Clutter can create ‘attention residue’ that affects your productivity and ability to focus.
Do you feel like you are scattered, distracted, and can’t focus in your cluttered home? This is not a coincidence. Clutter can have a significant impact on your brain, health, relationships, and ability to focus and get things done.
I just recently learned about the term ‘attention residue’ which was developed and coined by Sophie Leroy, an Associate Professor at the University of Washington. She is “passionate about the study of attention. What allows us to have focused attention and what makes it so hard to do so in today’s world of interruptions, distractions, decentralized decision making and information overload?” Most of Sophie’s research is related to tasks at work and your work productivity and performance, however, I can see how ‘attention residue’ can be related to the affects of a cluttered home.
So, what is ‘attention residue’?
Sophie’s “research shows that, generally, the brain finds it difficult to switch between tasks. In particular, as we switch between tasks, part of our attention often stays with the prior task instead of fully transferring to the next one. This is what she calls Attention Residue, when part of our attention is focused on another task instead of being fully devoted to the current task that needs to be performed.” She also believes, that “we are at more risk of experiencing ‘attention residue’ when we leave tasks unfinished, when we get interrupted, or when we anticipate that once we have a chance to get to the unfinished or pending work we will have to rush to get it done. Our brain finds it hard to let go of these tasks, and instead keeps them active in the back of our mind, even when are trying to focus on and perform other tasks.” (Source: Sophie Leroy’s profile and Attention Residue at University of Washington)
How does ‘attention residue’ relate to my cluttered home?
In our cluttered homes, I believe ‘attention residue’ is high because of the clutter, and it is affecting our ability to focus, think clearly, and prevents us from decluttering and organizing our homes.
- Clutter exists in your home because it is an incomplete task. Your clutter has appeared because you did not finish a task (or something you were previously working on) in your home. For example, maybe you made a delicious meal for your family, but didn’t clean the dishes afterwards and put things away. So now these dirty dishes sit in your sink or on your kitchen counter, cluttering your kitchen work surface and are a visual and mental reminder of a previous task you did not finish. A second example is where you started a fun project or hobby and didn’t have time to finish it, so you left it out because you knew you would want to get back to it. This visual reminder of this fun project you didn’t get the chance to complete, will way on you mentally, even if it is not a conscious thought, and will possible start filling your mind with regret or resentment, because you can’t find the time to get back to your fun project. These kind of things continue to happen in your busy life and home, and as a result clutter starts to build up throughout different areas of your home. These incomplete tasks in your home start to create and build up ‘attention residue’, which affects your stress, ability to focus on more important things in your life, and can affect your motivation and productivity in your home.
- We have a fundamental need for completion and cognitive closure. When you aren’t able to complete a task in your home you may feel frustrated. According to Sophie Leroy’s research, “The prior unfinished task is then likely to stay cognitively active and attract attention, even as a person moves to the next task. As a result, when people must switch from an unfinished task to another task, they are likely to experience attention residue thereby reducing the amount of cognitive resources available for the next task. Their subsequent task performance is then likely to suffer as well.” What this means is that we don’t stop thinking about a previous task until we feel like it is done or feel satisfied with the outcome, which would be considered cognitive closure. So, when you are living in a cluttered home, all the visual clutter and piles of unfinished tasks, does not satisfy our human fundamental need for completion and definitely does not give us cognitive closure. So, we continue to think about the clutter, consciously or subconsciously (it becomes a big mental burden, or weight on our shoulders), which is affecting our ability to focus clearly and be productive in other areas of our lives. This constant reminder of clutter in your home can affect your confidence, in that you don’t believe in yourself and your ability to maintain an organized and clean home. So, the more you can declutter and organize your home, the more confident and focused you will feel.
- Deadlines or time pressure can affect your ‘attention residue’ and your clutter. Sophie Leroy’s research findings show that, “when the first task was finished under low as opposed to high time pressure, people exhibited more attention residue and lower performance on the next task. Time pressure provided an additional necessary incentive to fully let go of the finished task. Time pressure increased people’s confidence in task completion and helped them reach cognitive closure on that finished task, which was revealed by lower attention residue. As a result, people had more cognitive resources available for the next task and their performance was enhanced.” So, if you set a deadline on the calendar, or even a timer for an hour, or schedule a party where people will be coming over to your home – these time sensitive events can help you make a difference in dealing with your clutter. What this means, is that if you set up a time pressure/deadline for yourself, it will help you get the previous task done more quickly and you will feel complete, so you can think more clearly and be able to focus on your current tasks.
How does ‘attention residue’ and clutter affect my brain?
So you can see that clutter, is our unfinished tasks in our home, creates ‘attention residue’ in our brains. The visual reminder of the clutter creates these internal thoughts of all the previous unfinished tasks we didn’t complete in our home, which over time has created a cluttered home. Our cluttered homes get more and more out of control because of the ‘attention residue’, and it starts to impair our judgements, weigh heavy on our mental health, and starts to destroy our self confidence in our own ability to declutter, organize and maintain a beautiful home. Our cluttered homes prevent us from spending time and doing the things that matter most to us in life.
What can you do to conquer your clutter and reduce your ‘attention residue’?
- Set aside dedicated time to declutter your home. Focus on one small area at a time and keep going until you achieve a beautifully, organized home.
- Create awareness in your daily routines, and set up a maintenance schedule so you can maintain your beautiful home. Try and be focused on finishing the tasks you start in your home, so the clutter doesn’t return.
- Set up time pressures (deadlines) like scheduling events at your home, inviting friends and family over regularly, so this will be an additional incentive to declutter and maintain your home consistently.
- Work with a professional organizer like me. We can help you set up a decluttering and organizing plan for your home that will give you the confidence and structure you need to declutter and organize your home. You will build confidence and learn organizing strategies along the way. Best of all, you won’t have to do it all alone, you will have support.
Hopefully, you now understand how clutter and ‘attention residue’ is affecting your brain, and your ability to focus and get things done in your home and in your work.
Start decluttering your home today, to reduce your feelings of being scattered, distracted, and your lack of focus. The more you declutter and get organized, the lower your ‘attention residue’ will be, and you will start to see significant improvements in your brain’s functionality, your health and relationships, and your ability to focus and get things done.
Source: “Why Is It so Hard to Do My Work? The Challenge of Attention Residue when Switching Between Work Tasks” by Sophie Leroy, School of Business, New York University.