It’s not that you can’t have lots of shapes and elements in your work, it’s just that you have to edit their values so the viewer is not overloaded visually. To restore order and calm (if you desire) to your painting, you need to adjust the value of shapes and elements in your work to make them similar to the value of the surrounding area. These are usually the elements that you don’t want us to notice right away.

Having too many shapes in a painting can make it look like a garage sale. In a garage sale, everything is thrown on the table and nothing is curated. In order to fix this, you need to look at your painting and choose the elements that you want to make the most noticeable. This can be accomplished by making those elements have the biggest value differences. The shapes and/or areas you want to be less noticeable should have less value contrast.  

So, the next time your painting feels too busy, try painting half of the high contrast shapes a value closer to the value of the background. Suddenly your loud conversation will change, and you will have more visual room in the painting. See "What is Dominance?"