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Your sentimental items – Are they treasures? Or clutter?

Sentimental items – Why are we so sentimental about them? 

The difference between aspirational and sentimental belongings

Most of us share the experience that it is particularly tough to make decluttering decisions with regard to these two types of belongings:

We particularly struggle to let go of aspirational and sentimental belongings.

Our aspirational belongings have to do with our future, or our former dreams of the future: They represent our current and past ambitions and aspirations, our ideas of our ideal ‘fantasy’ selves and lives.

Our sentimental attachment to certain possessions is usually linked to our past – to previous phases in our lives and to our past identities: Sentimental belongings refer to past experiences, remind us of people who were/are important to us, or keep memories of special events and accomplishments.

I shared my thoughts about aspirational belongings in a recent article (click to read).

Today I wish to discuss

Our struggle with letting go of sentimental items.

Why we ‘feel sentimental’ about some of our belongings

We all feel – more or less – emotionally attached to some (or many) of our belongings. These belongings remind us of something, usually something related to the past – they remind us of special people, eras, places, experiences, feelings in our life.

Often, sentimental items have no real use or monetary value. And in most cases, we are the only ones who appreciate and value them.

Some of us keep things from our childhood or teenage years such as stuffed animals, books or clothes, some of us have a collection of photographs and papers that remind us of important situations in our lives, some of us act as the guardians of the family heirlooms.

There is nothing wrong with these sentimental things.

If we truly value them and can easily store them in our home, there is no reason to say goodbye to them.

So, why does the expression ‘sentimental stuff’ have a slightly negative connotation?

Why do many of us feel uncomfortable when they talk about and explain the existence of their sentimental belongings? Why do we often feel we have to justify why we keep certain things?

Little Exercise – How well do you know your sentimental belongings?

Lean back for a moment and think about your home and all the things that ‘live’ there with you, all the items you have given permission to move in and to stay with you.

Imagine yourself walking through your rooms, looking at the walls and open shelves, opening cupboards, wardrobes, and drawers, pulling the boxes from under the beds or behind curtains.

Now make a list of the things with emotional value that come to your mind.

What does your list look like?

    • How many sentimental items do you remember (without getting up and checking out!)?
    • Do they all belong to one category of belongings, such as photos, images, papers, clothes, books, collections, etc.?
    • Do all the things you remember refer to one special phase in your life? Are they all linked to one special person? Or one special experience/event?
    • Or do you keep a wide variety of sentimental items linked to different phases of your past?
    • What kind of emotions do you have about the things you remember? Positive feelings? Or negative? Or neutral?
    • How much space does the sentimental stuff on the list occupy in your home?
    • Do you think your list is complete? Or do you assume there are many more things you keep for sentimental reasons but can’t remember at this moment?

Now evaluate the insights you gained from the little exercise.

Do you feel completely happy about the sentimental stuff in your home? Or is there a little nagging feeling that there might be some value in having a closer look at them?

When do sentimental belongings become problematic?

There are three main reasons why sentimental items can develop into problem items and become a burden that makes us feel overwhelmed and stressed.

Let’s find some little example stories to understand them better:

#1 – We keep too many sentimentally charged belongings.

It’s nice if our wedding photo on the shelf in the living room evokes a smile on our face whenever we look at it. But do we really need to keep the other 850 wedding photos in the huge box in the basement that we haven’t looked at for ages?

Our favourite teddy bear is very successful in causing memories of our childhood and warm feelings in our stomach. But does it need 13 other stuffed friends around it?

The vase from Auntie Mary looks really nice on the dinner table. But the three tubs with all the other vases, crockery, and cutlery we inherited from her actually only collect dust and spider webs in the garage, don’t they?

#2 – We hold on to things that are not valuable to us personally.

We never liked landscape paintings. Now we have four such paintings hanging on the walls in the guest room. They had decorated the living room of our grandparents for as long as we can remember. We just didn’t dare to say ‘no’ when they moved to a small apartment and needed a new home for their paintings.

We inherited our father’s coin collection which we actually hate. It reminds us of all the arguments our parents had whenever our father spent money on a new coin.

We never enjoyed the endless piano lessons our parents arranged for us when we were a teenager. Now the piano sits in our living room, silently, collecting dust and causing bad feelings.

#3 – We surround ourselves with stuff that keeps us stuck in the past so that we are unable to enjoy our present life.

Our mother passed away four years ago and we took all her belongings because it felt too hard to sort anything out. We still struggle to look through the stuff that occupies the guestroom and half of the basement.

After our divorce, we moved out and took along the dinner table from the old house. It’s actually too big for the new place, and it reminds us of the best and the worst times of the marriage. Often, when we sit at this big thing, we feel small and lonely. And angry.

We always loved cooking and our kitchen is fully equipped with anything you need to prepare extraordinary meals. However, we switched to simple and easy-to-do meals many years ago and don’t need all the cooking stuff any longer. What we actually would need is more space for our arts and crafts supplies.

How can we clear up sentimental clutter?

Try these strategies:

#1 – Asking the question ‘Why?’

This is the most helpful and effective question we can ask ourselves in any intentional decluttering process but especially when we want to declutter sentimental stuff.

Ask yourself:

    1. Why do I keep this thing? What is the reason behind my decision?
    2. And – very important – Do I like my reason?

For example:

If you use only one of Auntie Mary’s vases but keep another 11 vases in boxes in the attic, you could ask:

    • ‘Why do I keep vases I don’t like and use?’
    • If your reason is: ‘I have to. Aunt Mary was always so kind to me, I really liked her. I can’t give away her vases.’ you can ask again:
    • ‘Why do I think I can’t give them away?’
    • Your next answer might be: “I’d feel guilty and bad if I gave them away.” Ask again:
    • ‘Why would I feel guilty? Would Aunt Mary want me to feel guilty? And even if she did, is being afraid of feeling guilt a good reason to allow things to occupy space in my home and life that I don’t like and use?’

Finding answers to our ‘Why’-questions gets easier as soon as we are aware of our personal values, our goals, and our visions for our life.

