Ever gone looking for one small thing and somehow ended up cleaning the whole drawer or the entire room? You start searching for your missing item, and before you know it, everything’s out, you’re exhausted, and the original thing you needed is still missing.
In this episode, we talk about the psychology behind this common spiral, why your brain confuses searching with organizing, and how to pause before the overwhelm hits. Learn how to separate the two actions so you can regain focus, protect your mental energy, and make steady, intentional progress instead of accidental chaos.
In This Episode We Talk About:
- The psychological difference between searching and organizing tasks
- Why task switching, cognitive overload, and decision fatigue lead to overwhelm
- How to pause, reset, and separate your “looking” from your “cleaning” to stay focused and calm
Mentioned in This Episode:
- The “Two-Part Rule” — treating the search and cleanup as separate steps
- The impact of visual overstimulation on stress and attention
- Related episodes:
- When Organizing Feels Like Too Much — How to Simplify the Process
- How Much Time to Set Aside for Organizing
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Review Transcript:
Have you ever gone looking for one simple thing? Maybe it's your favorite pen, you know, the missing charger or the black sweater, you know, you just saw last week, but then suddenly everything's on the floor. You went digging and digging and can't find it, and you know, you saw it. It's there. It's somewhere you started searching and before you knew it again, you know, everything's out of its place.
Now you are cleaning, you're sorting, and you're asking yourself how you got here. The house now looks worse than when you started, or whatever space you're working on, and the timing you were looking for, like that timing, that thing, that sweater, whatever, is still missing. So today we're going to talk about that moment when a simple search turns into an organizing spiral.
We'll talk about what's happening psychologically from a professional organizer standpoint, from what I have seen and understand, and why your brain tricks you into thinking you can do both, and how to gently pull yourself back into focus when the overwhelm hits. So here we go.
Welcome to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the organized Flamingo. I am your host Stephanie, your compassionate and deficient professional organizer. Whether you are part of the sandwich generation helping a loved one declutter, or just trying to simplify life, this is the place for you. Together we will tackle those overwhelming piles of stuff, uncover purpose in what we keep, and let go with dignity and care, because it's not just about throwing everything away, it's about respecting memories and simplifying life.
Sound like a plan? Let's jump in and get organized. Okay, so first things first. I just want to remind you that when we talk about these situations, that it does happen to a lot of us so that you're not alone. Even the most organized people, I mean, it happened to me last week. I made a total mess when I was just looking for these, uh, like tweezer, scissor combination thing that I knew I, I had just seen.
I got everything out, and then when everything was out, I started cleaning. But you know, for me, because I I do this for a living, I, I tend to acknowledge what is happening a little bit earlier than maybe if you're not used to it. Okay? But I just want to tell you and assure you that this happens and it's a very normal, now we will talk about when maybe it's not as normal and, or there's another component and layer to it as well.
So I will be addressing that part as well. But if you're looking for something that's out of place, okay, so let's just go back to what we're here for. You are looking for something that's outta place. You start opening doors, moving things around, pulling out bins, and then you catch yourself thinking, well, I might as well just clean this whole thing.
Okay. It totally starts innocent. And then what really happens is that your brain slips from search mode looking for the thing into organizing mode without permission. And the first is about organizing. That first task is locating. The second is all about categorizing and decision making, the organizing piece.
So those are two totally different mental processes, but your brain doesn't actually signal the shift. It just keeps going until you hit cognitive overload because it's kind of trying to protect yourself. So let's break it down. When you're searching, your brain is using focused attention. This taps into the peral cortex and visual attention networks, which is where your goal is to find a single target, like a single item.
Like it's, it's focused, right? You're scanning for shape, for color, maybe pattern recognition. It's task specific and detail oriented. It's very, it's just trying to keep you alive and go look for the thing that you said you needed. When you start organizing though, you switch to a completely different system.
Your executive functioning in the prefrontal cortex, that part is being activated. So this part handles planning, prioritizing, and sequencing, and suddenly your brain goes into from looking for one object to evaluating everything else in the play. So now you're liking cognitive motion, right? Like cognitive executive cognitive motion, like you're trying to make decisions that that was not the original intent here.
You were just looking for the thing. That quick flip causes task switching, and once you're there, the cognitive overload begins. So you're essentially trying to run two apps on your brain at once to give you a visual. So you're trying to search and sort, and those both require a lot of energy. So now you add decision fatigue on top of that because now once you get into organizing decluttering mode, now you're into the decision phase and every choice like the keeper toss, where should this go?
Do I need, this drains your mental battery. So now you're adding that on top. What started as a five minute search becomes a full on organizing project with no end insight. Now, I've talked about this in our how to organ or when you're trying to organize anything really. For the MA majority, there's these seven steps.
And we have that in the podcast episodes, especially from the beginning when we first started the podcast. And it's seven steps of organizing almost anything. You can kind of listen to me talk about each of the steps and why they're all different when you're organizing process. And so that will give you an idea on how many steps there are when you're trying to declutter and, and decide and organize, like it just requires its own tasks of line items and, and things you need to think of about.
But when you're trying to search for something, you're just trying to go look for it, grab it, and continue with what you were doing before. Two very different actions. And then of course there is the visual overstimulation and all of those items are out the door, out of the floor, on the counter. They create that sense of chaos because now there's like a visual representation of what is going in your head and your on your mind, which triggers your brain's stress response.
And so you might feel frustrated or anxious or frozen. Which is totally normal. I mean, I'm sure just listening to me talk about it, if you are still listening, you're overwhelmed. So that is what's happening in your brain when all of these activities are happening. So how do you pull yourself out of that spiral and prevent it from happening again?
