Have you ever noticed how you’re sometimes nervous without any apparent reason? What if we told you it’s because of your messy office?
Physical clutter makes us feel nervous, overwhelmed, and anxious, even without us realizing it. This way, the physical clutter leads to mental and physical health issues. As a result, you’ll feel stressed coming to work and spending time in such an area.
Luckily, there’s a simple solution called tidying up. It takes a while depending on the mess you’re dealing with, but it has to be done. Once everything is clean and tidy, you’ll have an easier time finding certain documents, and you’ll also feel better about spending time in such a space.
Take a few minutes to check the article below to discover how to clear your mind by clearing physical clutter.
Why is clutter bad?
It might seem harmless to sit in a messy room, working while there’s a pile of paper and used up cupboards around you. However, these are clear signs of lousy organization which has a cumulative effect on your brain.
The human brain likes order, so anything that reminds you of disorganization and clutter also reduces the ability to focus. Clutter is a visual distraction which causes cognitive overload and makes it easy to procrastinate.
A messy desk is packed with distractions, and your brain doesn’t know which thing to focus on first. You might know what you have to do, but constant visual distractions around you will inevitably make that hard.
How mess affects your health
As we said, clutter makes us feel depressed, anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a messy office or kitchen, clutter environment results in higher cortisol (stress hormone) levels.
A chronically cluttered environment affects your health in many ways. Waking up and going to bed in a messy room stresses you out whether you notice it or not.
You’ll struggle to find items in your home and office which will stress you furthermore. It’ll affect your performance at work, and it’ll make your family members equally as stressed. The reason why you’ve been arguing with a family member lately might just be a messy home.
When it comes to physical health, there’s also a clear connection between clutter and poor eating choices. Messy and disorganized space makes people eat more snacks, cookies, and chocolates than people who live in an organized home.
If your kitchen is messy and cluttered, it’s unlikely you’ll want to cook anything healthy. More precisely, people who live in extremely cluttered homes are usually overweight.
Are you hoarding?
Hoarding is continuing to buy new things without getting rid of the old ones. It’s an actual disorder, and those who have it compulsively buy stuff all the time and are anxious when they have to throw something away.
Interestingly, these people experience real pain when things are thrown away. In other words, they feel as if they slammed a finger a door, for example.
Still, hoarding is an issue of its own and should be taken seriously. Cognitive-behavioral therapy seems to help though a few other treatments are also useful.
Why should you declutter?
Now that we explained what clutter is and how it affects your brain, you can guess why it’s essential that you clean it. Here’s what you’ll get out of decluttering:
Clearing physical will free much of the space you might need for something else.
Cleaning will make you feel better and accomplished. This can lead to motivation and momentum.
As you clean, you’ll have some time to think about the space and what you want it to look like.
Simple things to do now
If cleaning your cluttered office makes you feel anxious and nervous, you should approach the issue with ease. You might not have an entire day to dedicate to clearing out space, but there are a few things you can do.
Throw the trash
Are there any snack packages, used cupboards, thrown paper, and other trash? Take a trash bag and throw all of that in. There’s probably more trash than what you see at first glance, but just removing this will make you feel better.
Store the things you don’t use
There’s probably a bunch of stuff you don’t use every day but that you still need. In most cases, these are documents and projects that you finished, but that might still be relevant in the future.
You don’t want this taking up valuable space in your office, so you should think about storage. Either get some boxes that you’d seal and store away, or simply store the stuff in a few drawers.
This might take you some more time, but you’ll notice a significant difference in how your space looks and feels.
Free the floor
The first thing you want to do is free the floor. Pick up the trash, put everything in place, and make sure that your floors have nothing but furniture.
This can be a bit tricky, depending on how messy the room is. However, bright floors make the room look neater and cleaner even if the desk if cluttered because it’s a larger area. It’s a psychological trick.
Also, this will make it easier to vacuum, which is maybe something you haven’t done in a while due to the clutter. You should think about investing in a good and reliable vacuum cleaner to help you maintain the floors.
Some of the best units are versatile and easy to use on above-floor surfaces as well.
Clear and organize
Take some time to go through all your belongings. Throw away the things you no longer need or use even if it seems difficult.
Buy some containers and folders for items and documents you’re keeping. Separate and organize them the way that works the best for you, neatly putting them away in drawers and shelves.
Once you do that, commit not to buy anything unless it serves a clear purpose. If possible, you should throw an old thing away before you buy a new one.
