Do You Have Too Much Stuff?

Is your home about to burst because of too much stuff? Do you have clothes you haven’t worn in years? What about pots and pans that you never use? Do you spend several minutes every day looking for things? Are your drawers crammed full? Are there unopened boxes from when you moved a few years ago? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you probably have too much stuff or clutter.

Physical clutter is evidence of indecision and fear. You can’t decide between two pairs of shoes, so you buy both. You bought 12 books last year and never read one. You’re afraid to give away the purse that you hate because it might come in handy one day. You haven’t had time to sort through things. Multiply a few of these actions by a few years, and you end up with clutter.

So how do you address your clutter? Choose a system. There are quite a few available. I had planned to declutter for years before I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The author, Marie Kondo, shows you how to declutter or tidy by category. You start with clothes because it’s the easiest category and end with memorabilia because it’s the hardest. Through this process, I have decluttered and down sized from a 1900 square foot house to a 700 square foot apartment, not because I needed to but because I wanted to. I have pack rat tendencies, enjoy taking and printing pictures and like collecting souvenirs and memorabilia. I used to have a lot of stuff. If I can declutter, you can too.

So how can you deal with your stuff? You can hire a professional organizer to help you to declutter and organize or you can do it yourself. Choose a method and schedule 15 minutes a day, 6 days a week for decluttering. Imagine how much you could get done if you invested 6 hours a month, which is 15 minutes a day, 6 days a week.
Marie Kondo says tidying up (decluttering) forces you to confront yourself. You are confronting the indecision that caused the clutter and the fear that maintains the clutter.

Once you get started, you will enjoy the freedom of unloading things you don’t need, use or love. The things that get to stay will have even more meaning. As you clear your physical space of things that you don’t want, you make room for what you do want.