Tidying Up: The Psychology of Clutter

Decluttering expert, Shelley Davies

When Shelley Davies arrives at a client’s door with her big black eyeglasses and calm, focused demeanour, she could be mistaken for any professional making a house call: A physician, tutor, stylist, therapist or, perhaps, exorcist. She is, in a way, all of these things.

The founder of Details Modern Order, Davies makes house calls that can feel as personal as a doctor’s consultation, as consoling as a therapy appointment and as cleansing as an exorcism. Her goal? A cure for our modern malaise: clutter.

“The words I have heard over and over again are ‘I’m drowning,’ or ‘I’m suffocating,’” says Davies.

The feeling of being overwhelmed comes, says Davies, because “when people are surrounded by too much clutter they feel stuck.”

Our clutter problem has become something of a 21st-century obsession. The Netflix show Tidying up with Marie Kondo, replete with its soothing, almost holy rituals of holding and letting go, has cashed in on the anguish and helplessness that we who live cluttered lives feel.

In the era of fast fashion, easy credit and urban density, many of us simply have too much stuff and nowhere to put it. The never-ending stream of clothing, dollar-store gizmos, seasonal decor, gifts, paperwork, sentimental items, unfinished projects and overloaded Billy bookcases is just too much.

Unlike hoarding, which has been classified as a psychiatric disorder since 2013 but affects just two to six per cent of the population, the emotional consequences of clutter have not benefited from wide psychological study.

Perhaps they should. According to the Professional Organizers of Canada, 83 per cent of Canadians indicate they are extremely disorganized and 91 per cent of Canadians feel clutter negatively affects their lives. According to Planet Storage, the average Canadian spends 12 weeks a year looking for stuff they can’t find.

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