#2 – Choosing only sentimental items that give us positive feelings

It is important to uncover and ‘honour’ any negative feelings we have related to belongings from the past. But then it’s time to let them go and close that chapter of our life – so that we can concentrate on the here and now.

Positive reminders of our past, on the other hand, can sometimes help us to feel positive in the present, too.

For example:

If after your divorce the wedding dress – that you keep hidden in the back of the wardrobe – makes you feel sad, or angry, you could decide to go through those feelings one more time, and then let them go – the negative feelings and the wedding dress.

The photograph of your happy face at the finishing line of the marathon last year, on the other hand, might deserve a nice frame and a special place on the shelf in your living room.

#3 – Choosing just a few special sentimental reminders and letting go of the rest

As soon as you have got a better understanding of what’s truly valuable to you, you can make intentional decisions about what you want to keep and take care of. And what you want to let go.

For example:

Knowing now better why you don’t have any interest in collecting coins and why you always hated your father’s collection, you are ready to give the collection to someone who does appreciate it. You might want to keep one coin as a reminder of your father and his enthusiasm for his hobby but you don’t need to hold on to the whole set any longer.

#4 – Taking pictures as memory-keepers and letting go of the physical items

That’s often a good solution if we have so many sentimental belongings, or if want to keep reminders of our family heirlooms, or if we don’t like to let go of certain things but need to give them away because we don’t have the space to keep them.

For example:

If you have to drastically reduce the number of personal belongings because you are going to move to a smaller place with much less storage space, you might feel sad having to leave so much behind. Take a camera, walk around your current home, and take pictures of anything you feel attached to but can’t take along. Then create a nice photo book that you can keep forever and flip through whenever you wish.

#5 – Doing several rounds of sentimental decluttering

That’s a very good strategy if the idea of making let-go decisions about your sentimental stuff makes you freak out. You can avoid a panic attack by taking small steps to get through the process.

Take out some of your sentimental items, and start thinking about them, without any obligation to make decisions.

When you pull them out again some days later, you might notice that your feelings have slightly changed, you might feel less attached to some of the things, and you might even be able to say goodbye to a few of them.

Take out another set of sentimental items, and start the process again.

Spending some time with our sentimental items is a worthwhile experience

– whether we finally decide to keep or discard them – we always learn more about ourselves, our emotions, and our values.

And that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

The ‘Clutter Series’, Part 4 – What causes clutter? Part 1 – The inflow is too high

THE CLUTTER SERIES

The ‘Clutter Series’ discusses important aspects of the clutter in our homes and minds, including the close relationship between clutter and our general wellbeing.

Click here to read a summary of the main insights of this series.

What causes clutter? – Part 1: The inflow of new possessions is too high

The cause of ‘fake’ clutter

In some cases, a lack of organisational systems can create the incorrect impression that our place is full of clutter.

In this case, the seemingly ‘cluttered’ area is actually not covered by clutter-items. Instead, the things lying around in a messy way are truly valued possessions, things that serve us and are used frequently.

The only problem with these spread around items is that they don’t have found a home yet, we haven’t assigned a place where they are kept between the times we use them.

The solution to this ‘clutter’ problem is to set up clear rules and to determine where we store our possessions when we don’t need/use them.

The causes of ‘real’ clutter

Usually, though, the accumulation of our ‘true’ clutter – things that don’t serve us (any longer) – is caused by an imbalance in the circulation of stuff:

    • The inflow of new possessions coming into our home is too high,
    • and the outflow of no longer used/wanted belongings is too low.

Why do we bring so much stuff into our homes?

Sometimes, we are not directly responsible for the things that enter our home:

    • We inherit belongings from a relative,
    • we take in stuff after the death of a close family member,
    • we are given gifts from family and friends,
    • our new partner moves in and brings along a complete set of household belongings,
    • etc.

In most cases, however, we are the ones who initiate, arrange, allow the inflow of new stuff:

We go shopping.

Acquiring new things has never been easier than today and many of us spend a lot of time (and money) in shopping malls and with online shopping.

Not always, but sometimes (or often?) our shopping trips end with us carrying heavy bags of new stuff home that we actually don’t need or like.

Impulsive and excessive shopping has many causes.

We all have our own special and very personal reasons why we buy what we buy and why we sometimes acquire too many or the wrong things.

Often, we are not even aware of the motivations behind our shopping decisions.

These are some of the reasons why we acquire more than we need / are able to use:

Escape from difficult emotions

We don’t want to experience ‘negative’ emotions such as feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety, boredom, and use shopping as a distraction or avoidance strategy.

Fear of missing out

We constantly compare ourselves with others and fear that their life(-style) is better or more exciting than ours and that we risk to fall behind if we don’t follow the latest trends and buy the current ‘must-haves’.

Reminders of past experiences

We buy souvenirs and other mementos as reminders and proofs of places we visited, achievements and experiences we made, events we attended.

Fear of lacking resources

We buy things we don’t want to use now but fear we might need/miss at some point in the future.

Running after life improvements

We believe advertisements telling us that we will feel happier, have more fun, look better if we acquire and use certain things.

There are so many other reasons – Which are yours?

When do our new possessions become clutter? 

If we define ‘clutter’ as belongings that don’t serve us, we have to admit that some of our newly acquired possessions become clutter as soon as they enter our home – we never use them.

However, most of our clutter doesn’t actually start its life as clutter.

We first use/love the things we bring in, we appreciate their existence and honour their value.

But in time – over months or years – they loose their attractiveness and usefulness, we no longer need, use or like them.

If we don’t make the decision to discard them, they become clutter.

In the next article of this series, we’ll discuss the other big cause of clutter:

The outflow of no longer needed belongings is too low.

The ‘Clutter Series’, Part 3 – The benefits of a clutterfree home

THE CLUTTER SERIES

The ‘Clutter Series’ discusses important aspects of the clutter in our homes and minds, including the close relationship between clutter and our general wellbeing.

Click here to read a summary of the main insights of this series.