I've got a couple tips. They're super, they're more like. I shouldn't say simple, but some of them feel obvious, but I want you to kind of try them out again in this order, almost like a checklist. There's four of them, and then we're gonna talk about it, about what happens when you have tried these and it's still not working.
Okay. Hi. Cherish friends. Life can get overwhelming, especially when you're juggling caregiving, clutter and everything in between. That's why I created the Organized and Cherish weekly email. That goes out every Wednesday straight to your inbox to help you keep the momentum inspiration going with tips and reminders of our upcoming events.
All you have to do is head on over to organize and cherish.com and sign up for the email newsletter. It's free and you can up subscribe whenever you'd like. It's my way of helping you simplify your life and respecting memories along the way. Now back to our show. So first would be to name the task. So say it out loud.
I'm looking for my charger. I came here to look for fill in the blank. This sounds, you know, simple, but it crowns your brain in a single goal. And the act of labeling that action helps activate your logical brain and reduces impulsive switches, which is what we're trying to avoid, to switch on an impulse, like to just go from one to the other without even any thought at all.
Then you go into survival mode and then you get stressed and we go down that whole path. Okay? So name the task number two, set a micro boundary. Give yourself a specific time or area limit. Uh, be as specific as possible. I mean, very. An example would be, I will look in this drawer for five minutes. If you don't find it, pause, don't pivot into cleaning mode.
We're just gonna pause. We're going tomo ourselves into another space. Or do another, you know, if you know for sure it's in that space, I could try it again, but focus on that boundary. You set yourself up for Number three is to use the two part rule, which is to treat the search and the cleanup or organizing decluttering as two separate tasks.
There's, there're just two different parts of your brain. If you made a mess during the hunt to look for something, do a quick reset, pull things back. Loosely, maybe not perfectly, but hopefully you have some systems in in place and we've worked together on organ organizing almost anything and setting up a home for everything and all that.
Okay, but if, if you don't, just put it back loosely. Let's revisit later and plan the actual organizing session for another day when your brain is fresh. Number four is to avoid the, might as well trap that phrase. I might as well clean it out while it's out. It's often a sign you're crossing in into that decision fatigue and we don't want that.
Take note of it in pods and we'll come back to it. Okay, so now let's talk about what happens if you either try these four practical reset steps and they don't work, or you have tried it in the past and you have doubts because it just has never worked, and you go, you're going around in circles and circles and circles.
Okay? This is where I do want to encourage you to seek help outside of just the organizing and decluttering habits space. So if you or a loved one are starting to find it impossible to face certain areas, or this is happening over and over again where you have tried that, you tried to reset and you've tried the boundaries, and you tried all these, but you're going around, same thing happens over and over again.
It might not be about the stuff. Anxiety, trauma, depression, A DHD, amongst other things can make, even looking at clutter feel impossible. This is where a licensed therapist, mental health practitioner, especially one familiar with hoarding or chronic disorganization trauma, can be a powerful ally. Okay? So I do want you to think about that because if you are running not just in circles, but it's not making a difference, okay?
I want you to consider that. There could be other layers to this that are outside of the physical space and physical items. At some point you are losing concentration. There could be a loss of concentration for other reasons. So, you know, I can say name the task, but if that is physically impossible or you're, you're trying, but you just.
Or your loved one. This is really important for a loved one, especially that is getting older or you've, you know them at a different capacity and all of a sudden you're seeing some of these very obvious switches that they, they're no, no longer able to concentrate. That could be a, a flag, like little, you know, orange, yellow, red flag saying, Hey, check this out.
There might be something else here. Um, same with the micro boundaries. If you are having a hard time setting boundaries for yourself, oftentimes it can be a sign of A DHD or some kind of attention deficit that you may want to take a look at. Not always, okay. We are not, not one size fits all here, but let's just talk about how, what happens when you're going around in circles and circles.
Same thing with if you're not able to treat the two actions separately. There might be a connection there that you're not making. And sometimes it's trauma centered. Sometimes there's just other communications that you do need to talk through so that you can be a little bit more clear about it. And same thing with the overwhelm.
And when you're saying, you know, I might as well just clean it while it's out. Like you're just now entering into the like kind of the anxiety territory that I do want you to be aware of. So if you. Have tried these four practical steps and it hasn't worked for you, not just once though. I do want you to try them a few times and in different days, different times of the day.
Maybe you are more of a person that can follow this in the morning or you know, you're more of a night owl, et cetera. Different days, different types of your lives. But if you're starting to see patterns that it's just not working, I do want you to seek professional help. Okay. I don't want you to get down on yourself and get so frustrated because it might be deeper than what you initially thought, and we do want to be aware of that.
Okay, so when this happened, it, it just, just do Remember though, let's just go back to the essentials of this episode today. It doesn't always mean that you're disorganized, it just means that you're human and your brain, isn. Just trying to make and cause trouble for you, right? It's trying to be efficient and it's trying to be efficient by combining tasks that look similar.
But what's actually happening is that it's pulling energy from different places, and that will be very overwhelming. So it's okay to stop halfway. It's okay to say, I will get back to this. You're not being lazy, you're just protecting your mental clarity. So let's try that. Okay, so next time you go searching for something and it turns into a full on, clean out, let's pause.
Let's ask ourselves, am I searching or organizing? Do I have the energy to switch gears? What do I actually need right now? Okay, so those are some prompts that I want you to try some questions and see where you go and where you land from there. Okay? Until next week, I hope this was inspirational. Helpful whenever you are feeling like the search is turning into an organizing spiral.
Let's pause, let's think, let's refocus, and then go from there. Have a wonderful week. Until next week, happy organizing. Thank you for listening to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo. If you enjoy today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you left a rating and review on your favorite podcast player.
It helps others discover our show. For full show notes, resources, and more organizing inspiration, visit www.theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast. Until next time, happy organizing.