I like to think of myself as an organized person. If you walk into my dorm room you will notice that everything is in it’s proper place. Not to the point of being OCD, but just generally tidy! A couple of days ago I was talking to a friend of mine who said:
“You know you’re not as organized as you like to think you are! I’ve seen what’s inside the drawers in your desk. And it’s a mess!”
I felt guilty, almost dirty. As if someone had just uncovered a secret collection of sweets and snacks, or worse!
They were right, of course. And apart from making me laugh, it made me realize that I had just been collecting stuff over the course of the year and rather than dealing with it I was just shoving it into my desk drawers.
The drawers were now overflowing with paper, catalogs, power plugs, receipts, stationary, batteries. Everything that I thought I may need at some point in the future so I didn’t want to throw away.
What’s the big deal you may ask? Everyone has a bit of clutter.
Well there is a school of thought that says that unnecessary clutter has a negative affect on your psyche. In his interview with mediabistro, Oprah’s clutter man, Peter Walsh man puts it simply:
“I don’t think you can make healthy choices in a disorganized home.”
And, in the bible of personal productivity, Getting Things Done, David Allen tells us that the first step to achieving stress free productivity is to sort through all the ’stuff’ that you have in your house, office, garage, attic etc!
I have to say that I’m inclined to agree. I have never been much of a hoarder and have a couple of processes I use to make sure I don’t gather too much useless ’stuff’. But when it does happen, it really annoys me.
When you have a lot of unprocessed junk, there is always a thought at the back of your mind that you must sort through the boxes, drawers, closet or wherever you’re currently stockpiling. This leaves an open loop in your brain that won’t get closed until you attend to it!
I think I have some drawers to sort through 
What do you think? Does having too much ’stuff’ in our lives really make that big of an impact? How do you deal with you clutter? Leave a comment and let us know.