What are the benefits of a clutterfree home?

Living in a clutter-free and organised home has significant positive effects on our daily life and personal well-being.

Think about your own situation. What do you wish to change? How would you like your home/life to be different?

Then have a look at this list of the benefits you can expect to gain as soon as you have got out all the clutter from your home, mind and life:

More space

    • Having less stuff means having more room for activities such as entertaining guests or working on projects, playing with the kids.
    • Having less allows us to use storage areas more efficiently.
    • Having less stuff lying around in our home lets us move around easily and safely.
    • More physical space creates more openness and space for new things to come into our life.

More time

    • Having less means having less things to sort and arrange, to take out and put away.
    • We save time because tidying and cleaning becomes faster and more efficient.
    • Having less means less effort and time to keep everything organised.
    • We save time by quickly finding what we need when we need it.
    • We need less time to choose what we want to use/wear.

More money

    • We save money by not having to buy duplicates of things we own but can’t find.
    • We know and we like what we own, which keeps impulsive or frustration shopping at bay.

More productivity

    • Having clear surfaces and working areas makes starting to work on a task at any time easy.
    • We can easier focus on what we are doing when there is little to distract us.
    • More order and clear spaces give more room for creativity and imagination.
    • Our household work can be organised and done faster and more efficiently.

More peace of mind

    • There is also less mental work to do: The less we have, the less we have to take care of or worry about.
    • A spacious environment without clutter allows our mind to relax and calm down.
    • We enjoy our home more when we are only surrounded by things we like and use.
    • We feel more in control when we know that there is nothing that shouldn’t be there.
    • We experience less anxiety and confusion if our surroundings no longer feel out of order.

What are your top 3 upsides of a clutterfree home?

What’s the final goal of your decluttering / change project?

Being aware of the positive changes you wish to create will help you to stay motivated and excited during the decluttering process.

HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

Are you tired?

Tired of trying to (re)organise the various areas of your life entirely on your own?

Fortunately, you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself.

We can do it together.

You can decide to get my support, advice, and guidance – and achieve the desired changes in your life so much faster and easier. 

Check out how I can help you.

Why it’s so hard to declutter ‘aspirational stuff’

Clutter is a very personal issue.

We all have our own personal special clutter hotspots – those areas in our homes and those categories of belongings that accumulate the biggest amounts of stuff that actually no longer serves us.

We all define ‘clutter’ differently, which means that ‘your clutter is different to mine’ (read more).

We also struggle for different reasons to let go of useless possessions, and our decluttering strategies and solutions differ.

However, most of us share the experience that it is particularly tough to make decluttering decisions with regard to these two types of belongings:

We particularly struggle to let go of sentimental and aspirational belongings.

Our sentimental attachment to certain possessions is usually linked to our past – to previous phases in our lives and to our past identities: Sentimental belongings refer to past experiences, remind us of people who were/are important to us, or keep memories of special events and accomplishments.

Our aspirational belongings have more to do with our future, or our former dreams of the future: They represent our current and past ambitions and aspirations, our ideas of our ideal ‘fantasy’ selves and lives.

Today, I wish to share some thoughts about aspirational belongings – sentimental items will be discussed in another article.

What are ‘aspirational’ belongings?

Aspirational items are the things that we bring into our homes because we want to

    • create and project a certain image and lifestyle,
    • develop or improve a special capability or activity,
    • help ourselves believe that we are a certain type of person with a certain set of characteristics and abilities.

Any category of belongings can contain aspirational stuff and therefore can also contain aspirational clutter:

books and papers, kitchen stuff, groceries, clothes and shoes, sports equipment, tools, arts and crafts supplies, etc.

Examples of aspirational stuff that turned into aspirational clutter:

    • We organise the transport of our grandmother’s dinner table with the 8 chairs to our home because we intend to entertain family and friends more often. However, we don’t make any changes in our social life. The dinner table is now a ‘waste paper collection centre’.
    • We decide to start running to improve our fitness and health and buy trainers and running clothes. Our running career ends two weeks later but we keep the equipment because we truly plan to start running again – maybe next summer?
    • We dream about starting a small business and buy any book that offers advice for start-up entrepreneurs. Three years later we are very happy in our corporate job and plan the next step of our career. However, the never-read books were so expensive, it would be a waste to give them away, wouldn’t it?
    • We moved to a new place with a little backyard garden and were looking forward to realise our ‘aspirational’ landscaping plans. We bought and now own all the necessary equipment – but we lack the time and energy to use it. However, we can’t give up our dream of becoming a gardener, at some point in the future. That’s why we feel we have to keep all the gardening stuff. 

Why decluttering aspirational clutter is so hard

Letting go is rarely easy.

Letting go of aspirational stuff is particularly hard because it involves letting go of hopes, dreams, intentions, aspirations, and ambitions.

    • We have to be willing to stop lying to ourselves, we have to admit failure.
    • We have to admit that we made some wrong decisions.
    • We have to be very honest and brave to accept that some parts of our ideal fantasy selves just don’t exist.
    • We have to be willing to experience negative feelings – such as guilt, shame, or disappointment.
    • We have to invest time and thought work to find out who we really are (not who we wished we were), what’s really important to us, and how we truly want to spend our time and life.

Practising self-awareness and intentional decluttering go hand-in-hand

While we learn to get rid of excessive and useless stuff, we simultaneously learn about ourselves and what’s meaningful to us.

And as soon as we begin to understand who we truly are and what we really want to have in our life, we find it increasingly easier to make decisions about what to keep in our life and what to let go.

How can we clear up aspirational clutter?

Asking powerful questions and taking the time to find our answers to them. 

Ask yourself:

    • Why do I keep this thing? What is the reason behind my decision? Do I like my reason?

Another powerful question related to our aspirational stuff:

    • What if now is the right time to let go of these old aspirations (and the related stuff) – so that I can create space for my current and future ambitions and aspirations?

Letting go of unrealised aspirations not only creates space.

It will also bring clarity and lightness. It makes it easier to move on – into the life we truly want to live.

