INCLUDE_DATA

Mar

9

Thoughts on Clutter (Part 3 of 3): How to GET RID and Move On!





This is the last in a three-part installment called Thoughts On Clutter - Part one is called Why Do We Have So Much Stuff? Part two is called Why We Should Let Go. I encourage you to read them both for an examination on stuff and materialism in the United States today :)

Now that we’ve looked at just why we have so much, and why having so much stuff isn’t always great, now we need to finish the story. HOW do we get rid of clutter? How do we eliminate stuff-need from our lives and move on?

On to part three!

How to GET RID and Move On!

The first step in clearing out your space, and ultimately your mind, is to learn to let go. You need to examine your life and find out why you personally have so much stuff. Is it worry that you won’t be respected? Or that you will not be loved/appreciated without your stuff? Or is it more attachment to the memories that come along with the stuff? Do you have things in your house that have never been used, but you’re holding on to them for the possibility of “someday?” Or do you not want the things but are too overwhelmed by the stuff to even get started?

Determining what you have that you don’t need or want can be a difficult process. At times it will be liberating, at other times, disheartening. But ultimately, once you stop letting your stuff own YOU, you can begin to clean out your life and start a new path (with a clean home, schedule, mind, etc.).

Cleaning Out Your Stuff: Baby Steps

Clearing out your things must be done in stages if it’s too much to do all at once. Pick a realistic place in your life or home that you want to clear out and attack that one place alone. Do not worry about trying to clear out all of your home at one time! This process can sometimes be stressful and time-consuming, so you need not burden yourself with more than you can handle at once. Pick one place that needs cleaning and start there.

Dealing With Your Stuff: The Important Questions

Look at the space you’re cleaning out and ask yourself four questions about each item:

  1. Have I used this item in the last year?
  2. Do I have multiples of this item that I don’t need?
  3. How does getting rid of this item make me feel?
  4. Would someone else be better off with this than I am?

The purpose of these questions is to get you to let go. Let’s look at each question and explore its purpose:

1. The first and second questions address the place these items have in your life. The first: Have I used this item in the last year? If you haven’t needed the item in over a year, it’s probably no use to you. There are very few things one can own for years without using them that are worth having around (a generator is an example of something you may want to keep, only if you use it during a power outage).

2. Do I have multiples of this item that I don’t need? If you have duplicates of the same item (such as four crockpots), asking yourself if you have multiples can help you realize where you have too many of one thing (I had five of the same blouse, but I only ever wore the black one!). I think you would be hard-pressed to give a real reason for needing four brooms, or three whisks, or ten basketballs, for example. Sometimes we just end up with multiples and don’t really need to have all of them in our homes.

3. How does getting rid of this item make me feel? The third question presses you to examine your emotions. Releasing yourself from stuff can be like weaning a baby off breastfeeding - there is some heartache involved, but growth and separation are necessary. After asking yourself how letting go of the item makes you feel, you can identify where your attachment stems from. It may be memories, it may be acceptance, it may be options. I know with my closet, I had a huge amount of difficulty realizing that I didn’t need a particular neon green skirt. I had never worn the skirt and never liked it, but I was stuck in the “someday.” By letting go of the notion that I needed an article of clothing to cover every possible outfit ever, I could let go of the skirt.

Once you’ve identified your attachment to the item, you can then try to replace that item’s emotional purpose with something else. When getting rid of my clothes, I was holding on to the idea that someday I’d be able to fit into certain items again (high school jeans!). I had to completely shift my perspective. By holding on to the jeans, I was constantly reminded that I was not the size I used to be, and that was depressing. I feared that if I got rid of the jeans, I would never lose weight again. What nonsense! After realizing that I was keeping a freaking pair of pants for fear that discarding them would keep me from my goals, I began to see how ridiculous my attachment had become. I promised myself that when I lost the weight, I’d buy new, fantastic jeans, and allowed myself to detach from the past and the hope in those jeans.

4. Would someone else be better off with this than I am? The final question addresses your emotional attachments, but from a “giver” mentality instead. If you love your twelve throw pillows, but all they do is sit in the linen closet, try to think in another light. Think about how much you love them, and therefore how much someone else must love them too. If you care for an item but really don’t use it, let someone else love it and actually use it. I find this thought process - switching the mindset - to be very helpful when letting go of things I absolutely love. It allows me to see happiness in giving away, rather than seeing the ridding of the thing as a loss, or as abandonment of the thing.

Give Purpose To Your Things

After asking yourself these questions, sort your items into three piles: keep, sell, and give away (or trash). The items to keep are, of course, the things that you still use regularly and have a purpose in your life. The items that you do not need but that are of good quality can be sold or given away. I recommend ebay.com for clothes, small items, and rare things. I recommend half.com and amazon.com for books and CDs (half.com takes a much smaller cut of your earnings, but they don’t have as big a catalog as Amazon does). For furniture and larger items, craigslist is the way to go.

For the things that are not worth trying to sell, try giving them away to a charity or not-for-profit organization. I like to use the Goodwill because they have a drop-off location close to my home, but where these things go is up to you. For the things that are just junk? Throw them away!

