🌀The Clutter Cycle: Why Your Space Keeps Falling Apart

(And What to Do About It)

You’ve done it! You have decluttered, organized, and are running a victory lap over the neatly stacked boxes marked “donations”. Okay, so it’s just the living room we’re talking about. And that was with the help of a professional organizer. But a victory is a victory!

You’re thrilled… but there’s also a niggling little voice reminding you of all your previous attempts and subsequent lapses back into chaos.

It feels great…for a few days, anyway

Slowly, then suddenly, it’s baaaaaaack, like Arnold in a new movie, Terminator: Clutter Edition.

Welcome to the Clutter Cycle, ADHD style. Only you can’t medicate these piles into order.

What exactly is it? It’s looks something like this:

Clutter ➡️ Overwhelm ➡️ Avoid ➡️ Shame ➡️ Panic Tidy ➡️ Burnout ➡️ Clutter again.

Sound familiar? You are not alone. I’ve seen it more times than I can count in my work as a professional organizer. Please know that this is very typical. Your experience is normal. But for ADHDers and neurodivergent folks, it can be especially difficult.

The clutter cycle isn’t the result of a character flaw. It’s driven by a lack of a decluttering system. ADHD brains especially need friction-free systems when you’re having one of those days.

Purging the excess is only the first step. Stopping there will only perpetuate the clutter cycle. There needs to be maintenance strategies in place, not to mention an honest look at your expectations, especially if you’re comparing yourself to curated Pinterest images.

Having a simple (emphasis on SIMPLE) system in place is key to your success. Here are some tips on how to do just that.

🚮Ditch the Excess

First step, I give you: T’s First Commandment of Organizing:

🚫 Thou shalt not organize clutter. 🚫

I will not sugarcoat it. You’ve got 3,000 square feet ‘o’ stuff in your 1,500 sq ft home. There is an American epidemic of Stuffitis and we’re drowning in it. The reasons for this are many, but I will not dig into that right now.

Organized clutter is still clutter, and failure to get the excess out of your home will keep you doing the Stuff Shuffle Crazy Dance. I cannot overstate the importance of this, even if you have plenty of storage (for now anyway!).

⚙️Systematize, Baby!

After the purge, designing a system that is tailormade for your home and lifestyle is next. For instance, is the kitchen table the heart of your home? Or is the family room the central room? Your answer will determine your strategy.

Do you enter your home through the garage or the front door? That’s the place to set up a “drop zone” along with hooks for your keys.

Open baskets versus lidded containers? (I usually recommend open baskets, except for things like season items, like holiday decorations.)

Are you a cook? A baker? Or is your idea of “home " heat and eat” meals for the microwave? The answers will determine how to set up your workflow in a way that increases efficiency and prevents clutter creep.

🤔Automating Decisions

Decision fatigue can sabotage the best of efforts. Questions like, should I keep this? Or where should this live? It can cause death by a thousand cuts.

A system can automate those decisions. Something as simple as turning hangers around in the closet for items that you wear regularly will help you easily identified clothing that needs to go to the thrift store.

I had one client who was frustrated with the well-intended doo-dads and junk food given by grandparents to her young kids. It would just end up in a pile in the kitchen, right next to a simmering pot of resentment. We figured out a solution. (She set up a “grandparent” table in the garage to decide what actually came or didn’t come into the house. It worked beautifully. You would have thought we had just split an atom, so great was her delight at such a simple and successful solution. Bonus: She could graciously accept the goodies without feeling obligated to bring them into the home.)

💓Be Kind to Yourself!

Keeping realistic expectations will serve you well in breaking the clutter cycle. Life happens! Heath issues, family demands, a busy season at work, it’s not if these things happen it’s WHEN it will happen. Your home will reflect such seasons.

So yeah, you may backslide a little. Or even a lot. And that is okay. It’s always an opportunity to take stock of what’s working and what isn’t.

Be assured that as you establish your new systems, back sliding becomes less frequent and/or less severe.

The only thing certainty in life is that life is dynamic and in a constant state of change. The needs in your home will change, and your systems accordingly. (For instance, bringing a new baby home or setting up an office out of the spare bedroom.)

📏Progress Over Perfection

Decluttering and breaking the Clutter Cycle is not a one and done. It is an ongoing practice. And any stumble isn’t a failure, it’s feedback. That feedback may inform you that the system needs to be tweaked or that you need to do a deeper purge. Or perhaps it’s simply another opportunity for you to practice self-kindness or to learn to laugh at life’s messiness.

Your home is not meant to be a storage unit. It should be your soft place to land and recharge, a place of refuge from life’s demands. A place of peace. You’ve got better things to do with your one wild and precious life than play clutter reindeer games.

You deserve nothing less!

What are your challenges? Drop me a comment and let’s talk!

And as always, thank you for reading and sharing.

Yours in Making the World Just a Little More Organized,

Theresa

PS You are loved. ❤️

The Zany Sage is a labor of love and offered to all free of charge. But if you are able and so inclined, each paid subscription helps me keep the lights on and the coffee pot filled. No matter how you subscribe, I appreciate you!