I jokingly say my husband is clutter blind.
I’m a firm believer some are more bothered by clutter than others.
I don’t just love a clean home. I thrive in one. When the house is a mess, I feel like a mess.
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Here are some signs you too may be clutter blind:
1 – Piles
You have piles of stuff all over your house and you are comfortable with it.
There’s the clean clothes pile, the dirty clothes pile, and the needs ironing pile.
You have a “system” for piles of papers on your desk, entryway table, and kitchen table. The coffee table long ago became the victim of its own piles.
If you are comfortable with piles, you, my friend are clutter blind.
2 – Nothing has a designated place
Some sweet person in your family holds up an object and asks, “Where does this go?” Your answer, “I don’t know. Just set it over there.”
Better yet, something new enters your home and it makes its way to the infamous dumping ground (see my dining room table below).
Why does it go there? Because it belongs nowhere. It has no designated place.
Not assigning items a designated place makes you clutter blind!
3 – You have no system for paper
If your new mail gets dropped in a certain place, and it sits there unattended for weeks on end, you are likely clutter blind.
My husband and I once thought we were “organized”. We had a small end table in our kitchen and all our mail got placed on it to work on “someday”.
Often times, our mail pile was one foot high! That’s a lot of paper.
You need a system for the paper that enters your home. If you don’t have a system, you are clutter blind.
Related Post: A Simple Method to Organizing Paper Clutter
4 – You have to make paths through your stuff
If you have to make paths through all your stuff, you are clutter blind!
Our garage used to be the perfect example of a room with paths. We had so much stuff, and in an attempt to avoid extra storage costs, it all went into our garage.
We literally had paths to the exit, the workbench, and the outdoor toys.
There was so much stuff in our garage at one point that I forbade my young kids to go in there, fearing the boxes and piles would tumble down onto them.
We were seriously clutter blind.
5 – Your spouse is annoyed the house is always a mess
Whether it is passive-aggressive or in your face, if your spouse is constantly annoyed the house is a mess and you don’t see it, you are probably clutter blind.
It’s ok. Some people don’t mind the clutter. I’m almost jealous of these people.
However, if your spouse is constantly nagging you about the state of the house, it probably makes them feel so much better to operate in a house with a lot less chaos.
6 – Your friends offer to help you clean
Have you ever had a friend come to your house and sweetly offer to help you “organize”?
If this has happened to you, chances are they see the chaos, and you are clutter blind!
7 -You never feel like the house is clean but don’t know why
I used to spend every single Saturday trying to clean the house.
No matter how hard I tried, and no matter how much I organized, the house always felt like it was a mess.
It was a mystery I never understood until my eyes were opened to what clutter looked like. I was clutter blind!
Related post: How to Maintain a Clutter-Free Home (Even with Kids!)
8 – You always take free stuff
If you say “yes” to free stuff, even if you don’t need it or want it, you are likely clutter blind.
Free mugs, bandanas, note pads, pens, grocery bags…the list goes on.
We used to say “yes” to all things free. It was a habit that started when we didn’t have much money. If it was free, it would be stupid to turn it down.
Thing is, we didn’t always need the free stuff offered to us.
So what happened to all that free stuff?
It usually ended up in a pile or a box in our “junk room”.
Break the cycle of taking free stuff or face forever being clutter blind!
Related post: Three Secrets to Declutter Your Home
Are you clutter blind?
If any of these characteristics sound all too familiar, there is a good chance you are clutter blind!
So what do you do if you are clutter blind?
Start small. Join our free five-day challenge. Start recognizing clutter and find a way to get rid of it!
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9 Proven Methods to Clean Out Your Closet Without Regret
Moving frequently as a child, my roots are in my possessions, not friends nor places. As an adult, I revisited my childhood homes to say a proper goodbye, unable to grasp what finality there was in “leaving”. Being creative, i need my tools not discarded without asking.