Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff

by Dana K. White

Accept the limitations of the space you have, and declutter enough that your stuff fits comfortably in that space.

Before I understood that the size of the bookshelf was the limit to how many books I could have, I shoved and I pushed and I laid books horizontally on top of the vertically placed ones after the vertical space was gone.

I feel judged.

Except that a room with piles, even piles of clean stuff, doesn’t look clean. And piles of any kind are like fertilizer for other piles. Piles multiply. The existence of one pile justifies the existence of the next.

I realized grief is more than intense sadness and can be present at times when you don’t even realize you’re grieving. Grieving is the process of emotionally navigating a loss. Navigating the loss of a dream is where grief can come as a surprise.