Last weekend, I decided it was time for some spring cleaning. Not the overly ambitious “empty every closet in the house” kind of cleaning. Just a broad-stroke reset after a long winter. I cleared a stack of papers that had been quietly growing on my desk and organized a multitude of folders from last year on my computer.
I also took control of the open tabs. You know the kind: articles you meant to read but still haven’t gotten to yet. I just closed them without looking back.
Within about an hour, the room felt different. My desk looked calmer and neater. My computer, more organized. Even the air in the room felt a little lighter. Later that same afternoon, something interesting happened: I received a call from an old colleague of mine who had a professional offer for me.
Of course, my cleaning didn’t cause this opportunity – but I was able to jump on my computer and access a contract more easily than expected. The timing of this got me thinking about something I often see when working with doctoral students completing their dissertations.
Progress frequently begins with space. That outside-in approach often works.
In nature, spring makes room for growth. Plants rise because there is more light again and space to expand. But when a garden is crowded with detritus from winter, nothing new has room to come up. Our work environments can work in a surprisingly similar way.
Many doctoral students assume that when they feel stuck, the solution is to push harder. Sometimes that works, but just as often, the problem isn’t effort. It’s the environment surrounding the work.
Over time, our workspaces (both physical and digital) quietly fill with clutter. Papers stack up. Reference files multiply. PDFs accumulate in folders. Before long, the environment where we’re supposed to think clearly begins to feel chaotic.
The brain reacts to that chaos. Research in environmental psychology suggests that visual clutter competes for our attention and increases cognitive load.
In short, “unfinished signals” – such as piles of papers, sticky notes and open files create visual clutter that the brain processes in the background. That low-level mental noise can make focused thinking harder than it needs to be.
No, it’s not magic. It’s simply mental bandwidth. Creating space – in an office, on a computer or in a research system – gives the mind room to focus again.
Spring can be a perfect time for this kind of reset. Not because we suddenly become more disciplined, but because seasonal transitions naturally encourage us to rethink our routines.
Opening windows, moving things around and clearing out the old all help create the conditions for new work to happen organically. Even fresh air in the home can wake up the mind.
For Ph.D. students finishing their dissertation, that might mean reorganizing research folders, simplifying a reference system or just clearing a physical desk so writing feels less overwhelming.
Sometimes progress doesn’t come from doing more work but from making space for the work to happen.
If you’re ready to complete your dissertation this Spring, reach out. We can spring clean your work together.