The De-clutter Journey

Specifically, How Did You Do It?

For those who are struggling, like I have, here are some of the practical steps of getting rid of clutter and the whole lifestyle that goes with it.

Like some physical maladies, this one might have a different root for some people than it has for others. It might be the result of more than one contributing factor.

What causes our messiness and proclivity to collect clutter?

Perhaps we just don’t know how to organize and sort, with the additional problem of not wanting to throw away something useful or which holds sentimental value.
Along with that second factor: we might know how to keep house if we wanted to, but we have the frugality gene gone awry. Everything seems important and valuable; we can’t throw anything away. We can’t give it away. And then that stuff starts to accumulate.
Some of us are lazy and we have a prejudice against housekeeping. Our time is too important, we have better things to do. Yeah, right. If it were only that, wouldn’t we hire someone to take care of these onerous tasks for us?
It got away from us, pure and simple. Now, we have to take charge of our lives again.
We are “messies” who get distracted, who never finish anything and we box up stuff willy nilly until there isn’t room any more. Every time we want to go through the boxes… we get caught up reading some magazine articles we cut out seven years ago….

Photo credit: sideshowmomSo, now that we identify our challenge, and we have come to the place where we are serious about doing something about it, what else is to be realized to move forward? Here is my own story of what I’ve been doing lately and what it took to get me there.

Why You?

You might ask why it had to be me that did all the “heavy lifting” of sorting through everything and making order in my home. My husband also has a problem with being disorganized and sloppy, a fact that was hidden by my layers of collecting, and making do attitude.

I was the one most invested in curating, sentimental about my grandmother’s lace hankies, or the worth of some china bric a brac. For years, everyone around me advised to throw away, burn, or otherwise divest the world of things that I believed had value.

Only I could do the sorting and saving.

However, I could ask for help lifting, carrying something up the stairs, removing and moving. And I did. I also drafted some help in washing, etc.

Organizing Thinking

Though not challenged with organized thinking, the nitty gritty of taking the physical steps of buying organizing containers, walking up and down stairs in and out of the house…whatever it took to place something in its rightful home, required energy and self discipline.

Also, when newly organized it is maddening to remember the old, nonsensical place you had something… rubber bands, safety pins, furniture casters, and forget the newly organized and “logical” place for that item. Be patient with yourself, it takes a few times to remember to put it back and go there (without racking your brain).

Use Boxes

These are simply cardboard boxes for sorting purposes.

Years ago I learned of a system that really helps me move through mental barriers. I use a box for things that I know I want to keep, another for “unsure, I’ll think about it later”, and a third for “oh, hell no”. Sorry for the breach of good language, but sometimes you have to shake yourself and just throw things away.

I use a couple IKEA matching boxes for photos and memory items (I just cannot get rid of my once 4 yr. old’s Mother’s day card, for example). Just exercise control on that kind of thing… you know how you get.

I fill giveaway bags and get them right out to the car with items that I know someone would buy at a tag sale.

I used to save things to have garage sales, etc. But they were more trouble than they are worth in my rural area. Not like the alley setup my mom used to have in the city. So I stopped kidding myself and just got rid of those things.

How many years do you save stuffed toys or outgrown overcoats? Stop the madness, let someone else deal with it.

KEY:

Stop kidding yourself. That is exactly what is happening when you believe your children will want used clothes for their children…from thirty years ago. C’mon.

Refuse to hide things in the attic, or to even have a “junk room”. Refuse to let “junk drawers” proliferate.

You get one, that’s all.

I extend the same mercy to you that I give myself. You are welcome!Of course, next I must help my husband reform. Oh, I know he is going to love that. ( but the secret is that the more he enjoys a clutter free house that I am working on, the more he is inspired to tackle his own spaces). I guess I will have to report in an update sometime next year.

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© 2014 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.

Comments

Jean Campbell says

November 21, 2014 at 1:09 am

Oh, Ilona. I so needed your post. On the other hand, I was just telling my nephew who also has lots of hand-me-down ephemera that we have greeting cards that DH’s mother and father sent one another more than 75 years ago, among other treasures.

Shall I throw away the lock of hair in a little tobacco tin and the baby tooth in a dentist’s plastic treasure box that belonged to our son, dead now for 11 years?

Such thoughts immobilize me before I get started.
Ilona Erwin says

November 21, 2014 at 6:57 am

Jean, don’t be discouraged, just take it slow. Certain mementos are important for our emotional health, some temporarily, some for the rest our lives. I bought a medium sized chest at Hobby Lobby as a “memory box”.

I also put together pictures, etc. that I thought would be important for other members of the family. Now I just need to get myself to package them up and send them out!

It is hard to know when to pass on the treasures, but when it is consuming to much of our energies to curate it all… it is time to pass the baton and open up our lives for other things.

We each are different. We can be courageous in divesting ourselves of our “stuff”, though- I do believe!

Thanks so much for your comment. And I can’t imagine how difficult it is to lose your son. So sorry for the loss you have endured.