Memos. Junk mail, Post-it notes. Catalogs. Bills. Permission slips. Newspapers. Look around you. Do these things seem to be everywhere? Many of us are surrounded by overwhelming piles of clutter. You’re probably so used to it you don’t realize its negative impact.

Clutter is one of the biggest reasons you aren’t more productive. You may not realize it, but clutter takes up valuable time and energy.

I once had a client named Stephanie who was so adamant that clutter had no affect on her whatsoever, that she actually renamed it “controlled chaos.”

“I know what it must look like to the outsider,” she said, gesturing toward the buried surfaces in her home office. “But I know exactly where everything is in every single pile. Go ahead, ask me.”

I played this game for a while, and it was true. I could say “tax file from three years ago” and Stephanie would hone right in on it. Great party trick, but I couldn’t help thinking that the amount of time spent memorizing where everything was could have been better spent.

Stephanie did admit that while she didn’t feel the clutter negatively impacted her, she did have a long-term plan for getting rid of it. What followed was a 30-minute explanation of how Stephanie planned on attacking the piles on her desk. At one point she whipped out a pencil and some paper and did a quick sketch of how she planned on reorganizing her office. When she had the time, of course.

At this point, I had to laugh. During the 30 minutes she had just spent talking about how she was going to someday get rid of the clutter on her desk, Stephanie probably could have eliminated half of it. And what about the time she spent thinking about her clutter on a daily basis? If she had spent that time chipping away at her clutter, her office reorganization could have gone from dream to reality in about a week.

The fact is, clutter is stressful. Whether it’s in your home or in your office, it’s hard to avoid. Not only do you spend unnecessary time looking for things that could be at your fingertips, you also expend a lot of mental energy. Energy being angry at yourself for not cleaning up. Energy thinking about how you’ll get things organized when you have the time. Energy beating yourself up for not being more organized.

If you tell yourself you’re not getting around to your clutter because you don’t have the time, you’re just kidding yourself. It’s not the time you lack, it’s the ability to make decisions. Because clutter is, quite simply, postponed decisions.

You can work less and make more unless you are ready to make decisions. I’m not saying those decisions will be easy. If that were the case, they wouldn’t still be sitting on your desk. The key to working less and making more is getting your life back on track. And that starts with cleaning up the clutter.