A study published in January 2019 in Environment and Behavior (also coauthored by Ferrari and Roster) found that indecision and procrastination at work are associated with increased office clutter. Notably, procrastination and clutter can be a two-way street. RELATED: The Most Common Causes of Stress: What You Need to Know It isn’t abundance that’s the problem as much as attachment to abundance.” “Clutter is often the result of an overattachment to our personal items, which makes it difficult to part with them. Ferrari, the study’s lead author (the paper is coauthored by Dr. “Clutter reflects an overabundance of possessions that collectively create chaotic and disorderly living spaces,” explains Dr. Moreover, living in a cluttered space is associated with self-reports of reduced productivity and more chronic procrastination, according to a study published in September 2017 in Current Psychology. The perks that come with decluttering the physical space around you aren’t surprising given that exposure to cluttered, disorganized environments can compromise your attention, concentration, and focus - and even drain your cognitive resources, according to previous research on the results from functional magnetic resonance imagine (fMRI) scans. Why Does Clutter Affect Our Well-Being?Ĭlutter affects our emotional and physical well-being in numerous ways: Clutter in the Office Can Make Us Less Productive and More Burnt Out So, if your home is feeling more cluttered than ever, read on to learn why it’s worth making time to start clearing things out. Plus, it’s easy to procrastinate when it comes to tasks that seem overwhelming or stressful - like tackling your overflowing junk drawer, or sorting through the huge pile of clothes that you haven’t reached for in months. But in reality, he says, financial and health-related factors likely affected whether or not people embraced the opportunity to clear their spaces of clutter. “One of the excuses people used to say was, ‘I'd love to declutter, but I just don't have the time,’ and along comes this pandemic,” he says.
They feel more competent and efficient.”Īnd while you might think spending more time at home meant more people decluttered their homes during the pandemic, Joseph Ferrari, PhD, a professor of community psychology at DePaul University in Chicago who studies the causes of clutter and its effects on emotional well-being, thinks that’s probably a myth. It’s a reclaiming of a sense of mastery and control. “When people go through the process of decluttering, they feel a sense of freedom and liberation. “It gives people a renewed sense of control over their environment,” explains Catherine Roster, PhD, a professor of marketing and director of the Behavioral Lab at the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who has studied the effect clutter has on our psychological well-being. After all, decluttering (the process of putting the miscellaneous physical things around you away where they belong) not only makes it easier to find what you’re looking for, it can also improve your mood and state of mind in myriad ways. Yet many of us don’t realize how our personal habits may be contributing to our angst and anxiety.įor one thing, clutter and messiness can cause distress, which may be part of the reason why the Marie Kondo tidying method and minimalism have so many loyalists. We’re living in a time when many of us feel overloaded with stress.
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