Tag Archives: decluttering

What Should You Keep? Well, Who Are You Now?

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, Personal, Simpler Living Tagged , , , ,

Like so many of our contemporaries, we were forced to downsize because of a big financial reversal: my husband’s industry shifted overseas, and he was left without a livelihood, not to mention his vocation of over 30 years.

At the same time, I was facing an empty nest. Even though I’ve been a writer for years, my primary occupation was full-time mom of a large family. By the time we downsized, some of our kids had already moved out, and the others were approaching that age.

So both my husband and I were faced with the thought, “Who am I now?” Aside from the philosophical side of that question was the very real issue of which of our things should we get rid of and which of our things should we keep because we might need/want them in the future. When you no longer know who you are, everything looks like something you might need down the road.

This partially explains why we didn’t get rid of hardly anything before we moved (the first of three moves in four years), and why we kept two storage units full of stuff before we finally settled in the little house we now call home.

I don’t recommend doing what we did. It was a big pain, as you can imagine. But we just didn’t know where we would end up or what we would be doing.

It took quite a bit of time before either of us began getting an idea of what we wanted to keep and what we could give up. Speaking only for myself, I found that as time passed and I stopped seeing myself primarily as Mom, I began to see myself as Claire again. Part of that process involved tapping into my desires regarding what I wanted to do.

I’m not talking about careers here. I can’t write 16 hours a day anyways. I’m talking about how I wanted to spend my free time. It had been so many years since I had the luxury of choosing how to spend my time that I was almost paralyzed by the freedom for a while. And even when I did do something I wanted to do, I felt guilty about spending time on myself like that.

But I’m getting over it 🙂 Since then, I’ve identified some areas of interest, things that I really enjoy doing, and as a result I was able to keep items I would need and pass along items that I no longer needed.

This may sound obvious, but when you’re faced with literally hundreds of cubic feet of stuff accumulated over a busy three or four decades, you either have to pitch it all at once or come up with a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sentimental and frugal people like me can’t just toss it all in dumpsters, no matter how much we wish we could. We need some guidelines in order to begin the sorting routine.

Once I figured out what I wanted to do, I had my guidelines. Next time, I’ll share how that process happened for me.

 

What to Do About Your Parents’ Stuff

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, My Books, Retirement Tagged , , ,

Many people in their 40s, 50s and 60s must add to their busy lives the job of going through their parents’ belongings. Whether their folks are moving to a nursing home or assisted living, or they have passed away, it’s their adult children who have to deal with what can sometimes be an enormous amount of furniture, household items, clothes and clutter. It can be overwhelming.

If you find yourself in this situation, and you believe the old adage that “Misery loves company,” check out this article and the follow-up piece to it and learn what others are doing to tackle this huge and emotional task. You might also want to read my book, How to Clean Out Your Parent’s House (Without Filling Up Your Own).

Falling Off the Decluttering Wagon

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Small-House Living Tagged , ,

I was so good when we first moved into our little house. I never let anything pile up on the counters. No more library books stacked on the floor next to the sofa. No more boxes labelled “Miscellaneous” parked in dark corners.

But over time, my old habits began to return. I had been putting Christmas presents that needed to be wrapped on the bed in the spare room; before long, other odds and ends that had no specific parking spot ended up there, and the bed became the parking spot for too many things. It was so easy to just set something there instead of making the effort to find a place for it.

Meanwhile, the closets began to get more crowded. I hadn’t taken the time to pitch something after buying its replacement. Repeat that a few times and pretty soon the lovely feeling of spaciousness in my little closets disappeared.

Then there was the garage. Last year we replaced almost all of our home’s windows with lovely new energy-efficient windows. But the old windows would make a terrific greenhouse in the back yard, so as they were removed from the house, we stacked them in the garage, where we forgot about them until winter came and we wanted to get the cars in the garage.

Combine these incidents with a few others too similar to mention here, and our little house began to feel snug. That’s when I realized I had fallen off the decluttering wagon. The feeling of panic that resulted was similar to the one you get when you can’t zip your pants after the holidays. Yikes!

