The researchers also measured participants’ general well-being in relation to how clutter might be affecting their lives, asking them to answer questions such as “the clutter in my home upsets me” and “I have to move things in order to accomplish tasks in my home.”

The study, published in Current Psychology, found a substantial link between procrastination and clutter problems in all the age groups. Frustration with clutter tended to increase with age. Among older adults, clutter problems were also associated with life dissatisfaction.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence that clutter can negatively impact mental well-being, particularly among women. Clutter can also induce a physiological response, including increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.

A 2010 study in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked at dual-income married couples living in the Los Angeles area who had at least one school-aged child at home. The wives in the study who perceived themselves as having a cluttered home or a home that needed work tended to have increased levels of cortisol throughout the day. Those who weren’t feeling cluttered, which included most of the men in the study, had cortisol levels that tended to drop during the day.

Darby Saxbe, an assistant psychology professor at University of Southern California and the study’s lead author, said that the women in the study who described their home as being cluttered or needing work began their day stressed and remained stressed. Some of the added stress, she suspects, was tied to women’s tendency to take on housework and extra chores after the workday. In terms of cortisol levels, men who did more housework in the evening were as likely to have raised cortisol levels at the end of the day as women. It’s just that not as many men spent as much time on housework as their wives, she said.