Some folks are natural minimalists who don’t hang on to anything they don’t use.
I am not one of them.
All my life, I’ve struggled with clutter and disorganization, so I’m always on the lookout for helpful methods.
Why do I keep so much stuff? I can think of many reasons. That lemon zester will be useful when I make lemon bars or lemon chicken. Have I used it in the last year? I don’t think so.
That book belonged to my dad, who died in 2011. He was a voracious reader and seeing it on the shelf reminds me of him. Have I ever read it? No.
I’ve got papers overflowing the built-in cubbies next to my desk right now. I’ll deal with those later. How many of those should I really keep anyway? I don’t want to make that decision right now.
The craft materials loaded into boxes and bins and jammed into my not-so-big bedroom closet used to help me create lovely things for my home and gifts for others. Have I used them in the last three years? Do I really have to answer that?
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According to professional organizer Tracy McCubbin, I’m hamstrung by four of the seven emotional clutter blocks she’s identified in her work with clients. McCubbin explains the “why” behind our chaos and how knowing our blocks can help us overcome them in her book, “Making Space, Clutter Free.”
From her book, I can tell I’m dealing with Clutter Block No. 1, My Stuff Keeps Me in the Past, with my craft materials. Clutter Block No. 3, The Stuff I’m Avoiding, is my papers and a lot of other items collecting on surfaces and the spare room.
My dad’s books are Clutter Block No. 6, Trapped with Other People’s Stuff, while my lemon zester doesn’t seem to fit her categories. More on that later.
I could identify with almost all the Clutter Blocks she listed. McCubbin also gave a helpful mantra to tell yourself in overcoming your block.
If you’ve got Clutter Block No. 1 and a strong attachment to the past, repeat to yourself, “Letting go of this old stuff makes space for the life I want now.”
And for my avoiding tendencies is one I am using a lot these days, “Done is better than perfect.”
McCubbin says that knowing the whys of your cluttered ways helps you finally let go of stuff.
Decluttering progress in minutes
The reasons and the mantras help with your mindset, but what really leads to less clutter is actually getting stuff out of your house.
That’s why I’ve long been a fan of Dana K. White (aka A Slob Comes Clean) because her brain is similar to mine, in all its daydreaming, creative, distracted, disorganized glory. For those of us with “slob brains,” a space can go from tidy to chaotic without us really noticing the clutter creep. We’ve got to re-train our brains.
She explains it all in her book, “Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff.”
Those of us in this tribe tend to get easily overwhelmed and quit or avoid decluttering tasks. That’s where her two decluttering questions are a game changer. Whenever you’re working in a space, ask yourself,
- If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? Take it there now.
- If I needed this item, would it occur to me that I already had one?
Just going through those two questions help me make real progress, even if I only have five minutes. Maybe I only dealt with seven items on top of my dresser, but I didn’t drag everything out and make a bigger mess.
She also urges us to view our house as a container and the various rooms as smaller containers. The goal isn’t minimalism; it’s making our homes more livable by making sure our stuff fits into its various spaces.
A few items I inherited from my Mimi: a tiny hammer and a mystery gadget.
I can keep my lemon zester, if I want to, as long as there’s space in my kitchen gadget drawer. If the drawer is crammed so full of items that I can’t easily open it, that’s a problem.
My gadget drawer not opening prompted a quick decluttering session where I pondered my various clutter blocks and whittled down the contents until they fit the container.
Kitchen drawer clutter that’s leaving my house. Yay for a drawer that freely opens and closes!
I got rid of a bunch of rusty canning lids (keeping a few clean ones) and a set of chopsticks. An extra vegetable peeler went to my daughter who just moved into her own apartment. I kept a small hammer from my grandmother, Mimi, and gave my daughter a mystery kitchen implement I’d saved for a decade or two. She wanted it.
A decorative pottery plate and brush is going to Goodwill. I paid around $30 for this plate that has raised nubs for grating garlic, dark chocolate or Parmesan. It came
This grating plate grated on my nerves when it grated my knuckles. It had to go.
from a fun craft fair I attended with my mom, so there was a positive memory attached to the plate. So pretty, I kept it by the stove for months. Then I moved it to the drawer.
The idea of the grating plate was better than the practice. I hardly ever used it. Once or twice, I grated my knuckles on it. Most of the time, I buy minced garlic in a jar. It’s going to Goodwill!
For grating chocolate or Parmesan, I have the tool that also zests lemons. I also kept the garlic press, just in case I want fresh garlic. No grated knuckles necessary.