The Hidden Psychology of Mess: Does Clutter Increase Cognitive Load?

It’s called cognitive load, and that messy house you live in every day may be having more of an effect on you and your family than you think.

Our environments have a massive influence on how we feel, as well as our habits, actions, and even thoughts. Remember, "Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

Who knew that pile of dirty clothes might determine your destiny?

In this article, we’ll discuss the science behind cognitive load and how it affects not only you, but also your family. We’ll also cover what you can do about the heavy cognitive load a disorganized, chaotic environment causes.

Subconscious Buying Decisions: Lessons from Marketing and Web Design

At first glance, you might wonder, “What does web design have to do with cognitive load?”

When a good designer is laying out a website design, they keep the end user experience in mind. How does it feel for a person to navigate your website? What pushes them away or draws them in?

In fact, principles like this are everywhere in business. It’s called marketing. It’s figuring out why consumers make the choices they do. And frankly, most of your decisions are in fact subconscious.

Professor Gerald Zaltman from the Harvard Business School is often cited with his figure that marketing and neuroscience indicate that 95% of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind.

Other sources cite similar statistics, with a 2024 Nature Communications study suggesting 90%, while general behavior studies indicate that it’s 85-90%.

So that website that is cluttered with a bunch of random images, massive blocks of text, and random sounds? It’s probably driving consumers away, and not only do you not know why…neither do they.

It’s called “cognitive load”.

When you visit a website that has massive blocks of text, all kinds of different fonts, images everywhere, random animations, and more (you’re probably getting stressed just thinking about it), your brain works hard to try to make sense of it all. Your brain’s processor goes into full drive, trying to sort through the mess to determine what’s valuable and what is just noise.

A well-designed website reduces the cognitive load and provides efficiency. It presents well-established relationships between concepts. It leads you on an easy-to-follow journey.

Not only that, but a mess and disorganization communicate something to you. Most often, a well-kept, organized, decluttered space communicates efficiency, responsibility, care, effort, and professionalism.

While we may trust the guy with the autoshop that is in disrepair and disheveled (after all, he’s too busy fixing all the cars), the question is: what would your subconscious mind think about the shop if you saw it for the first time and didn’t know who owned it?

What is Cognitive Load and How Does it Affect Your Brain?

The idea of cognitive load didn’t start with websites and marketing, though.

Psychologists have long studied the effects the environment has on thinking, memory, creativity, and mental effort. What they’ve found is that an environment impacts our processing power and focus, even if we don’t realize it in real-time.

A lot of us live surrounded by random junk. What we don’t recognize is that it’s actually diminishing our mental energies because our brains are trying to sort through the noise. We’re subtly scanning our environment, trying to piece together what connects and what doesn’t. What is safe and what is not? What is the same and what is suddenly different?

The Link Between Clutter, Cortisol, and Mental Exhaustion

If we have 40 million objects vying for our attention, we can’t help but subconsciously work through those things. And a lot of times, it may present itself as increased stress, anxiety, and exhaustion.

Our brains feel muddled and out of focus.

Think of it this way: how well can you think and concentrate when the kids are screaming, the TV is blaring, lights are flashing on and off, and your desk is covered in random papers?

Stresses me out just writing that.

The influence of our environment impacts where our attention goes while also playing a role in what our hormones are doing. Is the environment chaotic? Stress hormones like cortisol rise. Is the environment extremely calming and peaceful? Cortisol lowers.

Disorder and creativity

Now, a bit more disordered, varied environment can be a little helpful...for a short period of time. When you’re brainstorming and coming up with new and innovative ideas, a bit of disorganized, unrelated chaos may bring the inspiration you need.

In fact, some creative agencies have resorted to having rooms set aside for the initial brainstorming and idea generation step. These rooms may contain artwork, random toys or puzzles, post-it notes all over the place, and a general sense of creative chaos.

During blue sky sessions (no judgment creativity sessions for brainstorming), the chaotic and more energetic mindset is encouraged, while ordered, judgment-making thinking is set aside for a little while.

Once the blue sky session is finished, the creative team moves on to the next step in creativity. They begin to refine the idea or ideas they selected to pursue. They work on organizing and categorizing the problems or aspects of what they’re trying to do and make order out of the chaos they just created.

Walt Disney divided separate sessions into: The Dreamer (blue sky), The Realist (planning), and The Critic (problem-solving).

After the slightly disorganized session of dreaming and discovery, the organized high-level planning and problem-solving is where the rubber meets the road to actually put the ideas into practice. Which shapes your destiny. (habits=destinies.)

As the blue sky winds down and the more methodical takes over, the more a person is helped by an organized and structured environment.

After the initial creativity stage, the mess begins to sap your focus.

How cognitive load affects your everyday life

When you look at your cluttered, disorganized house, you might think, “I’m fine with it.” But my guess is, you’ve become accustomed to the weights tied to your mental ankles.

People who’ve limped for a long time get used to it...but it doesn’t mean it’s optimal for walking.

We all picture the college professor genius sitting among his piles of books and disheveled paperwork, believing that he has found the optimum way to think and work.

But that image is a fanciful exception.

Studies from Princeton University Neuroscience Institute, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, demonstrate that physical clutter in your visual field impairs the brain’s ability to focus and process information.

The more your brain tries to sort through the environment around you, the more your mind tries to sort through things and figure out what is safe and what is dangerous.

From the primal mindset, our brains are wired for danger detection, or at the very least anomaly detection. Anything that signals being out of order heightens our awareness and sorting processes.

These are great to get a handle on our environment and surroundings, but just like a computer with too many tabs open, your dedicated thinking and processing slows down, and your focus drains.

And as we stated before, the clutter and that sense of trying to figure out your environment leads to heightened stress, especially if you can’t seem to get yourself to focus like you know you need to.

3 Simple Steps to Reduce Cognitive Load and Improve Focus

First step: Clean out the clutter. Have the things you value most and get rid of the things just taking up space. The messy room is a constant drain on your mental processes because the mess never finishes. It’s always an open loop to your brain, which increases stress and heightened awareness.

Second step: Create a new baseline environment. The brain loves visual consistency, so use consistent colors or storage bins.

Leave it a simple place, with the things you need or value most, and maintain its cleanliness and orderliness. If you wish, include a few well-manicured plants, as studies suggest plants can help reduce cognitive load and stress.

Third: Recharge properly. Create a custom of getting away to a quiet and peaceful natural setting. This may be a quiet park (away from traffic and the chaos of life) or a peaceful lake. Your recharge will help prepare you for the next session of deep thinking.

If you implement these steps, you’ll be amazed at how your levels of stress, lack of focus, and mental exhaustion go down a little bit day after day.

Conclusion on cognitive load

Despite what you may think, your environment has a massive effect on your thinking and processing. The higher the cognitive load, the more your subconscious will try to sort through everything around you.

So invest in the three simple steps above, and find the dedicated thinking that you thought you lost a long time ago.

Don’t Let Your Destiny Be Determined by a Pile of Laundry.

We’ve seen how the subconscious mind and a cluttered environment can dictate your actions. It’s time to take the wheel. To dive deeper into the strategies that help you master your habits and character, check out "Become Forged." Your journey to a more intentional life starts here.