Beating Clutter by Managing Triggers and Picking Your Battles

How I got my family on board with five practical strategies for lowering anxiety and getting back in control

Image by the author: the To-Do Zone

Above is a picture of one of my kitchen counters. Judge away!

This is also my designated To-Do Zone.

Come, come! Lean closer and let me walk you through it so that you, too, can revel in the chaos.

• The pile: vote by mail ballots, some cards I need to write and mail out, a Christmas ornament that needs to be put away in the attic.
• An Order of the Arrow patch that I want to modify and sew onto my Scouting hoodie. This is in conjunction with the Order of the Arrow sash that needs to be ironed before I put it away.
• Paperwork that needs to be scanned and saved to my Drive.
• Post-it notes filled — filled! — with dumb tasks that I have to write down otherwise I’ll forget and then win the prize for Worst Mom Ever. In spite of the accompanying fame and glory, I try to avoid winning that one too often.
• Laptop, Kleenex box, Aquaphor, and a bunch of file folders containing my kids’ Scouting merit badges-in-progress. I keep the files there to remind myself to nag—oops, lovingly remind — my children to keep working on them.
• A picture frame for which we still need to get the photo printed. The photo in question was taken in June.
• My too-large red purse containing a too-large amount of crap.
• Three pairs of jeans that Son #3 found in one of our hand-me-down bins. They’re still in the package (?!) and I plan to list them on eBay.
• A mailing tube that came addressed to Son #1 and, really, is none of my business. But any piece of interesting mail these days feels like the circus came to town. I hope I’m there when he opens it.
• The Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune, which I probably won’t get around to reading for a day or so.
• Our family’s supply of masks, there to grab when we’re heading out.

The To-Do Zone is endless and annoying. It is also sometimes supplemented by the To-Do Zone Annex, charmingly located near the front door.

Image by the author: Miscellaneous crap piled near the door which, hypothetically, someone — anyone could take care of bringing back to their proper destinations.

These are today’s lucky contestants in the To-Do Zone Annex:

• The dessert pan that I need to return to my sister.
• Some Halloween decoration packaging that needs to be put away in the garage.
• Son #2’s hiking bag that I sewed a patch on and now needs to be returned to the garage.

But wait!

Here’s the primary To-Do Zone in relation to the rest of the kitchen. It doesn’t look quite as bad now, right?

Image by the author: The rest of the kitchen, in which the careful reader will see that she somehow added yet another item — her water bottle — to the clutter during the brief time it took to snap these photos.

The purpose of this little tour is to show you how this system helps my mental health.

Manage the Triggers

A Cornell research study looked at how participants in a cluttered kitchen were more inclined to overindulge in unhealthy snacks. The anxiety caused by the clutter triggered emotional eating, particularly for women.

And, really, it’s studies like these that make me laugh and say, “Well, no kidding, you guys. I’ve been stress-eating potato chips for decades with some strong results in Regret and Self-Loathing. Would you like to do a study on my stress-wine-ing next?”

Regardless, here’s the snark-free takeaway: taking a deliberate approach to managing my clutter helps me feel better.

I work best when I’m sitting at the table and facing the windows. I keep my back to the To-Do Zone because it fills me with an anxiety that I’ve affectionately named Never Caught Up Ever! and which — surprise — is quite distracting.

Due to my caffeine addiction, I get up fairly often to freshen up my tea. As I’m puttering around, I can still see the To-Do Zone nearby, but it is offset by the buffer of the cleared-off kitchen island. My anxiety is somewhat tempered by the fact that my family managed to load the dishwasher and wipe down the counters last night. These are tiny triumphs that I appreciate every morning.

Avoid Community Spread

While we haven’t talked about this explicitly, I’m pretty sure that the To-Do Zone helps alleviate my husband’s frustration with my need to have visual reminders for completing tasks. He knows that if I put everything away in a drawer, it will become a home for good intentions and that a lot of things won’t get done.

And so our drawers mostly look like this instead:

Image by the author: Behold the Drawer O’Useful Things, located dangerously near the To-Do Zone, but still fighting the good fight to stay orderly.

