The mental health benefits of organising your home

Most people enter straight into their hallway when they arrive home, and if it is cluttered, or even just a busy environment, this can make it hard to relax and let go of the stresses of the day. Whether you’re the type of person who consciously thinks about needing to tidy up immediately when they see a messy hallway, or the type who kicks off their shoes, drops their coat and worries about it later, you will reach the point where you feel that enough is enough.

Conventional wisdom says that a tidy house means a tidy mind, and while this may be impossible to prove, it’s true that if you are distracted by problems like mess or untidiness, it can be difficult to focus on the important things you need to think about. Further, having a messy home can add stress to your life, and especially if you have other things to worry about, things can pile up.

Fortunately, there are some simple ways to take control of clutter and enjoy better mental health at the same time. While this approach might seem relatively straightforward, it’s easy to forget how beneficial it can be to take even a small step towards getting things in order. Here, the storage experts at Clever Closet offer some insights into the relationship between wellbeing and a well-organised home.

Declutter and destress
To start with the obvious, houseproud people can easily become stressed if their hallway is untidy. The hallway may not be the only problem, but it is the most publicly visible and this can affect how you feel about it. It will be the first thing any visitor sees, whether they’re coming inside or just waiting on the doorstep, and the hallway is also one of the few rooms in the house where there is often no storage at all, besides a shoe stand or a coat rack, which means it can easily become cluttered.

Marie Kondo is a notable proponent of decluttering using her KonMari method. In the simplest terms, her advice is that you should discard anything that doesn’t “spark joy” in your life and keep only the things you really care about. Through this method, you can grow to be more organised, stay mindful and appreciate the things you have in your home. This is a great method for kitchens or bathrooms, where people tend to keep things ‘just in case’ they need them, but rarely ever use them.

If each item in your house has been chosen because it makes you happy, this can inspire you to feel more gratitude and improve your overall wellbeing. This also means you’ll have fewer things with which to create clutter, and that you can create a dedicated space so that everything is easy to tidy and put away. This can be an extremely beneficial way to improve your relationship with your home and your possessions, and you can apply it to rooms that are not cluttered in order to develop a mindful appreciation for your environment.

Although, as we’ve said, this can be a particular challenge for the hallway because there is often a lack of storage compared to other rooms in the house. If that’s the case, understairs storage can be very beneficial, particularly if you want to not only put things away, but to keep them organised.

How storage solutions can help
If you already have a cupboard under the stairs, you may feel that there is no need to add more storage; but it’s rare that understairs cupboards are kept tidy and well-organised, and if the temptation is there to stash your hallway clutter under the stairs and forget about it, this can make problems worse. It can also end up as a place where things you don’t use regularly are stowed, and that can make it difficult to find these items when you need them.

A modular drawer and cupboard system can prevent this problem by offering convenient compartments in which to sort and separate the things you need to keep in the hallway - whether that’s shoes, coats, umbrellas and other things you want to store by the front door, or items you need in adjacent rooms but have run out of space for. It doesn’t have to be understairs storage, but creating more storage space can be one way to feel more engaged and enthusiastic about tidying.

Taking back control
One of the benefits of embracing a more organised lifestyle is that it can enable you to feel that you’re taking control of your situation. By working to change something that is making you unhappy and taking proactive steps to resolve the problem, you can draw inspiration from this and start to think about how you could follow this same approach to resolve other challenges in your life. Particularly if you find the challenges you are dealing with in your life overwhelming, taking a small step towards solving a manageable problem can be a great start and pull you out of a spiral of negativity.

However, you should be aware that tidying or cleaning are also good ways to procrastinate, so you might find yourself avoiding other, more important tasks by taking the time to put things away first. If you keep things tidy in the first place and plan time into your schedule to take care of regular chores, you can benefit from more focus (and fewer excuses or distractions) when it comes to something important. Of course, it is also necessary to make sure that you have the storage space you need for all of your things in order to make the most of these benefits.