If you have very many things to go through, remember to be brutal in evaluating your stuff! It’s tough to let go, sure, but only as long as you keep telling yourself that it’s tough. Once you decide that it will be easy, you’ll find the process to be much simpler. Merlin Mann encourages this in his blog 43folders.com in a great article called Never Organize What You Can Discard. I urge you to read his post - it’s fun and inspiring :)
If sorting through your things seems insurmountable, I recommend you try what Trent at The Simple Dollar did:

First, we simply drug out everything in a given room so we could see it. Obviously, this was easier in some rooms than others - the guest bathroom was very easy, while the family room was much more challenging because of the quantity of stuff in there.

Then, we chucked the stuff that was obviously junk. An old stanky pair of shoes from our college years? Gone. An article of clothing that hasn’t fit me since high school (seriously, I grew four more inches after high school was over)? Gone. A big pile of beat up old paperbacks that weren’t good to begin with? Gone.

After that, we put stuff back slowly, only putting back things that had actual value to us. If we felt a strong attachment to something or if it served a clear purpose, we put it back where it went, but we had to describe that purpose in detail out loud.

Eventually, we were left with a pile of stuff in the room. This is the stuff that we’re simply getting rid of. That’s right - it’s all going. Where? Some of it is going to Goodwill, some is going to a consignment shop, other items are going to eBay or a similar service.

I absolutely LOVE how they processed through their things. By taking everything out and slowly replacing only the things they both agreed to keep, they inadvertently made themselves a pile of “give away.”

Moving Forward

Once you’ve cleared out the one area you intended to, are you ready to do another? I bet you are! Cleaning our your stuff is so liberating and cleansing emotionally - I bet you’ll be back for more in no time.

But how do you keep new stuff from coming in? How to you ensure that you have done this once and for all - so that you don’t have to go through the same process again in five years?

Personally, I recommend that you do a baby cleanse every year (spring cleaning!) to keep your self and your stuff in check. I also recommend that you re-do your cleanse a few months down the road because you WILL be less attached to things after you get rid of so much, and will probably find more things to give away. After you purge your entire house, you will be more emotionally ready to get rid of things, and doing a second surface purge will allow you to address the items you previously couldn’t part with.

Maintaining Simplicity

But once you’ve got the majority of things out of your life, you need to maintain this great simplicity in your home! There are a ton of great resources for this in the personal finance blogosphere and elsewhere in the homemaking world.

Pinyo at Moolanomy.com wrote a great list of questions to ask whenever you consider buying something:

  1. Do I really need this, or do I just want this?
  2. Is there a cheaper alternative that works just as well?
  3. Can I buy this used from somewhere else instead?
  4. Is the one I already have still working? If not, can it be fixed?
  5. Is this going to add to the clutter?
  6. How much use or enjoyment will I get out of this?
  7. Will I use this only once and not need it again? (Maybe borrowing or renting is a better alternative.)
  8. Will I be using this a few months from now when the thrill wears off?
  9. Is there something else better I can do with this money?
  10. Can I wait another week (or longer) to buy this?

Additionally, I urge you to pursue quality items when you must buy something. Quality items will last you a long time and give you good use for years. If you own a few quality items, your home will be filled with useful, nice things instead of a bunch of run-down crap. When you consider buying something, aim for quality.

More Reading

Below is a list of articles about maintaining a simple, frugal lifestyle. There are also some great posts on why you should own quality, and how to keep yourself contained when facing tempting purchases :) Have a look around at these sites! There’s a wealth of information below.

Purge Your Home And Maintain Simplicity:

Buy Quality:

Control Your Spending:

I hope this article has helped you look at the stuff in your life and decide to simplify! Are there any places in your home you’d like to see more information on? I’d love to write follow-up posts to address your specific needs. Let me know!

Related Posts

  • No Related Post

Filed Under Organization, Self-Help and Personal Progress, simple living 

Comments

3 Responses to “Thoughts on Clutter (Part 3 of 3): How to GET RID and Move On!”

  1. no more spending on March 10th, 2008 11:27 pm

    Thanks for this series of posts shanti.
    They have been very informative and helpful.

  2. bakelite doorbell on March 12th, 2008 10:04 pm

    Many thanks for this fine posting. I”m going to bookmark this and read all the “purge your home” article links.

    Do you have any ideas on dealing with the feeling of overwhelm when facing clutter? For example opening a box of collected items that conjure up memories. When I do that I get lost in thought and can’t focus on sorting through the junk. Can’t make decisions when overwhelmed so I end up keeping it all.

  3. The Executioner on March 17th, 2008 6:10 am

    I know this is an older post, but I still wanted to follow up and thank you for recommending half.com. I have been selling on eBay, but for some reason never heard about half. Since I signed up a few days ago, I’ve already sold about $90 worth of books, video games, CDs, and movies. It’s very simple. I expect to sell more of it as time goes on. Thanks again for the tip!

Leave a Reply