WHEN CLUTTER TALKS, PEOPLE LISTEN
I often hear, “You’re a professional organizer, your house must have no clutter!” Well, walk through my front door and you’ll see broken reading glasses on an end table, an unfinished seashell necklace on the coffee table, a crinkled child’s drawing of my tattoo on the refrigerator, and a giant bookcase filled with medals and old Life Magazine nature books.
A friend of mine says my house looks like a museum. Another friend says this stuff needs to be hidden away, if kept at all. But these items they see as disposable clutter have positive meaning to me. So what is clutter, then?
It’s lazy, but let’s first turn to that old faithful, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary; it defines clutter as, “a crowded or confused mass or collection” that “impedes movement or reduces effectiveness”. In her book “Feng Shui Your Life: The Quick Guide to Decluttering Your Home and Renewing Your Life”, Tisha Morris states that from a Feng Shui perspective, clutter is “stagnant energy”. In other words, identifying an item as clutter has more to do with how it “feels” and “effects” than how it “looks”.
Objects feel, effect, and look, but did you know they also talk? Our stuff broadcasts emotional messages. In her essay, “The Emotional Toll of Clutter”, fitness and wellness writer Jessie Shoal identifies what four types of stuff may say and how to quiet it down:
Piles of Other People’s Stuff:
What it says: You have trouble setting boundaries, saying no, and protecting your own energy reserves.
Your neighbor moved out and left a bunch of stuff in your garage, saying their house needed to be empty for the new owners and they’d return next weekend to get it. Six months later, it’s still in your garage.
Your aunt died and left behind a collection of Beanie Babies that you are sure are worth something. Five years later, they are still in your attic.
Your house is the holiday hangout for friends and family and every year people leave stuff behind. You are running your own perpetual lost-and-found.
Your kids are grown and in homes of their own, but they don’t want their old high school trophies or yearbooks, want you to keep them in their old bedroom that you desperately want to convert to an office. And you grant their wish.
How to hush it: As Nancy Reagan said, “Just Say No!” Set firm limits to storing others’ belongings. If you can’t bring yourself to tell everyone, “No,” then for the love of personal space at least put a time limit on the situation.
The neighbor gets until next Sunday, then you’re calling Salvation Army for Monday pick-up.
The Beanie Babies’ get listed for sale by you or a reseller you hire by the end of the month, and if they don’t sell in 30 days you donate them.
All articles left behind from the prior year’s holiday party get donated this weekend. It’s been that long and they weren’t missed. If that is just too drastic a measure for you, then by the end of the day today you send a photo of the item to the owner and ask if they still want it and if so, you’ll send it this week (and do that).
The kids get a phone call telling them it’s time to take back their old room and their things will be shipped this week. If they are that special to them, they should be with them.
Excessive Reminders of the Past:
What is says: You have a tendency to blame the past for your current situation or think your best days are behind you.
Your office is filled with awards from 20 years ago and nothing recent.
Your social media is filled with photos of a relationship that ended over a year ago.
Your refrigerator is peppered with invitations, postcards, holiday cards, and snapshots from days long gone and nothing current.
Your closet is filled with clothes from your roaring 20’s that don’t fit your body or your lifestyle.
How to hush it: Let go of any object if looking at it disturbs you or brings you down.
The awards make you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything of significance in two decades? Then get them out of sight. If you are ready to part with them, take a photo of them then donate them to a charity that reuses plaques and trophies such as AwardsMall.com. If you aren’t ready to part with them, take the photo and store them in the attic, basement, on the top shelf of a closet where they are still in your orbit but aren’t a daily buzz kill.
Take an hour on a lazy Saturday morning (do you get those anymore?) and update your social media if you are active on it. Upload photos of recent events and things you are interested in. Delete any photos that make you feel sad. Also, you know you can always deactivate your social media it if it’s no longer bringing you joy.
If looking at that collection kills your morning mojo when you go to reach for the OJ, making you feel guilty for the wedding you didn’t attend, the birthday present you didn’t buy, the Christmas card you didn’t send but that family sent you one, how long it’s been since you took a vacation, then take all of that stuff down. Take a photo and toss it, or put it in a memorabilia box. Leave room on your refrigerator for new things, or keep it clean and neat (bye bye magnets).
