Got too much stuff? Try these 7 tips to help pare down

General Chat 📨
#1

Big fan of decluttering! This article helps highlight why, eg:

The stuff piling up in your home might be a sign there’s something you need to mentally unpack as well. In her work, professional organizer Star Hansen has seen how people’s emotional upheavals can lead to household messes — a lingering argument between husband and wife resulted in a kitchen where the counters couldn’t be seen for the junk; heartbreak drove a man to fill his bedroom with boxes. “Clutter is an external demonstration of our internal storms,” she says.

3 Likes
#2

The problem is that I to want to declutter but my wife doesn’t. I’d throw so much out but then get stopped.

I once threw away a wheel I found in the flat we lived in at the time. Had no idea where it had come from so binned it.

Later that week pulled the vacuum out and realised where the wheel was from. Unfortunately the bins had already been emptied!

1 Like
#3

Lol :laughing:

Yeah, I have a similar issue with my mum at home. I think there are some hoardish tendencies there that I want to tackle, but as I started talking to her more, I realised there were some more urgent mental health areas to explore.

So I’m putting aside my deep desire to have a clean, clutter-free environment for now and trying to focus more on making sure my family is happy and healthy! But I’ll get back to the de-cluttering at some point :wink:

1 Like
#4

I’ve seen some pretty intense hoarding in my life, the kind you see on those TV shows. One person had an entire attic, of a reasonably large farmhouse, filled floor-to-ceiling with decades worth of… I don’t even know what. Anything and everything you can think of.

It’s quite sad, because in those circumstances there’s obviously something that’s triggered such behaviour from childhood, the inability to throw things away.

I always think moving is a good opportunity to declutter. Having moved last summer, we ended up throwing out a lot of stuff, and so our new place feels quite nice now. I’m sure there’s a lot more we could do though.

One thing I did back in 2014 when I moved at that time, was committing to throwing away 10 things every day, for 30 days until my move-out date. They didn’t have to be big things, but I would find 10 things every day. I must have cleared out at least 20 bin bags during that time frame.

1 Like
#5

Nicely put, Simon. Completely agree. I think this is what I want to figure out what my mum. There’s some stuff there to unpack mentally and emotionally, but I want to make sure I don’t rush the conversations and really take the time to understand her as fully as possible.

This is great. Love it. I’m a big believer in moving forward in small increments to create the massive change we want to see!

1 Like