How to benefit from decluttering when you have no energy

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

How to let go of control when you have chronic pain

5 ways to combat your fatigue 

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. Share on X

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:

1. 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. Share on X

7. 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?