I did not like that feeling, so it didn’t take me long to become motivated to declutter again. I spent some time going through our clothes, made a stack of items that we no longer needed, and put them in bags in the trunk of my car. I cleared off the bed in the spare room, finding places for everything (and getting rid of a few old things to make space for those new things). The old things were also sent to the car. Then I immediately took them to the local thrift shop and donated them.

Meanwhile, my husband and I discussed the windows and the likelihood that he would have time to make a greenhouse this year (answer: very unlikely) and decided to put them up for free on Craig’s List. They were gone by evening, and both cars made it into the garage. No more scraping off ice and snow before we could go anywhere!

I’m relieved to be back to our uncluttered state, but it kind of alarms me that I fell off the wagon after we worked so hard and got rid of so much stuff when we downsized. It just goes to show that vigilance is key; stay on top of your stuff if you don’t want to fall off the wagon.

 

Shrinking My Wardrobe

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , , , ,

Today I shrank my wardrobe by about 33%.

I’ve kept many clothes over the years, partly out of sentimentality, and partly because most older clothes are better-made out of better fabrics than the clothes I find in stores today. I’m sure people are sick of seeing me in the same old things, because I’ve been wearing some outfits for years!

I do buy the occasional “new” thing here and there, usually at a thrift store a half-hour from here. There are plenty of thrift stores in my own town, but I seem to have particular luck at the store that’s further away, sometimes even finding actual “new” clothes (they might have been new ten or 15 years ago) that still have the tags on them.

I’ve had a bit too much fun at that store in recent months; as a result, my wardrobe no longer fit in my closet. There were too many things hanging in there, and the two large plastic boxes I keep for out-of-season clothes would no longer close tight; they were way overstuffed.

I took everything out and sorted it into piles by type: tops, sweaters, slacks, jeans, etc. I also went through my dresser drawers and took out anything I hadn’t worn yet this season. I did all this sorting on my bed, which is positioned conveniently between the closet and the dresser.

The first part was the easy and fun part: I found all the socks with large holes in them and pitched them. Ditto for the underwear that I’d be embarrassed to be seen in if I ended up in the hospital.

Then I started making a pile for donations to the local Goodwill, where I can just drive up and they’ll take my stuff before I can change my mind. At first that was easy, too: tops that I haven’t worn in ages, pants that no longer hang right on me, the sweaters that are perfectly fine but that I have far too many of…the result was a nice-sized pile. Some of those items came from the thrift store, so I had little guilt about giving them up because the price I paid for them was a donation to the religious charity that runs the thrift store.

It helped that I’d been planning to go through my clothes for a few weeks, so I’d already begun thinking about which specific pieces of clothing I’d give up. Those items went straight into the pile; I guess I’d already mentally wrestled with them.

But there were plenty of items that I’d forgotten about, so I now had to make decisions about each of them. As a result, despite the decent-sized pile of donations, there were still far more items stacked on my bed than could fit into those two boxes. And so the hard part began.

When you’re sentimental, it’s so easy to find an argument for why you should keep something:

  • I’ve had this forever.
  • I’ve had some good times in this outfit.
  • This was a gift from someone I love.
  • This is one of the few colors that look good on me.
  • I wore this top when my kids were still at home.
  • I’ve always loved this brand.
  • My husband used to compliment me when I wore this.

Yes, I said all those things in my head, and more. Suddenly I grew tired of all the arguments. I began grabbing favorite items and stacking them in the plastic boxes that would be stored in my closet. Once the boxes were full, I put the rest of the clothes in the donation pile before I could change my mind. Then I bagged it all, put the bags in the trunk of the car and slammed the lid.

Back in the bedroom, peace reigned. Two boxes, flat on top instead of bulging, were put back in my closet. There was space between the clothes hanging there. My drawers had plenty in them, but were not overstuffed. Oh….it feels so good to be done with this task for a while!

In a week or two, when I think of some piece of clothing I used to wear, and I realize that I gave it away, I’ll probably feel bad for a second. But then I’ll remember that it served me well and that it was time to let it go. Believe it or not, that always makes me feel better, and then I can move on.

I wish I was one of those people who aren’t sentimental, and can swiftly grab up piles of clothes and get rid of them without a second thought. But that’s just not me, and I know I’m not alone.

(If you’re sentimental like me, you’re going to love my new book, The Sentimental Person’s Guide to Decluttering. Check it out HERE.)