The ‘Clutter Series’, Part 2 – The negative side effects of clutter

THE CLUTTER SERIES

The ‘Clutter Series’ discusses important aspects of the clutter in our homes and minds, including the close relationship between clutter and our general wellbeing.

Click here to read a summary of the main insights of this series.

What are the negative side-effects of clutter?

If we struggle to make let-go decisions, if we keep things in our life that no longer serve us, we end up with clutter – in our homes, in our relationships, in our work, our finances, in/on our body, in our behaviours and habits.

The clutter in our home and life is all caused by the clutter in our mind – unhelpful and self-limiting thoughts.

However, it also works the other way around:

Having too much clutter in our home, for example, can create additional clutter in our mind, and can make our life unnecessarily difficult and frustrating.

Clutter steals our energy, it limits our personal potential, and decreases our decision-making ability – we tend to feel stuck, overwhelmed and stressed. We often struggle to take action to change our life to the better.

Living in a cluttered environment can be very harmful to our general well-being, mental health and social relationships.

These are just some of the many negative side-effects of physical clutter:

      • It’s difficult to feel energised and excited if clutter pulls us down.
      • It’s difficult to gratefully appreciate what we value and love if it’s hidden under layers of other stuff.
      • It’s difficult to get active and take control if we feel encircled and besieged by an ‘army’ of clutter piles.
      • It’s difficult to focus on projects and tasks if the clutter around us suppresses our attention and creativity.
      • It’s difficult to engage with family and friends if our clutter leaves no space to entertain them.
      • It’s difficult to sit back and just relax if our clutter stares at us and makes us feel lazy and guilty.

Change needs space.

If we want to change our life to the better, and especially if we have to manage a major life transition, getting rid of clutter becomes an absolute necessity:

We have to be willing to let go of the old to make space for the new.

However, our physical, mental and emotional clutter is very powerful in holding us back.

To move forward, into a new phase of our life, we need to make sure that we are no longer surrounded by stuff that’s related to the past and no longer of value to us.

We have to LET GO to MOVE ON!

How I decluttered my fabric painting supplies

Today I wish to use one of my own decluttering projects to demonstrate how you can successfully move through a little series of systematic steps to get a category of belongings cleared up.

This is an excerpt from my personal decluttering journal – the notes and photos I took when I decluttered my fabric painting stuff some months ago:

Margot’s Decluttering Journal

My fabric painting supplies have become a clutter-problem for me. I know that I have too much stuff, and it’s not properly sorted.

This has been annoying for a while, and I’ve decided that now is time to become active and to clear the mess.

Decluttering and Organising one category of belongings – Step by Step

Step 1 – Gaining awareness 

Part 1 – Background of the problem, my thoughts and plans

A good preparation is the foundation of the success of any decluttering / organising project.

A big part of the preparation is gaining deeper awareness. 

We need to understand the problem and its causes before we can decide on our final goal and develop plans how to get there.  

Asking ourselves questions and giving honest answers ensures that we exactly know where we are, why we want to make changes, where we want to go and how to get there.

These are my questions and answers:

Where am I now?

My fabric painting supplies are taking a lot of storage space in our guest room and in the utility room. The stuff occupies many shelves and fills boxes, bags and drawers.

Whenever I feel like starting a new project, I procrastinate and postpone, just because I know that I no longer can say where everything is and because I hate having to dig through piles of materials and tools.

How did I get there? Why?

Some time ago, I was a very active fabric painter. As a non-fiction writer I published how-to-do books for fabric-painting beginners.

I took lots of photographs to help my readers understand the techniques and processes I talked about in my books. To do so, I always stored a broad set of different painting materials and tools which I could use for different projects.

Where do I wish to go? Why?

I no longer publish fabric painting books. I now use fabric painting as an enjoyable method to relax over the weekend.

I want my fabric-painting supplies to be well organised and I want to keep and store only those materials and tools I still like and intend to use regularly. And I wish to free up space which is currently occupied by painting stuff.

How will I get where I want to be?

I’ll now decide which fabric painting techniques I wish to apply in future, and which types of paints and tools I want to use, and also which colours I like most. Based on these decisions it will be easier to choose what I want to keep.

It is hard to sort out materials I spent so much money on, and to make it easier I want to make sure to give the out-sorted items to someone who is happy to use them.

I plan to invest about 2 hours into the decluttering process. And I want to assign all my painting stuff to one of three categories  – ‘Rubbish’, ‘Friend’, and ‘Keep”- to make the sorting process easy.

Step 1 – Gaining Awareness 

Part 2 – Taking inventory and sorting into categories

We take out what we have to get a comprehensive overview of our possessions and then we sort everything into categories.

This is an important step because often we actually don’t know exactly what we own.

Getting everything out and seeing it in bright daylight may not feel comfortable but is necessary.

And sorting things into categories helps us not only uncover the duplicates but also makes us understand where our personal weak points are. (‘Why do I own 10 pieces in this category if I use only one?’)  

I walk around the house and carry everything that has to do with fabric painting to a big enough working area – the floor in the living room.

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 1
This looks a bit frightening! So much stuff!

Now I start to sort everything into categories.

The first category contains all types of paints. I take all paints and carry them to another area on the floor, where I assign them to sub-categories such as fabric painting markers, spray paints, etc.

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 2
It’s really good to see all paints in one place! Now I know what I have.

Step 2 – Making (decluttering) decisions 

Based on our increased awareness (Step 1) we can now start to make decisions about what we want to keep (‘What do I need, use, love?’) and what we no longer need and want to let go of (‘What doesn’t serve me any longer?’).

Making lots and lots of decisions can be exhausting but it helps that we now know what’s important to us and what’s not. 

Taking everything in our hands, we make a clear decision and assign it to one of several piles. Suitable piles could be: Donate, Trash, Sell, Keep, etc.

Before I make decisions about what I want to keep, I check all my paints and sort those out that have dried up or got otherwise damaged and are no longer usable. These get transferred to my ‘rubbish’-labelled pile.

