How Clutter Gets in the Way—and 10 Tidy Tricks to Help

A little clutter never hurt anyone. Right? Actually, too much stuff lying around can change how your brain works. 

This is your brain on clutter. 

Did you know that when your desk covered in scattered pens, papers, and cups, they all compete for your brain’s attention?¹ They're like visual pollution. Your brain tries to take them all in at once, but it doesn’t know what to focus on first. Too much visual pollution leads to mental overload and can even reduce your working memory.² 

The need to clean your space can also weigh on you mentally. It's just another thing on your mental to-do list. It’s hard to relax at the end of a long day if you see a sink full of dirty dishes or an unopened pile of mail. The human brain really likes order. A disorganized space can cause tension and anxiety. 

Sometimes the worst part of any mess is simply not being able to find what you’re looking for when you need it most. It’s stressful and frustrating to search for your keys, phone, wallet, or a child’s homework when you’re already running late.  

10 Tricks for 10-Minute Tidying 

Not sure where to start? These simple ways to be a little more organized every day. 

1. Start small. You don’t have to do everything at once. Just start with what's in your line of sight. Finish one thing and feel a sense of accomplishment. That small win might even inspire you to keep going. 
2. Ask for help. If your partner, roommates, or kids also make the mess, ask them to pitch in. You might have to let go of what your idea of perfection. Instead, settle for what’s possible. Chat about how much mess you’re both comfortable with and empower children to help in an age-appropriate way. 
3. Sort the mail. Put a dent in the pile. It’s so easy to put your daily mail in one place and deal with it—later. Set aside a few times every week to go through it. 
4. Give everything a home. Stop clutter from taking over with bins, baskets, and boxes. If everything has a place to go back to, you can contain the chaos. 
5. Put it away. Finished using an item? Put away in the moment. Now you’ll have fewer things to pick up later. 
6. Set a timer before bed. Make tidying up a small part of your nightly routine. Choose 5–15 minutes to vacuum, pick up clothes, and wipe up spills until time is up. 
7. Make it fun. Put on a playlist of your favorite songs, find a new podcast, or listen to an audiobook while you dust, sweep, and sanitize away. 
8. Take the trash with you. Use one habit as a cue for another one. Some people call it “habit stacking.” In this case, turn leaving the house into a cue for taking out the trash. 
9. Clean as you cook. Don’t leave all the cleaning for the end of cooking or baking. Toss or compost scraps, put ingredients away, and wipe up spills as you go. 
10. Do what you can, when you can. Don’t be hard on yourself if your house isn’t clean all the time. Focus on key areas where clutter makes a difference. Start there when you have time. Or plan a different area to clean every day of the week. 

Kick clutter to the curb. Team up with MOBE Guide to create just-for-you habits that make it easier to stay organized.

References 

1. McMains, S., and S. Kastner. “Interactions of Top-down and Bottom-up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex.” Journal of Neuroscience 31, no. 2 (2011): 587–97. https://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/2/587. 
 
2. John M. Gaspar, et al., “Inability to Suppress Salient Distractors Predicts Low Visual Working Memory Capacity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 3 (2016): 3693-98, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26903654/