According to the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, the more clutter you can see, the less efficient your brain is. Competing visual stimuli put demands on your attention, resulting in less focus and greater stress. The study wasn’t addressing creativity. In fact, I’ve seen competing articles that say clutter can help a creative person think out of the box. The study was saying that in normal every day life—like doing laundry or paying bills—clutter is a detriment. Think of the stress when you lose an important bill, or have to search the house for your car keys every other day.
But being organized doesn’t mean we need to sort the mail alphabetically, or hang up our clothes by color, or group books by size (unless you want to). It does mean having a place for everything and putting everything in its place. The bills always get stacked on the same corner spot. The keys always get placed on the same hook.
If you need to get better organized at home, consider using a method like the one offered by Marie Kondo, which helps you let go of things you don’t really need any more. It can be fun and freeing. And if you feel that you need to move into a new house in order to get organized, I can help with that. Let’s go house hunting! Valerie, (718) 399-3320