As I will only conduct fabric painting projects to create something for myself in future, I decide to keep only those colours that I personally like.

This helps a lot, as I can immediately assign, for example, all yellow and orange paints to the pile of supplies I’ll pass on to my friend. She is a primary school teacher and has happily agreed to take anything I want to give away.

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 3
I assign every fabric-paint item to a pile: Rubbish, Friend, Keep

I realise that decluttering what I no longer want to use is much easier than I thought. In fact, I enjoy it to realise that I do have preferences and that I’m now able to restrict my paints selection to what I like.

Step 3 – Taking action 

Part 1 – Organising the ‘keepers’, discarding the rest

Now it’s time to get out of the house what has to go, transferring things to the bin or the local charity. Or organsing the sale. This creates a lot of new space already. And usually feelings of relief. 

Then we assign a place to everything we decided to keep (or to every category of like items) so that we can easily find and access what we have whenever we want to use it. 

My first idea is to place the paints directly on the shelves which will hold all my fabric painting supplies in future.

But I know that whenever I’m working on a project, I like to have a broad selection of paint colours close to me, on the working table, so that I can easily switch from one colour to another.

Thus, I want to keep all paints of one type (e.g., all spray paints) together in one container, which I can carry wherever I wish to do a project.

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 4
This looks fantastic! Only those colours of fabric paint I really like. And all organised by type of fabric paint.

I don’t need to buy new storage items because I have enough suitable containers and boxes at home.

It’s a great feeling to see everything nicely arranged and then to place the containers on the shelves!

I don’t think I have to label them: I’m the only one who uses the stuff and I (now) know what I have and where it is. And the containers don’t have a lid, I can easily pull them out and look inside.

After having decluttered and organised my fabric paints, I need a break. It took longer than I thought and I feel exhausted.

A cup of coffee later, I continue to apply the three steps – sort, declutter, organise – to the other categories of my fabric painting supplies (stamps and stencils).

The following images show, for example, how I get all my stamps sorted:

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 5
Again, first I collect all the stamps and stamp-making supplies and sort them into sub-categories.

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 6
Then I take each item up and decide to which pile it belongs: Rubbish, Friend, Keep.

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 7
Finally, I arrange all stamp material in one container. Perfectly organised!

Finally, I get the stencils sorted. (No photos.)

And then – DONE!

This is my ‘after’ photo:

Decluttering fabric painting supplies - photo 8
Everything that I want to keep has a nice new home. And all the empty shelves! Extra storage room gained for other belongings.

Step 3 – Taking Action 

Part 2 – Maintaining the order 

Maintaining the order is obviously very important because we don’t want the sorted area to become messy again.

Creating and adhering to new ‘tidy’ routines and rules helps.

We also should ‘be on guard’ and evaluate regularly what works, and what doesn’t work and has to be adjusted.

In my case, I believe/hope that maintenance is not a big issue.

The very reduced assortment of fabric painting supplies should be easily to handle and keep in control.

But there is one rule I definitely have to adhere to: ‘Don’t buy new stuff!’ I promise myself to use up what I have and to buy, for example, new paint only when a special paint colour has been depleted.

I am very happy about the results of my project. Yes, it took longer than thought (4 hours instead of 2) and was a bit exhausting.

But now I can look forward to starting a new fabric-painting project again!

The ‘Clutter Series’, Part 1 – What is clutter?

THE CLUTTER SERIES

The ‘Clutter Series’ discusses important aspects of the clutter in our homes and minds, including the close relationship between clutter and our general wellbeing.

Click here to read a summary of the main insights of this series.

What is clutter? – Why is your clutter different to mine?

The definition of ‘clutter’ can be tricky.

I struggled for some time to truly understand and to explain the meaning of ‘clutter’ to my clients.

As I wanted to help them make confident decisions about the clutter in their homes, I needed a definition of ‘clutter’ that was comprehensive and broadly applicable but also clear and simple.  

Studying numerous organising and decluttering books and the approaches of several renowned experts in this area helped me to have closer look at ‘clutter’ from different angles. 

Discussing the issue with other professional organisers and with my clients brought interesting insights but not the one and only explanation of clutter that everyone could agree on.

It seems that we all have our own ideas about the meaning of clutter!

And that’s exactly, I now believe, the answer to the clutter question:

There is no one final definition because we all define clutter in a very personal and unique way.

Clutter is in the eye of the beholder.

If you decide that something you have in your home/life is clutter, it’s clutter. If you decide something isn’t clutter, it’s no clutter. No matter what someone else thinks.

Our personal situation and our individual values, beliefs and perceptions determine what clutter is – it can mean something different for each of us.

Clutter can be anything that we keep in our life although it doesn’t serve us.

Clutter is not restricted to physical stuff. 

Any area of our life can get cluttered.

Clutter can show up as

    • Stuff in our home that we don’t need, use, love.
    • Thoughts in our mind that don’t serve us.
    • Feelings in our heart that disturb our wellbeing.
    • Actions in our daily life that draw us away from where we want to go.
    • Results in our life that keep us stuck.

The most damaging category of clutter is the clutter in our mind.

This type of clutter – all the self-limiting thoughts and unsupportive beliefs – is so powerful because the mind-clutter causes all the other types of clutter in our life

The ‘Mind-Decluttering Series’ is all about how we can get the mind-clutter sorted out.

Clutter Report Australia – Do you fit into the picture?

Clutter Report Australia  

As a clutterfree life coach, I am, of course, very interested in any study or report that focuses on clutter.

However, that type of information is not so easy to find. The Choosi Clutter Report 2017 is one of the rare successes of my ongoing research.

The report has been published by Choosi (an insurance-comparison company) and summarises the results of a survey done by CoreData (a global market research consultancy).

CoreData surveyed 1,000 ‘typical Australians’ across the nation in October 2017 in order to explore the financial value of clutter in Australian homes.

I am not sure how representative the survey’s findings are, however, some of the research results are quite interesting.