You did used to look good in that tight midriff sweater. And every time you wore that pleather skirt you felt like a rock star. Those motorcycle boots did make you look tough, especially back when you actually owned a motorcycle. And if you part with those items that won’t change those events, they still happened, and those memories will still be there. You are perfect the way you are and your days now are just as important, if not more so, because all you have is the present. Take a photo of the clothes to remember them by, try them on one last time if you must, then donate them. Some teen looking for “vintage” clothes at Aardvark’s – or some middle age person looking for a Halloween costume – will scoop them up.
Rarely Used or Never-Been-Used Items:
What is says: You employ “just in case” thinking, have a lack of trust in the future, and an aspiration to do or be something you’re not.
That expansive tool collection you inherited from your dad that has built nothing but layers of dust.
The headlamp, reflective vest, water bottle belt, visor, and packets of Gu you bought when you trained for that marathon….and you haven’t thought of registering for another race since.
The brew-your-own beer kit, Creative Memories scrapbooking packs, heaps of recipes, and multiple stacks of magazines that you just haven’t had time to get to.
From my freshman year at college… the collection of candles purchased because it seemed like a hip and cool thing to do, but I couldn’t bring myself to light them.
How to hush it: Use or dispense with whatever your “wish self” is hanging on to.
Look around the house for something to fix and use the tools to fix it, research something you’re interested in building and build it, take a class or work with a friend who has knowledge of how to build things, or sell the tools to someone who can use them immediately and use the money for something that will provide you with True Value (get it?).
Find a running group and start training. If you find further racing just isn’t your speed, then donate it all to someone who could use them – your running group, a running store, or just drop at central donation site, they will find their way to a good home.
Bust out the brew kit and Creative Memories pack for no reason on a random Tuesday night – read the directions, and if looks like something you won’t really do, donate them. If you want to use them, then start immediately, making time for them as needed each week. Corral those recipes into 3-ring binders using plastic sleeves, make dividers to label like cookbooks are (Beef, Beverages, Dessert, Poultry, Seafood, Vegetables, etc.) and file them away, or else toss them. If the magazines don’t make you feel bad that you aren’t living the lives we’re supposed to think the people in the photos are living, then keep the ones you think you’ll read in the next month and let the rest go.
I finally lit the candles. But only after a guy I liked said he wanted to light them and I told him no but was too embarrassed to tell him the reason: I felt like if they melted away, my room, and thereby me, wouldn’t look cool. I’m really happy the candles, and that idea of identity, melted away.
Unfinished Projects:
What is says: You have an unsustainable perfectionism and these incomplete endeavors provoke a sense of failure. (Ouch!)
Stories you started writing and never finished.
That brew kit and Creative Memories scrapbook pack you busted out on that random Tuesday night and never got back to.
That dollhouse you started building with Dad’s tools that has not erected past the floorboards.
The Standard Operating Procedures you are putting together for your company before end of the year….two years ago.
How to hush it: Let go, clean up, and move on.
Revisit the stories. Do they appeal to you anymore? If so, keep them in your rotation to work on. If not, archive them or toss them, whatever works for you, but don’t let them get your attention if they are not making you feel successful.
You tried…you are not a brewmaster or scrapbooker type, or else, you aren’t in a place to value it more than you value other things. Give away and move on. Buy the beer and hire someone to help you with the scrapbook or simply put the photos in a bin or book and be done.
Get some help in the workshop or abandon the project for good. It is not a life requirement, you are still a good person and your time is better used elsewhere!
Are those SOPs important? Then get some help…relinquish full control and delegate the job to someone else in the company or outsource it.
Bottom line: Defining “clutter” is a personal thing. It’s not how it looks, it’s how it feels and how it affects your living space. Removing items that meet any of the above four criteria will breathe new life into the space and rid it of the “stagnant energy”. And no one person can make that decision for another. The change has to come from the owner, or else the door to regret and resentment is opened. Which really kills any work toward good Feng Shui.
As for my broken, crinkled, unfinished, and old “décor” items placed around my house? They may be head-scratching clutter for my guests, but they lift me up, not bring me down, so in my book they are treasure, not trash. And they’ll be here, providing joy, long after my guests leave.