The Clutter-Procrastination Connection: Why a Cluttered Home Keeps You Stuck

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 308. Have you ever noticed that those piles of clutter that you try to get to, mean to get to, tend to grow right alongside your to-do list? Well, if that sounds familiar, join the party. We're going to talk all about these issues in today's episode. I'm going to be talking about the link between clutter and chronic procrastination. And I'm also going to share why I've decided that we should all declutter first before we do anything else. I'm also going to share what the research says about clutter, focus, and stress. I'm going to share my simple touch 1 to 3 items of clutter daily technique to keep you clear of clutter overwhelm.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:52]:
And I'm also going to invite you to My upcoming free 5-day challenge called Re-Energize Your Home. We start November 9th, and you can sign up for this free event by going to procrastinationcoach.com/nov. Again, it's procrastinationcoach.com/nov. It's time for the episode. Let's go listen to it now. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:49]:
When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. In recent months, I have been fascinated by the connection between clutter and procrastination, and I'm also just curious about why it's taken me so long to link the 2 phenomenon together, because I have struggled with both issues personally. And of course, I've worked with so many thousands of clients on these issues, but I never really thought about analyzing the 2 phenomenon in the same context. And I thought, let's do that in today's episode. I read a little bit online and again, put my thoughts together, and I wanted to share some of them with you. Before I go to the individual thoughts I have on the topic, I just wanted to share my conclusion. And my conclusion is that we should handle our clutter first.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:07]:
I think the biggest mistake that we make with clutter is to think that it will be better handled some other day, some other time when we feel more like it, when we have An entire weekend, whatever the story is, I think the best story happens when we actually put our hands to the clutter and we actually make the decisions that need to be made about the clutter so that we can free our brains and our bodies and our souls and our homes from the problem that clutter and procrastination. Tend to bring. So let's get down to these thinking points. I'm hoping that at least one of these in the list will trigger you into direct action with your clutter or with your procrastination or both. The first one is that clutter and chronic procrastination are linked in the research that across research studies It has been shown that clutter and chronic procrastination can be found together. That kind of makes sense when you think about it. It seems to be intuitive or like common sense. But the research also shows that this finding of the link between clutter and procrastination exists across age groups.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:38]:
So no matter how old you are, no matter what life stage you're in, If you lean towards procrastination, it may be likely that you also lean towards having a bit of clutter. So I wanted to put that out there. But there's also the idea of chicken or egg, which comes first, the clutter or the procrastination? And that question, I don't believe there's an answer to with the chicken or egg thing also, but we don't really know which causes which, but we do know that they tend to be found Together, clutter and procrastination. So the next thought point is that clutter isn't just about cleaning. This may also make sense to you, but it's not just about putting stuff away because clutter is about unfinished decisions. And I could come up with a long list of these kinds of decisions that each piece of clutter can cause us to struggle with. For instance, how much is this worth? Can I sell this? Do I need to throw this away? What will happen when I throw this away? Can somebody use this in a productive way? What if I feel badly if I get rid of this item? Who will I potentially piss off if I don't have this item in my home? These are examples of unfinished decisions regarding just one piece of imaginary clutter. that I'm envisioning right now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:10]:
So when we think that, oh, clutter should be easy to deal with, that thought piece is just plain out there for you to use when somebody talks to you like that. You just say that clutter is actually much more complicated than simple cleaning. But I'm going to argue that that fact means that we should get right to it because it's so— Complex and it leaves us feeling like there are unmade decisions. That is another reason why we should make time for decluttering now. The next thought point is from research out of Princeton University that shows that when we have multiple stimuli in our view, that means multiple things competing for our attention. That, that can reduce our ability to focus. So in short, when we have lots of stuff in our view, that strains our brain's processing capacity because different things are competing for our attention, and that can hamper our ability to focus. This is really important information because we all kind of assume that clutter is blocking our focus, but now the research Proves it.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:33]:
So when you know that, what does that inspire you to do? Does it inspire you to put away the cookbooks, to give some of them away, to tidy your kitchen area so that you can actually create a good, healthy meal for yourself? I don't know what it is, but think for yourself, where could I benefit from greater focus? And then go declutter that space. The next thought that I wanna share with you. Is that procrastination is not just a time management issue. It's not just about not being able to get places on time. It's not just about feeling like you're always short on time, which would also be a time management issue. It is also about mood management. That makes sense to any of us who are listening who have procrastinated. Before.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:28]:
It is common that we want to avoid situations or scenes or tasks that have the potential of making us feel badly. That makes sense because bad moods— people tend to try to keep in a good mood. And so if something's predictably going to put you in a bad mood, You're likely going to want to avoid it. But here's where clutter comes in again. If you have a cluttered space in your home, that may be a source of a bad mood or a bad feeling for you. That's going to trigger you to procrastinate and avoid clearing out that space or clearing up that space. But here we have it again, where there's time issues and procrastination issues and clutter issues. The clutter stays.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:22]:
And then what does the clutter do? It attracts more clutter because we make it a habit to procrastinate dealing with the clutter. So again, I'm going to come back to the original tip of deal with your clutter ASAP because it's going to prevent other delays going forward. The next thought point that I have for you is that clutter and stress Are linked. This may also be intuitive to you, but the research out of UCLA shows that when women report that their space is cluttered, they tend to have higher readings of cortisol daily patterns. So that means their stress indicators. were up, that they were reporting clutter and their stress physiologically was also seen as being elevated. So that study is important for a number of reasons, one being that women tend to have this effect more than men do, and also that we need to monitor what are the sources of our stress. It could very well be the clutter in your home that is preventing you from feeling calm when you come home from work, or when you come home and you don't know where to put the groceries because the kitchen table is already quite full.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:56]:
It's that kind of consistent, low-level stress that can really do a number on us. So again, let's return to the initial tip. Let's get to decluttering right away. Another thought point is about overwhelm. Overwhelm is something that I help my clients with routinely. Overwhelm is simply, in my book, defined as that state that we get into, that state of feeling like we can't do anything because we've just looked at the entirety of what needs to get done, like the entire mountain of clutter that's in front of us. And what happens, our brain and our body just say, nope, we are taking care of you. We're going to shut down.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:41]:
You're not going to do anything. But the problem with that is that we do need to do things. We need to do a lot of things. And we also need to stay in flow, in flow of movement as best as we can. We all like to be free and we like to see progress and we like not to feel overwhelmed, stuck, and stressed. So what do we do with this? We need to, when we have a mountain of clutter, if we do, we need to not look at the entire mountain, but we need to promise ourselves that we're going to touch 1 to 3 items of clutter every single day, no matter what. We have to be committed to dealing with the issue so that the overwhelm stays far away because it's not just the clutter that's the problem. It's now the overwhelm that becomes another problem.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:32]:
And it can be quite big because overwhelm means we don't know what to do first. We don't know how to move. And so we stay in this stuck, frozen, paralyzed type of situation. And we want to be done with that because clutter, when it comes down to it, it's complicated, but it's just stuff. We can touch it. We can make decisions about it. We can overlook any mood issues that it triggers because we're going to keep our eyes on the prize. The prize is when we're done.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:07]:
The prize is when we're feeling proud of ourselves. The prize is the uncluttered, clear environment. The prize is never having to deal with that item of clutter again. There are lots of prizes in this game of figuring out the clutter and procrastination. Issue, but you absolutely, absolutely can win. And I think that's where I'm going to stop with the thought list, because I could share some more. And there certainly are more reasons why clutter and procrastination are somewhat dangerous to our mood, our time, our energy, and our spirits. But what I'd rather do is just remind you That clutter is not something that you should just let sit there because it ends up being this invisible to-do list in your life.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:03]:
And we all know that the regular to-do list is already big enough. We don't need this secondary invisible one tugging at us, nagging for our attention, making us feel less than we really are. We're really bright, magical, powerful beings. So let's keep operating with that brightness and power and strength and flow. And that means we're going to get rid of the clutter now. Now, you may be asking, but Dr. Li, I understand all these things that sound like common sense to me, and I've lived it in my space. I have the high cortisol.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:45]:
Mm-hmm. I have the clutter. I have the aversion to doing the decluttering. What do I do? How do I do this? I have already shared with you one tip, which is to start now. The second tip is to touch 1 to 3 items at a time so that you escape the overwhelmed feeling. But I have a third tip, and a third tip is to join me at my upcoming Reenergize Your Home 5-day challenge. We're going to start November 9th, 2026, and we're going to go for 5 days of expert advice from me about how to do this without overwhelm and without stress or tears. And we're going to do active decluttering every single day of the challenge, and we're going to do it in the community of challenge members.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:35]:
So we're talking hundreds upon hundreds of people doing the decluttering with you, sharing the wins, sharing the insights, sharing the energy of decluttering. And you're going to see how we can turn something that is dull, stagnant, boring, and unappealing, which is the decluttering idea, to something that is like the doorway to freedom. It is going to be your ticket to Feeling more energized, more inspired, more yourself, and more like the rockstar that you really are. To get the link to register for this free live amazing event, go to procrastinationcoach.com/nov. Again, it's procrastinationcoach.com/nov, which is short for November, but I want you to just write NOV. And just send me your name and email address and I will send you a list of things that will get you ready for this quick and easy challenge. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait to work with you starting November 9th.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:46]:
And thank you so much for listening to today's thoughts. I hope at least one of them gets you started and feeling like you can really settle these. Issues in your life. They don't have to be following you through the next phase and the next phase and the other phase. You can really be done with them starting today. Okay, take care. I'll talk to you soon.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:08]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:14]:
If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to, and let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.