These are some of the key findings of the clutter report:

Clutter occupies quite a lot of physical space of our homes, and the amount of our clutter has increased over the past years.
    • 54% of the survey participants estimate that they can fill half of a room or more with clutter,
    • and more than 25% say their home is more cluttered compared to five years ago.
Clutter is impacting on our health, wellbeing and relationships.
    • 25% of participants say that clutter creates stress or anxiety in their lives
    • and about 20% feel discouraged from inviting friends or family to their home because of the clutter.
    • Nearly 12% claim that clutter-related issues have even led to separation or divorce.
Proactively clearing clutter from our homes has positive impacts on our emotions.
    • The survey participants estimate that they get rid of approximately 6.8 large bin bags each year.
    • Key reasons for decluttering include feeling refreshed (49%) and happier (44%).

What are your answers to the survey’s clutter-questions?

When I was reading the report for the first time, I soon started to think about what my answers would have been to the survey questions – an interesting and self-awareness-increasing exercise.

Take a few minutes to consider your answers to these questions before you then have a look at the survey results below:

    • How much clutter do you currently have in your house? How much of a typically sized room could you most likely fill?
    • What is the total financial value of the clutter currently in your home (i.e. considering the cost of purchasing these things in the first place)?
    • How strong is the emotional/sentimental value of the clutter in your home?
    • What’s the most cluttered space currently in your home?
    • What impact does clutter have on your life?
    • What do you feel are the greatest reasons for clutter in your household?
    • What are the greatest barriers to decluttering your home?
    • What is your most valued household item?
    • How strongly do you currently desire to  declutter your home?
    • How does clearing the clutter in your home make your feel?

Now have a look at the survey results – where do you fit into the picture? ?

How much clutter do you have in your home

What is the total financial value of the clutter in your home

How strong is the sentimental value of the clutter in your home

What is the most cluttered space in your home

What impact does clutter have on your life

What are the greatest reasons for your clutter

What are your greatest barriers to decluttering

Choose Clutter Report - what is your most valued household item

How strong is your desire to declutter

How does clearing the clutter make you feel

How to make decluttering easier – Experimenting with less

The purpose of daily-life experimentation

Experimentation – “the action or process of trying out new ideas, methods, or activities” (online dictionary) – can be very helpful if we wish to learn more about ourselves.

Creating and conducting daily-life experiments is a playful way to develop greater self-awareness and to try out new ways of behaviour or testing the effects of new ways to solve problems.

Experimenting with less

‘Living-with-less’ experiments can be very helpful when we wish to declutter our stuff but struggle to make decisions about what to keep and what to let go.

Shopping bans – Experimenting with buying less

Shopping bans, for example, are a way of temporarily experimenting with drastically changed shopping behaviours.

Do you have any experience with shopping bans?

Some time ago I imposed a 3-months-shopping-ban on myself – no spending on books and clothes for 3 months.

This is what my shopping-ban exercise taught me:

    • I appreciate more what I have and I use it with more care and attention if – for a while – nothing new is coming in.
    • A lot of my buying behaviour is directed by spontaneous shopping decisions.
    • I can break this circle of ‘automatic’ money spending if I postpone the decision for some days.
    • Often, I no longer want to have the desired item and don’t buy it, without any regret.
    • And if I decide to buy it after some days of consideration, I appreciate it more consciously and gratefully. 

The ‘Project 333’ – Experimenting with having less clothes

An even greater challenge is experimenting with a combination of ‘no shopping’ and strict ‘using less’ rules.

Courtney Carver introduced the minimalist fashion challenge ‘Project 333’ in 2010.

Since then, thousands of people around the world have experimented with dressing with 33 items or less for 3 months.

Click here to learn more about the ‘Project 333’: https://bemorewithless.com/project-333/

These are the rules:

    • Limit your closet to only 33 articles of clothing. All clothing, accessories, jewellery, outerwear and shoes count towards your number.
    • Exceptions include your wedding ring, underwear, sleep wear, and workout clothing.

This is the process:

    • First you get all your clothes, shoes, accessories and jewellery out.
    • Then you sort everything into the following piles: Love, Maybe, Donate, Trash.
    • Bag up the items to donate and throw out the trash.
    • Finally choose the 33 items you want to restrict yourself to for the coming 3 months.
    • Box the remaining items up and store them somewhere else in your home.

What do you think about this living-with-less experiment?

Do you think it’s an eccentric or even stupid idea to restrict ourselves in this way? Do you feel it’s impossible to dress with only 33 items? Or do you consider to give it a try?

I conducted this experiment once, and I found it so useful and ‘enlightening’ that I assume I will do it again at some time in the future.  

And this is what my ‘Project 333’ taught me:

    • During the first days of the experiment, I enjoyed having a reduced range of items to choose from. It made it much easier to get dressed in the morning. 
    • However, after some days I realised that I had included 3 t-shirts in my selection which I actually didn’t like much. Now I had to wear them. ☹
    • I first missed my little weekend shopping trips a bit but then started to appreciate the extra time I gained for other things I like to do in my leisure time.

The ongoing effect of the experiment is that I learned to appreciate more what I have and I now use what I own with more care and gratitude.

I now know from experience that I need less than I thought in the past.

And I know better what I need and what I don’t need, what I like and what I don’t like. This also helps when I go shopping (which I do much less) – it now happens very rarely that I buy something I don’t need or like.

Yes, I think I’ll do this experiment again.

What about you?

I recommend you give it a try, especially if you are struggling with decluttering your wardrobe.

Downsizing – A great opportunity to ‘downsize’ the household paperwork

Downsizing – moving from a bigger to a smaller place – is a huge life transition.

It’s also a great opportunity to create a simpler and easier paperwork-organising system.

This is the third in a series of 3 posts.

Read No.1 here: ‘Downsizing – Why we should declutter BEFORE we move’ and here No. 2: ‘Downsizing – Why we shouldn’t rush while making let-go decisions’.

During the next 4 weeks, Ellen made huge steps in her declutter, organise, and change journey.

