Organizing Your Space for Productivity With Chronic Illness
When you’re dealing with fatigue, brain fog, executive functioning issues, sensory sensitivities, and pain, it’s tough to keep your home tidy and your stuff in order. However, organizing your space for productivity with chronic illness is essential for reducing anxiety and mental overwhelm to improve daily functioning. With the right systems, habits, and tools tailored to your needs, you can transform your space into a sanctuary that supports your health and productivity.
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The information in this blog post is provided for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read online. The author of this post is not a licensed medical professional and does not assume any liability for any actions taken based on the information contained in this post.
Start with Ruthless Decluttering
Decluttering is the necessary first step before organizing your space for productivity with chronic illness. When you’re chronically ill or neurodivergent, too much stuff creates unmanageable visual and mental clutter. Go through every space and be absolutely merciless about donating, selling, or trashing what you don’t use, need or love. You don’t need to become a minimalist, by any means, but getting rid of unnecessary excess is an easy way to take some weight off your shoulders.
Take breaks as required and divide the process of decluttering over multiple days to prevent symptom flares. Set a timer for short decluttering sprints of just 10-15 minutes if needed. Celebrate getting rid of every single item—each one makes your space more manageable. Free up your limited energy for what truly matters.
I’ve found resources from KC Davis, Dana K. White, and Cass from Clutterbug to be especially helpful when decluttering!
Designate an Easy Access Home for Essentials
Chronic illness and neurodivergence often come with brain fog, fatigue, mobility limitations and/or forgetfulness. To work with your challenges, keep daily essentials right at your fingertips. As you work on organizing your space for productivity with chronic illness, install hooks, shelves, caddies and bins for keys, medications, mobility aids, self-care items, and anything else you use constantly. This way, you won’t have to think very hard at all to find or put away your most important essentials
For example, place medications, supplements and medical tools together on a kitchen counter caddy. Use a mounted wall rack or over-the-door organizer in the entryway for canes, compression sleeves, purse and keys so they’re ready to grab on your way out. You can even create a dedicated chronic illness cart or basket for your flare day essentials!
The Container Store offers a variety of caddies, wall hooks and custom solutions to give essential daily items a convenient home as you work on organizing your space for productivity with chronic illness
Embrace Habits Over Heroics
With our limited energy reserves, a heroic whole-home decluttering and organizing blitz simply isn’t sustainable—and it’s often not very successful. Focus instead on establishing simple daily and weekly habits you can maintain over the long haul.
Make your bed each morning and tidy your nightstand before going to sleep. Schedule a quick daily tidy or ‘power hour’ when you put everything back in its home. To help build habits, use the Sweepy app‘s reminders to incorporate mini-cleaning tasks like wiping counters or cleaning one area into your daily routine.
Do a 5 or 10 minute ‘purge session’ each week to evaluate belongings and remove anything you didn’t use that week. Regular mini-purges prevent clutter from creeping back in long after you’ve worked through organizing your space for productivity with chronic illness.
Take Advantage of Hidden Storage
Maximize every inch of existing storage space with solutions like under-bed bins, over-the-door racks, drawer organizers and wall-mounted dispensers. Stow out of season clothing or lesser used items under the bed and optimize vertical room on walls and doors to stash supplies.
The Container Store has a variety of in-drawer organizers maximize room in existing drawers while keeping contents tidy. Use their closet systems like elfa to fully customize your storage to best suit your needs and physical limitations.
Curate Your Surroundings
Since physical and mental energy are limited, be very purposeful about what you keep in your home. Avoid holding onto items ‘just because’ or due to guilt. Every single object should have purpose and bring you joy or ease.
Stick to products, decor, and belongings that are visually calming and soothing, like The Home Edit’s bamboo collection to prevent sensory overload. Minimize clutter on surfaces to create peaceful, serene spaces. If your symptoms fluctuate day-to-day, have baskets of comforting objects like soft blankets and sensory tools easily accessible.
Storage Products from The Home Edit
The Home Edit’s signature clear storage bins and baskets available at Walmart or the Container Store keep essentials neatly corralled while showing contents at a glance, which is great for those of us with ADHD and the inevitable “out of sight, out of mind” conundrum. Their matching modular acrylic and fabric organizers are beautiful solutions to simplify and contain belongings without visual clutter.
Pantry bins make grabbing staple food items easy, while you can store medical tools and self care products in bathroom drawers and bins. Use desk organizing trays and holders for writing tools, fidget devices, and even assistive tech.
Acrylic cosmetic organizers spin to provide fast access to daily use beauty items, and coordinating closet storage bins neaten apparel and linens while keeping them visible. You can even use sweater and shoe boxes to prevent clothes piles on the floor.
The Home Edit’s products help instill order while reducing stressful hunting for misplaced objects. Their systems allow you to instantly grab and return items when energy is low.
The Container Store’s Custom Solutions
The Container Store offers endless storage and organization solutions to neatly contain your belongings. Their elfa closets are fully customizable with special elements like pull-out cabinets and drawers to suit limited mobility and accessibility needs.
For a clutter-free sanctuary perfect for your unique needs and limitations, visit The Container Store’s solutions online or in store. Their experts can help design custom closets and pantries to simplify your most frustrating organizational struggles.
Prioritize rest, delegate when possible, and start small when organizing your space for productivity with chronic illness. Focus on establishing daily habits rather than massive overhauls. With some decluttering, purposeful curation, and systems tailored to how you live and function, you can create an organized, welcoming home that supports your health.
