5 Concrete Steps to Take When You Hit a Slump on Your Decluttering Journey

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Erica Layne of The Life on Purpose Movement.

A few years ago, my mother-in-law gave us two giant boxes of photo albums from my husband’s childhood. We lived in a small place and I was admittedly less than eager to find somewhere to store two decades of school portraits, scouting badges, journals, and sports participation certificates. (Yep, she saved it all!)

But we found a place for the boxes, not just in the apartment we lived in then but the townhouse that came after that. Life felt too full at the time for us to devote the mental and emotional bandwidth to sorting through so much memorabilia.

When we moved again, though, I vowed as I lifted those boxes that it was time.

A couple of months ago, I sat on the carpet of my bedroom, the contents of those boxes fanned out around me. My husband and I spent hours squinting at pictures, deciding what to save and what to throw out—finally narrowing the collection down to a modest stack of photos and documents.

I had just hauled a huge bag out to the recycling bin when I came back inside and realized there was a third box. A smaller one, but still, a third box. 

When You’re Just Plain Done

At the moment, my husband and I were out of reserves. We couldn’t make one more decision that night without tipping over the edge and into Crazyland.

So we put a pin in it.

For… at least a month. 

That third box—pushed up against the wall of our bedroom—stared me down every time I woke up and every time I went to sleep. I just didn’t have it in me yet to crack it open.

I knew I needed to shake out my shoulders and take a rest before I tackled it again, and I was okay with that. But I remember a time earlier in my minimalism journey when I thought I wasn’t allowed to have slumps like this one—or when my decluttering slumps really set me back.

A reader named Amanda recently said this about her decluttering slumps:

“I have so much clutter that it gives me anxiety to start. Then when I do get started, I suddenly hit a brick wall, get anxiety AGAIN, and stop. Then I get discouraged and wait FOREVER to even try again. Can anyone else relate to this cycle?? You make good progress and then all your work goes down the drain and you’re back to square one.