Decluttering involves using both logic and emotions; the key to confident decision making is knowing when to rely on your thoughts or and when to lean into your feelings.
This week I gave an in-person presentation to a local group about clearing your thoughts so you can clear your clutter.
While I was setting up my computer for the presentation, a woman in the front row got my attention and I stepped over to her. She explained that she lived alone in her house and had no intention of moving. What bothered her the most was that every closet in her home was filled with clothing.
She was retired and had plenty of time to declutter. Every day, she’d tell herself that she was going to go through the contents of a closet. And every day, she found other things to do instead.
Sound familiar?
Decluttering Useful Things
One reason that decluttering can be a bit (or more than a bit) scary to do is that it creates change in your home. Even if you don’t remember everything that’s in your front hall closet, chances are that you feel these are things that you use, could use in the future, or did use in the past.
That makes everything useful, or, perhaps more accurately, potentially useful. And why would you declutter something useful?
The problem here is that useful isn’t the same as used. You may have used something once upon a time or wished you used it, but that isn’t the same as actively using the object, even if it is once a year.
Should you make yourself put these things to use? Chances are that even if you told yourself to use these things, you wouldn’t. If they were useful, you’d be using them.
For example, clothing is a useful item. However, if you don’t include something in your current wardrobe, chances are that you don’t, won’t, and can’t wear the item, whatever the reason. Useful doesn’t mean used (by you).
The logic of knowing you don’t use something can end up battling it out with the desire to be the person who can make use of these things.
Decluttering Life’s Changes
Because those useful items are in your home, that means that at one point in time you either used them or thought you would use them. These items currently aren’t adding value to your days.
Decluttering them can feel like you’re making a big change. Suddenly, you clear space that was cluttered. You have wiggle room in your closet or on your bookshelves.
I’ve had a lot of people tell me that after they declutter, they end up going out shopping for more clothing because they figured they wouldn’t have enough to wear now that their closet was so empty.
Did they get rid of things that they regularly wore? I ask. No, they respond. Which means that they couldn’t believe that they wore the same group of items over and over … even though that was what they were doing.
The change that comes with decluttering lags behind the changes that have already occurred in your life. You’ve already stopped wearing those garments. You haven’t skied or knitted or done woodworking for years. Your interests changed and you stopped giving attention to that topic or genre, claiming space on your bookshelves.
You don’t declutter things that you use. Instead, decluttering acknowledges changes that have already occurred in your life (often gradually).
Shifting from Thought into Decluttering Action
You may be telling yourself that you need to declutter because it’s difficult to put things away since the spaces already contain other items. And because you have more stuff, it’s more of a challenge to find what you need because you have to look through … and shift … more stuff to find what you want.
This surplus of stuff likely has you telling yourself that you need to declutter. This feels like the logical thing to do. But it isn’t happening. You keep telling yourself to declutter and then you ignore this demand. Why?
Why don’t you do what you tell yourself you need to do? –
You feel overwhelmed. “Declutter” is an ambiguous command. What does this mean? Where will you work? When will you declutter? What will you do with the things you no longer want? You can’t really act when you don’t know what you’re expected to do.
There is so much stuff. Yes, this is a variation of feeling overwhelmed. Here you know that you need to go through each item and make a decision (keep or get rid of by donating, giving away, or selling). But that’s a lot of decisions to make and just the thought is exhausting.
You feel bullied into decluttering. You may hear from your partner, siblings, adult children, friends, and so on that you should declutter. This can kick you into resistant mode. When you feel you have a choice about your actions, you’ll feel more optimistic about the process and likely more satisfied with the results.
If you’re decluttering because you “have to” or are “being made to,” you may feel that you have no control over the process. This isn’t exactly motivating.
Stop Approaching Decluttering with Stressed Thoughts
At the end of the presentation that I gave on clearing your thoughts so you can clear your clutter, the woman who couldn’t motivate herself to declutter her multiple closets of clothing, came up to me and said rather gleefully that she decided that she wasn’t going to declutter them. Instead, her kids could deal with it someday.
If you’re imagining your parents’ home, you may be thinking that I did a huge disservice to that woman’s family by giving her permission to not declutter.
But here’s the thing. She wasn’t decluttering. She was thinking about decluttering and feeling horrible about not decluttering which wasn’t encouraging her to take action. She was overwhelmed and she was avoiding decluttering.
Maybe (hopefully) realizing that she didn’t have to declutter would take the pressure off her. Being told to declutter clothing that no longer fit was logical, but she was viewing decluttering from an emotional position.
Easing the stress of acknowledging changes that have already occurred (she wasn’t wearing most of this clothing) could help her shift from emotional decision making to logical decision making.
Chances are that I won’t see her again (unless I return to the location to do another presentation). I won’t know for certain is reducing the stress of the situation will help her to declutter, but I hope so.
Takeaways
Decluttering involves both logical and emotional decisions. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by decluttering, you won’t be able to rely on logical decision-making processes.
Remember that useful and used are two different things. While that’s a logical approach, you may feel an obligation to things that you once used or burdened by things that you never used. That’s your emotional response to decluttering those items.
Decluttering involves things that you don’t use … and perhaps haven’t used for years. That means that when you consider letting go of something, it’s in response to changes in your lifestyle or interests that have occurred a while ago. Decluttering can be difficult because you haven’t acknowledged those changes. You may be thinking that you’ll return to those activities “someday.” Closing a chapter of your life can feel difficult, even if you made deliberate changes … or simply drifting from one thing to something that became more important to you.
Remember, when decluttering, you don’t have to make a decision right away (unless you’re under time constraints). Focus on the things that have an active part in your life. Consider, what would be the result of keeping the item versus getting rid of it. Which feels like the better solution for you?
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