With the help of her friend, she managed to sort through all her clothes and shoes. She decluttered a lot.

When we met again, she told me that she now was best friends with the people in the charity shops in her area. Four times she had dropped off boxes and bags of well-preserved clothes.

Books were ‘the heroes’ of Ellen’s second success story.

Ellen had invested the time to take each of her more than 220 books in her hands and to make a deliberate ‘keep-or-give-away’ decision. She kept only 25 books!

Luckily, she found new homes for all the books that had to leave: Half of them went into the little library in her retirement village, and the other half she delivered to the local community library.

It had been a good decision not to rush through the decluttering process.

Working slowly through her clothes, books, and other belongings, making hundreds of little ‘yes-or-no’  decisions, had helped Ellen to regain clarity about what she really valued and liked, and what not – or no longer. And she now was perfectly organised: she knew exactly every item she owned and where she could find it.

Taking enough time for the sorting process had also helped Ellen to change her mind about a decision she probably would have regretted later.

Some weeks earlier, when she had felt in such a hurry to sort things out, she had been sure that she no longer loved cooking and entertaining people at her place. She had wanted to discard all her cooking and recipe books, most of her cutlery and crockery, and many of the kitchen appliances.

Now she had changed her mind. She had become friends with some of her new neighbours and wanted to revive her qualities as a host, regularly arranging dinner parties and Sunday breakfasts in her apartment. This was something she really was excited about!

The last decluttering task: The Paperwork

Ellen was not so much excited about her paperwork – this was the last area she still needed a helping hand with.

She said that she had never been a ‘paper-person’ and that this hadn’t been a problem during all the years of her marriage when her husband had taken care of any paperwork.

Since his death 7 years ago, no piece of paper had been filed away in Ellen’s household. Yes, she dutifully opened her mail every day, and she immediately paid the bills, but that was it.

I now understood why she had 21 archive boxes with paperwork from the old house stored in the garage – filled with binders (compiled by her late husband), magazines, journals, photo albums, and masses of loose pieces of paper.

And since her move into the new apartment about 7 weeks ago, Ellen had started to gather a new pile of paperwork, sitting on her kitchen counter.

The paperwork-management system should ‘respect’ the organiser’s personality.

We talked about different approaches to paperwork management but quickly agreed that to make it work for Ellen we had to find a clear and very simple way to get – and keep – the papers organised.  

In total, it took us three 4-hour sessions to clear up all the paperwork that had accumulated in Ellen’s life.

We started with the fresh paper pile in the kitchen and all the boxes from the garage which contained the loose papers collected during the past years. Then we continued with the archive boxes – until the very last one was empty.

This was our paper-clearing procedure:

Sitting next to each other at the table, we worked hand-in-hand. I took one piece of paper and passed it to Ellen. She had a look at it and then we made a decision.

Sometimes this took a while because Ellen had a little story to tell about an event or experience related to a paper.

The slow sorting process was actually a kind of ‘therapy’ for Ellen:

By remembering all these stories she deliberately appreciated them one last time and then she felt free to let the piece of paper – and the related memory – go.

Yes, we found a few still important documents but most of the stuff could go. And it did go: We compiled a huge amount of bags for the recycling bin and some smaller bags for the shredder.

A personalised filing system makes it easy to find a home for the documents we have/want to keep.

Finally, we took the pile with the to-keep papers and went through it a last time.

We assigned each piece of paper to a sub-pile on the table, and labelled those with Post-it notes, for example: car (registration, insurance, repairs), utilities (electricity/water, Telstra), legal (passport, birth and death certificates, etc.), financial (tax, paid bills, investments, life insurance), health (insurance, medical records), traveling (bookings, tickets, etc).  

In the end, we knew how much storage space we needed and were able to file everything into three binders, using dividers to separate different sections.

We used one thin folder to keep all important contact details (family, friends, estate manager, neighbours, doctors, etc.) in one place.

Ellen’s new paper-flow system consisted of only 3 parts: a ‘Today tray’, a ‘Friday tray’, and the three binders.

This simple system can only work out for Ellen because she is a very disciplined person and hates to postpone any tasks.

This is the workflow plan:

  • Every day Ellen gets the mail in and places it in the ‘Today tray’.
  • On the same day, always before dinner, she works on her ‘today’ stuff:
  • She sorts out anything useless / not interesting and puts it in the recycle bin.
  • She completes any to-do tasks such as paying bills, confirming bookings or invitations.
  • Then she places the finished paperwork into the ‘Friday tray’.
  • Anything she can’t do/finish on that day, she also puts in the ‘Friday tray.
  • Every Friday, she sits down and gets the pile in the ‘Friday tray’ done – in most cases just filing the paperwork into the binders.
  • At the end of the year, she goes through the three binders and sorts out anything that is no longer relevant.

As I said, this simple system doesn’t work for every household/person but for Ellen it does.

I met her recently at a networking event and she said she has made an incredible personality change: She now is ‘a paper person! 

Downsizing – Why we shouldn’t rush while making let-go decisions

Downsizing – moving from a bigger to a smaller place – is a huge life transition.

That’s why we need time to decide what to keep and what to let go.  

This is the second in a series of 3 posts – Click here to read No 1 ‘Downsizing – Why we should declutter BEFORE we move’.

CLIENT STORY

When we met again 2 weeks later, Ellen appeared to be a younger and more confident version of herself.

She said she liked the suburb, and the area around her new place, the park and the small shopping mall close by. She had also made contact with her new neighbours and had already been out for coffee twice.

However, Ellen said she didn’t feel good about herself.

She felt ashamed that in the past she had put so much attention and care into her belongings – instead of focusing on her values and interests and the people around and important to her.

She hadn’t opened any boxes in the garage and only missed a few things, particularly some clothes.

However, she had worked on her ‘stuff’: She had kept her thoughts in the journal and had developed some ideas about new activities she wanted to try out in the future.

She was also very determined about some past interests she no longer felt excited about. She, for example, no longer wanted to entertain friends in her place as she no longer enjoyed cooking.

