The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter

by Margareta Magnusson

To hunt for misplaced things is never an effective use of your time.

Aging is certainly not for weaklings. That is why you should not wait too long to start your downsizing. Sooner or later you will have your own infirmities, and then it is damn nice to be able to enjoy the things you can still manage to do without the burden of too many things to look after and too many messes to organize.

That is another benefit of death cleaning: thinking more about how to reuse, recycle, and make your life simpler and a bit (or a lot) smaller. Living smaller is a relief.

Here in Stockholm on the 14th of August is a big annual book sale. A whole long street in the center of the city is occupied by tables with books that people want to sell. It is a fantastic day for those who want to get rid of some books and for those who want to pick up more.

It took me a while to understand this, but you can enjoy all these things without owning them. Even though this may sometimes seem quite hard to do, training yourself to enjoy only looking at things, instead of buying them, is very nice and also a good practice. You really can’t take everything with you, so maybe it is better to not try to own it all.

Save your favorite dildo—but throw away the other fifteen!