💥 How to Stop Overwhelm and Get Organized: Avoid Fight-Flight-Freeze When Decluttering

Overwhelmed by a scary home organization or decluttering project? 😰 You’re not alone. Many people experience anxiety, panic or paralysis when facing spaces stuffed to the brim. These aren’t life or death situations but they can trigger that type of response! 😬 Here’s how to rise above your unconstructive reactions and get things done!

When faced with an especially daunting home project, our brains can be our own worst enemy by making the project bigger in our minds than it needs to be and triggering us into a “fight, flight or freeze” response.

🦴 What is the fight-flight-freeze response? 

As humans, we were wired long ago to default to one of those responses as a way to save ourselves during dangerous times. 

Example from cavepeople days:

You stick your head out of your cave to greet the morning light and begin your day of hunting gathering or whatever else was your caveperson specialty. But your day is starting out on an especially bad note because you see a sabertooth tiger staring at you from a not-far-enough-away distance. 😳

Your only possible reactions are to:

• Fight - he has long sharp fangs and you only have a slightly pointy stick

• Flee - can you really outrun him and make the nearest tree?

• Freeze - remain paralyzed and hope you become invisible 

All are equally scary options but fortunately enough of our ancestors made the right choice in the moment which allowed us to survive and evolve to the present day - thanks great-grandmother Cavelady! 🙌

🏡 Sabertooth-Free But Still Stressed

Although we now live in non-sabertooth tiger populated times, we can still have those reactions to benign situations in our everyday lives. Whether you are moving houses, clearing out a family member’s estate, or just having to deal with a huge pile of household “stuff” for some other reason, a daunting decluttering project can provoke very stressful feelings and reactions!

The specific project doesn’t matter -  if there is a decluttering project that is haunting you, you might find yourself in fight flight or freeze mode which results in you getting nothing accomplished except a headache. 

🧰 How Fight, Flight and Freeze Shows Up in Real Life

Let’s use the example of facing a packed-to-the-rafters garage.

🥊 Fight response:

Instigate a fight with your partner because surely it is his/her fault that everything got into this state! It could also look like you angrily storming through your heaps of belongings, randomly pulling things out of piles and violently flinging them into new piles. 

🏃♀️ Flight response:

Flee to the nearest home improvement store to peruse shelving solutions or park at your computer to look at Pins of organized garages. Oh, look at that, some of them also have space for crafting and workout equipment, maybe we should…?. This might feel like you are doing something proactive but let’s be clear, you are really just avoiding the problem.

🥶 Freeze response:

Stare transfixed in horror at the jumble then slowly back your way over to the garage door button and press it. Watch the problem disappear. The sabertooth tiger can’t see you anymore..

If you fall prey to one of those scenarios, you will have stressed yourself out without having moved the needle of your project.

💡 Simple Strategies to Get Unstuck

Instead of bringing that level of drama to your life, try some of the following tips when you find yourself agitated, overwhelmed or panicked when facing a big home organization project. You can use one or all of these approaches and do them in any order, whatever helps bypass a mental traffic jam! 

🎯 Narrow the Scope

Segment the space into sections and only concentrate on one quadrant at a time, the rule here is that you can’t cross borders until one section is as cleaned up as it can be! Put blinders on to the other areas and you’ll be amazed by how much you can accomplish when you aren’t distracted by the entire debris field.

🧱 Organize by Type

Make piles of like with like, e.g. take everything in a bag (potting soil, sand, etc) and put them in one area. Then move all the power tools into another area, followed by all the bits and pieces of lumber and so on. The rule here is that you cannot think about their final disposition - do you really need four rakes? - for now, just make groups of similar items.

♻️ Organize by Toss or Keep

Only look at items through this lens: yes / no, garage / Goodwill, still useful / thanks for the memories. The rule here is you can’t get bogged down in decisions beyond this point. The how/where/when of what happens to these items next is for another day - don’t move past the “toss or keep” junction of the decision tree until you’ve gone through everything!

⏰ Impose Time Limits

Don’t try to estimate how long it will take you to navigate your entire project or you will definitely end up in one of the fight / flight / freeze modes. Instead, calculate the maximum time limit in which you know you can be productive. Be reasonable, this isn’t a contest! Even if it’s just 20 minutes you can get a lot done in that amount of time and remember 20 minutes + 20 minutes + 20 minutes = a good chunk of decluttering! 

The rule here is that you schedule these time blocks and set a timer accordingly and once it goes off you are DONE. Muscling through longer will not support your goals, you will likely burn out and turn your back on the whole effort.

✅ The Takeaway

Tackling your home organization project - no matter how intimidating - is entirely doable if you don’t let yourself get triggered! Cleaning out your she-shed or man-cave shouldn’t have you on the edge of your evolutionary seat! 😄

Sorting household junk does not equal getting the possibility of being stomped on by a woolly mammoth so take a deep breath, pick a tip from the toolbox above and dive in - you’ve got this! 💪✨