The beginning of the year is a time heavy with pressure to clean your home. The Northern Hemisphere’s colder months seed a desire to stay in and get cozy, but home is where the mess is, and it’s staring you in the face, judging you (perhaps following the example of critical family members who came over for the holidays). On top of that, the self-improvement resolution energy of the New Year rudely reminds you that you should be doing better in every domain, so why haven’t you organized all of your snacks into clear plastic containers, like those TikTokers do?
The last thing anyone needs is more of this pressure. But my duty is to report the facts, and so I must inform you that, according to research, clutter in the home is associated with reduced well-being, and seems to get in the way of actually feeling at home. But the clutter, you may say, it just keeps coming! The junk mail, the kids’ toys and art projects, the half-finished water glasses. And by the way, I am very busy. I hear you. I empathize. I am busy too. But I also have a very modest proposal—a quick, easy solution that I swear will have the highest emotional payoff for the least physical effort: Clear your countertops.
That’s all.
Clutter lives rent-free not only in my home but in my mind and heart. More than a crumb-covered rug or an overflowing laundry hamper, what bothers me is stuff accumulated on surfaces. When I see piles on the counters, I begin walking around in a huff, muttering that we live in filth. I’m not always even aware that counter clutter is what’s bothering me until Tupperware is returned to its drawer, keys are hung back on their hooks, Amazon packaging gets recycled, and expired Ace Hardware coupons are thrown away. I realize then that removing those few items from my visual field has unclenched my shoulders and soothed my rage.
People have different tolerance levels for messiness, and mine is probably quite low. But Sophie Woodward, a University of Manchester sociologist, told me that clutter is fraught for most people, in part because “having less stuff is seen as morally good.” Woodward said that in interviews for her research, almost all of her subjects express a desire for a more minimalist home—even if theirs is already pretty tidy. “Unless you are unbelievably on top of things,” she said, “clutter will accumulate to a point where it bothers people.”
Counters are clutter magnets. When you’re holding a random item and don’t know where to put it, the allure of a wide, hip-level surface is too much to resist. Just drop it there and deal with it later, the devil on your shoulder whispers. But this is a trap. “Putting the clutter at eye level, where you’re going to see it most naturally, is going to bother you more because you can’t avoid seeing it,” Daniel Oppenheimer, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University, told me. Counters tend to be in high-traffic areas, such as kitchens and bathrooms, that you’re likely to pass through several times a day. In the open-plan homes that have been all the rage in the U.S. for some time now (blame HGTV), kitchen and living areas are not separated, which can make mess feel inescapable. My house is like this, so when I’m trying to relax on the couch, clutter stares at me from the kitchen island. Counters are meant to be functional, but when they are covered with stuff, they become useless.
Ideally, the solution to counter clutter is to take all that stuff and put it where it belongs: neatly organized in a cabinet, perhaps, or directly in the trash. Woodward said that what makes clutter upsetting is less the items themselves, and more the fact that they’re out of place. (You don’t hate all of those charging cables; you hate that you don’t know where to put them.) So storing items will probably relieve clutter anxiety most effectively. But if all you can manage to do is scoop up the pile and shove it in a drawer to be dealt with later, that’s still a win. “There is absolutely research to support your hypothesis that tidying up visible areas can make a positive impact on your mood!!” Catherine Roster, a consumer-behavior researcher at the University of New Mexico, told me in an email. (With two exclamation points!!)
Once you clear the piles, the stuff won’t be taunting you anymore, and the counter will be newly available to perform its intended function. Even if you’re not going to undertake an elaborate baking project, the fact that you could, Woodward said, may make you feel better. And after experiencing a clear space, “maybe you’re more likely to take the next step, which is then actually put the stuff away,” she said. Sure, maybe.
I know this is a temporary solution. Eventually, you will have to face the clutter. Eventually, you will have to deal with all the other ways your house is messy—vacuum that rug; do that laundry. But not today! Today, just clear the counters, and know peace.
