Our energy comes from four sources: physical (your body), emotional (your heart), mental (your mind), and spiritual (your purpose). For ADHD brains—already high-powered and busy—clutter (physical and digital) can act like constant background noise, draining our energy sources and overloading our executive functions such as focus, working memory, task initiation, and mental stamina.
If walking into a messy room leaves you feeling drained or overwhelmed, you’re not imagining it. Clutter amplifies distractibility, decision fatigue, and time blindness, making it hard to know where to start. Creating a calm, organized space helps protect your energy, sharpen focus, and let your brain work at its best. This is a breakdown of the neuroscience behind clutter and organization:
1. Clutter Keeps Your Brain on High Alert
Your physical space influences your inner calm. A complex or disorganized environment gently pushes your brain into its “on-guard” setting.
The Brain’s “Go Mode”:
Instead of letting you be at ease and make decisions at your best, clutter can keep your brain stuck in a low-level state of alert. It subtly signals, “There are too many things here—pay attention!” This can activate the sympathetic nervous system—your body’s emergency fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode.
When This Is Helpful:
This same alert system is one of the ADHD brain’s benefits. In the right context with clear priorities, real urgency, or meaningful challenges it can support:
- Fast response times
- Heightened awareness
- Creative problem-solving
- The ability to handle dynamic, high-stimulation environments
The issue isn’t the alertness—it’s being stuck there without a clear target.
The Stress Hangover:
When your brain stays “on” all day, it releases more stress signals like cortisol. If you have ADHD, and already experience intense emotional responses, this background stress can make it hard to relax or shift into focused and intentional action, even when you want to.
2. The Mental Battle: Why Focusing Gets Harder
The biggest energy drain comes from the fight for attention inside your mind.
Focus Strain & Internal Noise:
Visible items without a clear home can compete for your attention. For the ADHD brain, this external visual competition is amplified by internal cognitive activity—ideas, thoughts, and active projects all competing for space in working memory.
The Strength Side:
That same mental “crowding” is why ADHD brains excel at:
- Making unexpected connections
- Seeing big-picture patterns
- Generating ideas quickly
- Thinking divergently
But without environmental support, the brain spends its energy filtering instead of creating.
Executive Function Burnout:
Precious executive function resources—focus, working memory, task initiation, and mental stamina—get used up just trying to manage all the thoughts in your mind. When that battery drains, overwhelm and paralysis set in, making starting anything feel impossible.
3. How Space Impacts Mood and Longevity
Easier Emotional Overwhelm:
When your brain is working overtime, it has fewer resources for emotional regulation. This can show up as irritability, frustration, or emotional flooding. Some people hit a breaking point and “rage clean,” wanting everything gone immediately. It can also impact the way we connect with ourselves and others.
The Upside:
This emotional sensitivity often means:
- Strong intuition about what feels right or wrong
- Deep care for people and environments
- A nervous system that’s highly responsive to change
When the environment is calmer, these traits become guidance not overload.
Friction, Health, and Safety Risks:
Cluttered pathways increase fall risk and physical strain. Disorganized areas can also harbor dust, mold, pests, and bacteria, triggering inflammation and stress responses in the body. A predictable, safe space supports your nervous system and helps it stand down from constant defense mode.
4. The Cost of What We Own
Our Homes Aren’t Meant to Hold Everything:
Homes weren’t designed to function as storage units, and our brains weren’t designed to manage endless possessions. Accumulating items purchased, gifted, or kept “just in case” quietly drains energy, space, and money. This can be hard to accept in a world that values making money from mass production and encourages overspending and consuming more than producing sustainable products and focusing on the essentials.
Our Common Challenges:
- Emotional attachment to objects and memories
- Fear of waste or future regret
- Difficulty with delayed decisions
- Optimism about future use
- The perception that more possessions equate to greater wealth
These traits come from empathy, imagination, and responsibility not failure. It’s not your fault and you can take small steps to make a positive difference.
The Bigger Picture:
The “take-make-dispose” cycle contributes to clutter in our homes and harm to the planet. Letting go is harder than ever, donation centers are overwhelmed, estate items sell for below market value, and even giving things away can be exhausting. Everything comes at a cost.
Intentional Choices Protect Your Energy:
Being mindful about what enters your home supports your executive function, reduces stress, and frees your brain to use its strengths—creativity, problem-solving, and connection—where they matter most.
Every intentional choice creates more space, clarity, and calm for your nervous system and your life.
How My Services Can Help You
Think of your mind and body as a busy, warm engine, constantly using different forms of energy to keep you alive and moving. I’m not here to judge. There are many reasons why organizing can be challenging. Making peace with the spaces in our lives, including digital spaces, and choosing to live with less and more intentionally is a process, one I’m actively practicing in my own life as well. The goal is to create a sense of calm, clarity, and groundedness, so your environment supports your energy rather than drains it.
Here’s how we’ll work together, gently and step by step:
- Break It Down Into Manageable Steps: Tackle your space in small, achievable chunks so you don’t feel as overwhelmed.
- ADHD-Friendly Systems: Labeled zones, “micro-homes” for frequently used items, and routines designed for your brain.
- Enhance Focus, Time, and Task Management: Organize your goals, space and workflows to help you start tasks, prioritize effectively, and stay on track.
- Declutter With Ease: Decide what to keep, donate, or let go with less pressure, judgment, or guilt. Donations can go to local charitable centers that support your community.
- Support Flow and Confidence: Reduce distractions, build confidence, and feel more grounded in your daily routines.
- Mindful and Intentional Choices: Surround yourself only with items that support your life and purpose. I can recommend and set up tools, systems, and installations that enhance both the functionality and visual appeal of your space.
- Long-Term Support: Practical strategies and routines to maintain calm, organized spaces at your own pace. Some clients schedule weekly or monthly maintenance sessions for assistance with getting back on track.
- Disposal of Unwanted Items: Guidance and hands on help for separating garbage and recyclables, plus resources for donation, pick-up, or delivery of larger items.
Whether onsite, full-service, or virtual, I help you reclaim your purpose, restore clarity, and create a home or office that supports your life one intentional choice at a time.
Visit my contact us page to get started.
Trained Professional Organizer & ADHD Specialist 