Tag Archives: possessions

Female Susceptibility to Clutter

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

For me, this time of year always brings back fond memories of going to (or back to) college. That first year, I think I brought everything but the kitchen sink with me: clothes, books, plants, sewing machine, stereo with large speakers, bedding…you name it. Then once I got settled in, I bought more items to personalize my half of one small and very overcrowded dorm room.

After a few semesters, I became part of the crew that helped students move in every August, and I learned what the rest of the crew already knew: the girls brought far more stuff than the guys. Most of the guys didn’t even need help getting their belongings into the elevator and up to their room. But the girls….a few arrived in two cars because one car could not hold all of their belongings. I was fortunate that my father owned a large van, so I brought everything I wanted with room to spare.

I’m old enough (and have raised enough children) to know that no matter what society says, women and men are wired differently. My girls always liked their bedrooms well-decorated in their taste so they’d be comfortable. Meanwhile, my boys were comfortable as long as there was a bed to flop on.

Women tend to put more importance on feathering their nests than men do, and this brings with it the danger of having too many things and being unable to find places for it all. This was true of me for most of my life. Even after what we went through during our downsizing, I still have to police myself to make sure I don’t start keeping too much again. I’ve been learning how wonderful simplicity can be, and how nice something lovely looks when it’s not crowded by lots of other things that aren’t nearly as lovely.

So instead of covering every inch of available wall space with posters and mementos as I did in my first dorm room, I now have a large beautiful quilt and two small framed items on the wall of my sewing room. Photos of potential future projects are found in my files and on my Pinterest page instead of being crowded onto a bulletin board on another wall.

I suspect the female propensity for feathering the nest explains why most “decluttering experts” are women. We understand that need we have for creating a comfortable and inviting environment, and how easily it can get out of control, and why.

How to Find Your ACL (Acceptable Clutter Level)

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

One decluttering expert believes your rooms should be empty of everything except things you use on a daily basis; another thinks you should only keep the items that make you happy. Who’s right? No one.

The fact is that we’re all different. One person’s decluttered home is another person’s nightmare, feeling either too empty or still too full. So how do you determine what is an Acceptable Clutter Level (ACL) for you?

The easiest way is to take a favorite room of your house, perhaps your living room or den, and strip it down to the bare essentials: a place to sit, a light source and one entertainment item, like a television, laptop or Bluetooth speaker. Remove all artwork from the walls. Then spend time in that room and see how you feel. Spend more than an hour; spend a few evenings. Soon you’ll know what more is needed in that room, if anything, to make you comfortable.

Years ago, we rented a cottage for a family vacation. The cottage had a small living area which was filled with a kitchen table and chairs; no sofa. We nearly went crazy that week trying to live without a sofa. We’d sit on the chairs, we’d sit on the beds, we’d sit on the floor….nothing felt right. Our kids did just fine without a sofa, but we were suffering. That’s when we learned we had to have a sofa to be comfortable.

If you go to realtor.com, you’ll find that many people who have put their homes on the market these days have stripped them of most personal effects in an effort to make their homes look cleaner and larger, and to allow potential buyers to picture themselves living in them. This makes sense when you want to sell, but for some people, it will make sense for their current home. They’ll enjoy that uncluttered look on a daily basis.

Others need to have many personal items around them to be comfortable. You may be one of them. In that case, you’ll want to start with a stripped room and then begin adding items to the room that make the room feel more comfy without feeling too cluttered. Add a few things and then live with the room that way for a day or two; you’ll soon know whether you need more stuff (or less) in that room.

How to Use Your List to Successfully Declutter (Finally!)

By Claire Posted in Clutter, My Books, Simpler Living Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Last time I asked you to make a list of your most treasured possessions, the ones you’d hope you could take with you if your house caught fire.

This list is not a complete list of all your treasured possessions. That would be a really, really long list, because you have so very many belongings. No, this list consists of the items that first popped into your head. They make up the core of your treasured belongings.

Now, depending on how you define belongings, you may have included your spouse or partner, your kids, and your pets. Good for you: living creatures whom we love and who can love us back are always our greatest treasures.

But for decluttering purposes, we’re just going to consider things. The things on your list are what came to mind first. There’s a reason for that. They are your most treasured physical possessions.

If you couldn’t see them when you got home, you can remedy that. Putting our most treasured possessions on display where we can see them daily is important. It lifts our mood and reminds us of who we are. Go dig them out and put them where you can see and enjoy them. If you can’t find space for them, make space by removing lesser items (lesser meaning anything that didn’t make your list).

If one of the things on your list is your photo albums, you may already have them on display. But a house fire would quickly destroy them. Consider scanning them and saving them on a computer, thumb drive and even the cloud. Don’t risk losing your treasured photographs.

If your list included jewelry, wear it all the time. If it included something a late loved one left you, put it on display or use it regularly.

You may already regularly use the items on your list. That’s great!

Now, what about the items you forgot to put on your list? This is where things get sticky. Like it or not, those items were not important enough to you to come to mind during those crucial 15 minutes. I’m not saying you should get rid of all of them, but clearly, many things did not make the cut. Those items are all candidates for being moved along, given away, sold or donated unless you use them regularly.

The list you created is very telling. What it’s telling you is what’s most important to you….and what, by its absence, is not.

The list you created gives you permission to keep what’s on it, and to let go of what didn’t make the cut. It gives you guidelines of what’s really crucial to your daily life, not only in terms of use but also in terms of joy.

Of course, you can keep what’s really important to you. And you can keep things that didn’t make the list but that you use all the time. Personally, I don’t consider our cast-iron frying pan, our phone or our lawnmower to be personal treasures, but we use them all the time so we keep them. But there have been plenty of other items I’ve owned over the years that I liked, even loved, but at some point had to admit I wasn’t using anymore, so I let them go. This is how we need to look at the bulk of our possessions when we have kept too much.

If you choose to ignore the list and just go with your gut, you’ll end up where you always did when you tried to declutter in the past: overwhelmed and discouraged. But if you use the list as your guide for what to keep, and give up much of what didn’t make the list, you can finally enjoy the freedom of living in an uncluttered home, with lots of free space and no little paths through each room. Living that way is every bit as nice as you might imagine.

(Learn how to let go of possessions you’re emotionally attached to but no longer need in The Sentimental Person’s Guide to Decluttering, coming soon in print!)