I keep the drawers tidy and organized with little plastic or wood-look baskets I picked up at the Dollar Store. This is a constant work in progress because:

• Useless utensils often blend into the scenery of the drawer. This was recently demonstrated by a can opener that would. not. work. and had probably been sitting in the Misc Utensils drawer for at least a year. I was full-on “WTF?!” when trying to use it. Good times.
• Items that we feel conflicted about throwing away often find a home in a drawer. This happens often with the Alcoholic Articles O’Fun drawer. Wine stopper that doesn’t work well, but has a favorite winery name on it? Sure, put it in the drawer. For now.

Images by the author: The two drawers of Alcoholic Articles O’Fun and Misc Utensils Next to ‘Alice the Oven.’

The bins help me to see what we actually have, rather than being a confusing jumble. They also help me with the whole “every item needs a home” mindset. Which little bin do those measuring spoons go in? Make sure they go there.

Related to this, have you seen those articles about how baskets are the key to keeping our homes organized? I love looking at their photos, but I just can’t get on board. For me, baskets catch the clutter, yes, but then they inevitably become a jumbled mess that I must dig through to find something. Maybe they work really well in a single-purpose space like a pantry, but I find they quickly lose focus in multi-purpose rooms like the living room or kitchen.

Identify Your Non-Negotiables

Lest you start thinking that my house is a tidy haven of artfully placed throw pillows, please know that this is not the case. With three kids and two adults working full time, we have plenty of areas in need of improvement.

However, over the years, I have discovered that these elements trigger my anxiety and frustration:

• Food packaging and dirty dishes.
• Toys scattered where I’m trying to walk.
• All things related to video gaming systems.
• School forms.
• Dust.

These are the Non-Negotiable Expectations that I have established in the household:

• The kitchen is the central hub of the home. Dirty dishes and food packages need to be addressed within a reasonable time by the responsible party.
• Toys stay in the bedrooms, the basement, or the living room.
• Video gaming systems can only be hooked up on the basement TV.
• Dusting is a community effort. Here’s a Swiffer duster, here’s a soft cloth. Go live your best life and dust your bedroom.

This is my biggest non-negotiable:

I will not fill out any school-related forms that require me to provide contact information, etc. In the past, my children emptied out their backpacks and deposited any forms that I needed to fill out on the kitchen counter. Those stupid forms would sit on the counter, reproachfully waiting for me, and I would mutter to myself, “All of this information is literally on the school district’s learning management system. Why do I need to provide it again?” (I’m a teacher, by the way. I don’t understand why schools do this.)

Now that the kids are older, I keep that information posted on the side of the fridge and expect them to refer to it. They’re perfectly capable of filling out those tedious forms. I’ll sign everything when they’re done.

Identify Your “Who Cares?” Areas

My husband and I choose our battles with these three boys, which means that there is still plenty that we don’t stress over.

For example, the bathroom is an area that we’ve decided to stop nagging about. The kids clean it every weekend, but we don’t care if there’s a mess on the counter throughout the week. (Don’t ask me why this doesn’t bother us. It just doesn’t.)

Image by the author: A typical day in the life of our bathroom counter. The children never put the toothpaste cap back on. Ever-ever-ever.

You Do Have Control Over the Clutter

Let me start by acknowledging that I am lucky to live in a home with enough room for all of us to spread out. I don’t have a home cleaning service, but I do have my husband and our three children who are old enough to be helpful, which was obviously not always the case.

I fully acknowledge that there is an incredible amount of privilege here. Sure, there will still be finger-pointers who want to tear me down because some elements of my life don’t align with theirs, and that’s fine. Totally understandable.

But if we can get away from those disparities for a second, let’s look at what you do have control over in your fight against the clutter:

• Designating only one or two areas for stuff that still needs to be dealt with.
• Using little bins from the Dollar Store to help organize your drawers.
• Identifying the messes that trigger your anxiety.
• Taking a deep breath and figuring out which messes are not nearly as aggravating.
• Getting whatever help you can from the people you live with.

And remember, it’s all about progress, not perfection. Tackle whatever you think you can handle today and then do a little bit more tomorrow. Just keep going.

You can do this. You can.

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