Decluttering is hard when you have no energy and live with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, or disability. As I’ve learned a lot more about how to keep my house relatively clean and to tamp down on the utter chaos caused by my minions, I thought I’d talk more thoroughly about dealing with clutter when you have no energy. Mostly because I really really hate clutter and seeing it stresses me out, and I almost never have any energy. Do you know the show hoarders where people can’t throw things away? Well, I’m the opposite of that, I’d like to throw everything away. I don’t, mostly because I live with other people and I try to respect their things, but I’d really like to. Why do I hate clutter and feel strongly enough to write a post about dealing with it? Well, clutter can cause the following problems:
Clutter can cause anxiety and stress
For me, just walking into a room that has a good deal of stuff just sends my anxiety through the roof and makes me feel tired, and I’m not the only one.
Related posts: 5 tips for cleaning with chronic pain
Why do clutter and mess lead to anxiety and stress?
Sometimes just looking at the clutter that’s built up in our homes can be totally overwhelming. Clutter makes it more difficult to relax, both physically and mentally because it bombards our minds with extra stimuli. This causes our senses to work overtime on things that aren’t important. It literally signals to our brain that our work is never done. For me, it’s a constant reminder that I should be doing something, which isn’t helpful when I need to be resting and pacing myself. I cannot rest when there’s something in front of me that needs to be done. So how do I deal with it when I know I need to pace myself?
Clutter makes it more difficult to relax, both physically and mentally because it bombards our minds with extra stimuli. This causes our senses to work overtime on things that aren't important. Click To Tweet
Decluttering when you have no energy (fatigue) or you’re in pain
You know you’re supposed to pace, but the clutter is driving you crazy and there is a ton of it, what should you do? Whatever you do, do not go on an angry cleaning binge where you spend a whole day making sure everything gets put back and is spotless, this will backfire (ask me how I know). What you can do is:
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Focus on one room at a time
Pick a room that is bothering you the most, and focus only on that room. Do not think about all the other rooms that need to be dealt with. Start by giving yourself 5-15 minutes to pick up, and no matter how bad it looks after the 5-15 minutes, do not keep on going. Keep doing this once a day if your health allows it. If you feel up to slightly more, do this twice a day.
2. Involve family
If you live with family, involve them. With my kids I will say “you need to pick up everything that belongs to you on the first floor and put it away where it goes.” There’s a lot of whining involved, but this really gets most of the clutter taken care of.
3. Organize
This needs to be done on a good day so it may take you a while to get there, but that’s okay. I love organizing, it makes me happy to have a mess transformed into something easy to reach and easy to use. For example, my kids have spent all of Covid doing school from home. They set up at the dining table and it didn’t take long for the entire surface to be covered in random papers and junk. I bought them a three drawer container like this one (aff link), only way cheaper from Walmart. They had to start putting their school stuff away at the end of the day, and this really helped to reduce the clutter.
4. Don’t let papers sit around
Papers are the #1 clutter in my house. I approach papers the same way I approach cleaning, deal with it 5-15 minutes at a time. With two kids in school there are always papers all over the bar in our kitchen. I try to organize them in piles such as: kid school papers, bills, coupons etc. Everything has it’s own individual spot, though I’ll admit I’m not great at using those spots, my coupon pile is out of control right now. This all comes down to organization again, annoyingly.
5. Get rid of it
If you don’t use it, get rid of it. I always have a huge donation pile in my garage to bring to Salvation Army so someone else can use it. This of course can be hard because you don’t always know what you will use again. I’ve definitely regretted giving some things away a few times. What I do when I’m not sure is I test it out for 6 months or so. For example, with clothing I turn the hanger around when I use it, so I can tell if I’ve worn something in the last 6 months. If I haven’t worn it, then I get rid of it (unless it’s for certain occasions, like the dress I wear to weddings). With non-clothing items, you can put them in a box and store them somewhere out of the way. Make sure to date the box so you know if you’ve used it.
6. Create good habits for the future
It is much easier to keep a lid on clutter if you deal with it on a regular basis. If you ignore it for a long period of time, it can become overwhelming. Of course, when you’re always exhausted you can’t always keep up with the clutter like you want to, so do your best. Some days I just cannot go up and down my stairs repeatedly. So what I’ve done is put 2 baskets on the stairs with my kids’ names. When I pick up their junk, I put it in their basket instead of putting it away upstairs. This helps me on my bad days.
Clutter is completely normal. It is 100% okay if your house is not perfectly organized. You are doing the best you can. Click To Tweet7. Remember that just because you have clutter does not mean you’re lazy
Clutter is completely normal, even healthy people have a hard time with clutter. It is 100% okay if your house is not perfectly cleaned and organized, you are doing the best you can.
What has helped you with decluttering when you have no energy?
I have been slowly decluttering. Just by myself. And selling things because, well, financial reasons. But I don’t know if clutter causes me any stress or anxiety. I just know getting rid of things I do not use makes logical sense when someone else may be able to use it so much more. But if you look at my office, which I rarely use with vertigo these days, but when I do I MAKE CHAOS. I am just a messy cluttered person. No matter how neat it is in there when I am done it is like a paper demon exploded in there. lol
I’m jealous it doesn’t stress you out! I’ve been trying to be more laid back as Covid has forced us all to be home together, but it’s hard for me. I will say books are my clutter nemesis. I love them, and I have them all over the house,
I’m definitely a declutter and need to live in a tidy home. It helps me to manage my pain and disabilities to have some order around me. Great post. Thank you!
Excellent points to keep in mind & helpful suggestions. Clutter does not equal laziness. I feel I’m forever decluttering and tidying, partly because the house isn’t big enough & I can’t organise the way I’d like, and partly because I never have the energy to do much, so I’m continually doing small chunks of this and that, then having to re-arrange and re-do them all. I think subconsciously that, while I hate it on the outside, I must really love it because I’m always decluttering! What’s also a bit weird is when I read about your out of control pile of coupons I got excited by the thought of collecting a huge pile of discounts! ? The paper cut outs have thinned out here recently, perhaps will less post and less discounts online from businesses. I miss cutting them!
Right, very off-track. Fab post! xx
I’ve noticed a drop in coupons as well. A good 1/2 of my pile ended up being expired. I’m terrible of keeping track when to use the right coupon!
I love how you made that point about clutter affecting us mentally and physically due to the overload of stimuli. I’ve never thought about that. It truly does irritate my brain. Loved the tips, too!
With every move, I purge and enjoy living with just the necessities. Then I get comfortable and start adding more. I recently ran into the issue of having too much furniture and barely being able to squeeze in our Christmas tree. LOL.. I think it’s time for another move.
I’m one of those people who enjoys purging my stuff before a move, it’s probably a good thing I don’t move very much anymore!