If you suspect your miles of piles might be the cause of your foul mood, take a minute to consider your surroundings. Step back and survey the space around you. Do you have stacks of things getting in your way. A stack of magazines you’ll probably never read, a stack of week-old newspapers you promised yourself you’d get to? Or maybe you’re moods have more to do with the things you can’t see, like your closets, pantry and drawers. They key is that if you already feel overwhelmed, opening up a closet crammed with “stuff” isn’t going to help your mood, in fact it’s going to worsen it.

As you begin to go after these areas and get organized, remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day and the best organization is done one room, one drawer and one closet at a time. Many times a project like this can take an entire day to accomplish, but if you’ve got limited time, keep the reminiscing for later (“Look! I found Billy’s first pair of baby shoes! I’ve been looking for them forever!”) and set aside a stack of things you need to go through and label or file once you’ve cleared out the space.

If you’re not sure of which room to start in here’s a hint: Start in the bedroom. If you start and end your day in an organized space it will set the tone for your entire day and at the end of it, you’ll sleep better not surrounded by piles of clothes that won’t fit into those bulging drawers.

It’s easy to combat stress and clutter if you start tackling the reasons for your stress and alleviate them. Now you may not be able to organize your way to a better boss or fewer deadlines, but by learning to organize the things you can control, you’ll be a step ahead and that much closer to learning to respect your most precious and natural resource: your time.