CPO-CD® and Hoarding Home Solutions Graduate, Sue Ryan, has been actively involved in teaching others the value of, and how to use, the ICD Clutter Quality of Life Scale. She also developed a handy scoring sheet. We use both of these in our online training. In this guest blog, Sue shares her own personal thoughts on the usefulness of these tools.
Clutter is a word that is used to describe an untidy collection of things that cover or fill something. Whether it’s a problem or not depends on you because everyone’s tolerance level for clutter is different. Some people like their space to be minimalistic and others like to have their belongings around them, and both options are not a problem unless it starts to impact your mental and physical well-being.
Research studies have been conducted that have concluded that clutter causes excess stimuli. This makes it harder to relax mentally and physically as it signals to our mind that there is still work to be done. It also may impede creativity and productivity and has been proven to cause stress resulting in high Cortisol levels (Cortisol is a stress hormone).
If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, depressed or frustrated, then you already know that clutter is negatively impacting your life. To what degree it affects you is now possible to measure through a self-assessment tool that was developed by The Institute for Challenging Disorganization® in conjunction with Dr Catherine Roster PhD – The University of New Mexico. It’s called the ICD – Clutter Quality of Life Scale and provides the opportunity for an individual to measure the consequences of clutter on their life. There are four categories that the assessment focuses on including Social, Emotional, Liveability and Financial impacts of clutter around them.
As a Certified Professional Organiser in Chronic Disorganization® (CPO-CD®) I regularly use this tool to gain insight as to how the client feels about the clutter around them and focus on creating goals that the client wants to achieve. I also use this tool to track a client’s progress as we work together, so that they can see on paper the positive difference that decluttering and organising is having on their life.
Curious to try it out for yourself? Then you can complete the self-assessment online via the following link ICD – Clutter Quality of Life Scale and the results will be emailed to you. If you want to take the next step and do something about it, then give me a call on 0409 183 190.
Written by Sue Ryan, Organised By Sue
If you’d like to download your own copy of the questionnaire and the scoring sheet, you can visit our Resources page.
