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Rheumatoid arthritis and the accompanying brain fog make it hard to keep on top of the chaos in the house. In my new column for HealthCentral, I share how decluttering minimized the impact of my brain fog and share tips for how to get things organized:

“I have always been a collector. I like to say I have an inner librarian and sometimes the desire to gather everything within a particular interest (books by Anne Rice, Sting albums, a particular type of gel pen) gets a little out of hand. This can make it difficult to stay organized, and living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) makes it even harder. I grew up in a time when there was no treatment for this condition and therefor have a significant disability. It gets in the way of a lot of things, including tidying and cleaning. Between the clutter and the inability to deal with it, my one-bedroom apartment used to be a disaster area. And it was exhausting—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

If you have lost control over your stuff, you know the physical strain it can create, especially when you have a chronic condition that limits your mobility. Digging through piles to find that one piece of paper you need for a phone call or moving a heap of cans to find the back-up olive oil carries a physical toll. But it doesn’t stop with pain; there is also the impact of brain fog, a collection of cognitive symptoms that affect up to 70% of people living with RA, such as problems with mental clarity, memory issues, and difficulty concentrating. Trying to remember where you put a thing is mentally exhausting and every time you can’t find what you need, the emotional hit arrives.

In the past, the nasty voice in my head liked to berate me for not taking care of my home (the fact that I’d spent a year in a flare wasn’t relevant to the voice) and even theorized that perhaps I was losing my mind, along with the item I couldn’t find. True story: I once asked my doctor if my brain fog could be early-stage dementia. She assured me I didn’t have the right symptoms.

Clearly, drastic action was necessary. Then a flood destroyed my apartment floor and walls, offering the perfect nudge to get a handle on my space. I had to pack up everything and move to a hotel while my unit was repaired. Because I couldn’t unpack on my own when I returned home, I enrolled a handful of friends and family members to help me. To fit it into everyone’s lives, it was a slow process, usually one box a week. This may seem frustrating, but it was actually a gift. This slower pace created time to get my mindset ready for culling the possessions, as well as create a plan for how to organize the things I decided to keep. I watched a lot of decluttering videos and although I’ll never be a minimalist (see above re: inner librarian), absorbing other people’s ideas was useful in envisioning how I wanted my home to look and feel. Now instead of my stuff being an obstacle I had to navigate in order to get things done, my possessions work for me and that takes a real mental load off. Here’s how I did it.”

Read my column on how decluttering helped me cope with brain fog on HealthCentral.