Ellen said she now wanted to get rid of the boxes and the pieces of furniture we had stored in the garage, all of them, as soon as possible.

She felt able to arrange this on her own because she believed there were no big decisions to be made.

The only area she didn’t feel confident to manage was the paperwork. She asked me to help her sort out all the boxes filled with papers and documents.

We had a longer conversation.

I felt happy for Ellen, of course, and it was great to experience her excitement and the energy she radiated. However, I also felt that her mind and attitude shifts were quite radical, and sudden.

I suggested she should take some time to consider all the options she had in this phase of her life and to deepen her understanding of herself and of what was now important to her.

It wouldn’t be good for her to hurry through important decisions, just to get things done, risking she might regret some of them later.

Ellen thought about this and then agreed – yes, she would be patient and give herself some more time before making final decisions about her belongings.

We went down to the garage and picked up the numerous boxes with her books, and some boxes with clothes and shoes and brought them up to her apartment.

Ellen wanted to sort through the books and keep only as many as would fit into the shelves in the living room. And she wanted to ask her friend to help her get a clearer picture of her personal fashion style so that she could get rid of some of her clothes, with confidence.

We arranged to continue working on the many remaining boxes in the garage 4 weeks later. We also decided to sort out her paperwork at that time. 

When we met again 4 weeks later, … (This is the second in a series of 3 posts – to be continued. Click here to read No 3)

Downsizing – Why we should declutter BEFORE we move

Downsizing – moving from a bigger to a smaller place – is a huge life transition.

That’s why you need time – and courage – to prepare the move carefully. 

CLIENT STORY

When Ellen called me, she was desperate.

In fact, I got quite confused and even worried during the first 3 to 5 minutes of our phone conversation – Ellen was crying so heavily that she couldn’t talk.

She then managed to calm down, and she introduced herself and described her problem:

It was her removal day: that morning she had moved out of her 3-bedroom-house into her new home, a 1-bedroom-apartment in a retirement village.

The removalists had just left her, in the middle of a ‘terrible chaos’ as she said. As she continued to explain her situation I started to understand her distress, and I agreed to meet her at her new place 2 hours later.

Ellen waited at the entrance gate of the retirement village when I arrived at the address she had given to me. She was still very upset, she said she feared she had made a huge mistake, and that she didn’t know what to do, and that she felt help- and hopeless. She started crying again.

When we entered her new apartment, I took a deep breath.

It was so full! It was understandable that Ellen felt like being in the wrong place!

The apartment was so fully packed with furniture and removal boxes that it was difficult to walk inside and around.

There were no empty surfaces and all around stuff was stacked up to the ceiling. Even the bathroom was not usable, cluttered with containers and lose items. The bedroom and the kitchen – the same.  

We couldn’t sit anywhere and finally walked outside and sat down on a bench in front of the building. I have to admit that I felt very angry with the removalists who had left Ellen – alone – in such a mess. However, it was not their fault, of course.  

The cause of the problem was that Ellen hadn’t been able to let go of any of her personal belongings, she had hoped that they ‘somehow’ would fit into the build-in wardrobes, and into the storage area that belonged to the apartment.

Yes, she had sorted out a lot before the move, particularly several pieces of furniture, such as the large dinner table, some chairs and arm chairs, the huge desk, some bigger paintings, and the outdoor furniture.

However, she had kept everything else, everything that had been stored inside the discarded furniture and built-in cupboards. And had now ended up with all these belongings in a place that had to offer just one quarter of the space that she had had before.

The underlying reason for this seemingly ‘irrational’ behaviour was that Ellen had been so afraid and anxious about the big changes coming up with the move – the new place, the new neighbours, the new life – that she had kept all her belongings as a kind of ‘safety net’. She had thought she would feel o.k. if she had all the things around her that had been with her in the old life.

Also, she didn’t have any plan or idea of what her new life would look like, thus she felt unable to decide what she might no longer need.

It was late in the afternoon, and we couldn’t do much on that day, but we created an ‘emergency plan’ to help Ellen through the near future and to finally get her problem sorted out.

I didn’t have a client appointment the next day which was followed by a weekend, thus we had 3 days to create a temporary solution – an apartment that was sufficiently cleared up and safe to live in.

These were our short term actions:

  • Ellen called a friend who offered her a bed for the next 2 to 3 nights.
  • We talked with the retirement village manager and Ellen was able to rent 2 additional parking spaces in the garage for the next 2 to 3 months.  
  • We made a list of all belongings that Ellen needed to manage her daily life during the next weeks: all the furniture and things required in the kitchen to prepare her meals, all the personal belongings she needed in the bathroom and in the bedroom, the furniture she wanted to place in the living room.
  • We carried all furniture and other lose/bigger items that were not on the list downstairs, and stored them in Ellen’s 3 parking spots in the garage.
  • We cleared the kitchen table to get a free surface for our unpacking and sorting activities.
  • We opened every removal box and took out only what was related to our list of needed items.
  • We started an inventory and kept notes about all boxes with currently not needed content before we stored those boxes in the garage.
  • We organised all the things which were to be kept in the apartment in the available build-in wardrobes, cupboards and shelves.

On the first morning of our 3 working days, I was a bit worried about how Ellen would cope. But she actually managed very well.

I assume it helped her to know that all the belongings leaving the apartment didn’t disappear forever, that they just moved downstairs into the garage.

Ellen also said that it felt good to get active and to do something, she felt no longer so desperate and more in control.

At the end of the 3 days, Ellen could finally move into her now clear and spacious apartment. She had all she needed for her daily life easily accessible and close to her, and anything else safely stored in boxes in the garage.

I had arrangements with other clients for the next 2 weeks, and Ellen decided to use the time to get to know her new living area and her neighbours.

She also agreed to keep a journal and to think about what was really important to her and how she wanted to live now, in this not only new place but also new phase of her life.

She also decided to take notes in her journal whenever she missed anything of the stored away stuff.

When we met again 2 weeks later, … (This is the first in a series of 3 posts – Click here to read post No 2)