving, you would ask yourself this: Do I really want to take this item with me? Is this a save-keep giveaway, or a donate-sell? Keep whatever you wanna label your boxes. Pretend you're moving. Would I take this with me to my new space? If the answer's no, don't take it with you. Now you're on a journey, you're heading somewhere. You don't need the clutter. Get rid of it. Unpack, lighten your load.

Number three, touch clutter. Once I said it kind of a minute ago. Don't put it down. Put it away. If it doesn't have a place, create a place. Say this is where it goes. Number four, buy baskets, bins, and a label gun. I have a friend who is the guru of organization. Everything had a bin, everything had a basket, and everything had a label. I knew if I was putting it in here, if I was putting it in there, because it was all clearly labeled for me. Take time and do that. If you were to come to my home and look in my closet or my recording studio, you would see that the label gun has been put to very good use. Everything is labeled, and I put it away.

Number five, choose your favorites and then get rid of the rest. Truth be known. If you have five of something, you're gonna go to your one, two, and third favorite. So get rid of the extra. Somebody else needs it. Somebody else would appreciate it. Get rid of it. You don't need it. And if you ever do need a new one. There is a research study out there that says 90% of the time, you can buy what you need quickly and for under $20. So get rid of it.

And finally, number six, release clutter to bless others. I think that's really good. There are many times when I'll look at something that's in my closet or something that's in a cupboard or in my home, and I'll say, when was the last time that I really used this? I haven't used it in over a year. I haven't worn it in a year and a half. Why am I holding onto it if I could release it and bless someone else? So do that. Take the challenge. Take those five steps, those tips, and put yourself on a challenge this summer.

Declutter your home. In fact, the month of June is a good time to get rid of it, and I'm here to help you. I have a gift for you today. Go to my website, braveheartedwoman.com/resources, and check on how to declutter your space, that’s my gift to you this month.

Alright, everybody, brave hearts. I'm gonna leave you like I always do. I hope that you'll take me seriously. I hope that you'll find the time. And hey, if this has been a helpful podcast episode for you, please share it with someone else.

Remember, decluttering is powerful, not only for you, for the others that you know. And here we go. Are you ready? Is it time for you to find your brave and live your dreams!