11 November, 2008

Clutter - I Haz It and I Hatez It

Here's a theory for you:  fatigue, sadness, disappointment, and anger lead to clutter, which leads to more negative feelings, which generate more clutter, etc.    Clutter's been on my mind a lot lately, and I had the chance to talk about it today with a friend over lunch.  We each committed to decluttering a bag of clothes and a bag of papers this week, and that felt like a good first step.

I've been feeling for a while that the clutter is overwhelming me again.  The house generally looks pretty good, although I can't say that about this week. (Don't, please don't, knock on my door tonight!  The kitchen is dire.)  Anyway, even when the house is looking good, the cabinets, closets, and storage areas are hiding a TON of clutter.  Being fortunate enough to have lots of storage space, I've fallen into the habit of using it to stash stuff, not organize it.

Tired?  Just bung that batch of papers and flyers into a bag and toss it in the cupboard.  After a while, the cupboards get pretty full, and you don't know what is where.

Three years ago, almost exactly, I found Flylady and really "got" it.  Her systems got me motivated to unpack a whole houseful of moving boxes, and toss two thirds of what I unpacked. For about a year, I was really on top of things and the clutter was at a bare minimum. Since then, I've kept many of her routines for daily housekeeping but neglected the decluttering aspect. 

Now, the clutter's gotten everywhere, especially inside my head. I feel overwhelmed at the thought of it.  At the same time, I want to be enthusiastic about tossing stuff again.  Looking back at my blog posts, I found the story about 100 things and the man who's trying to pare down his possessions to the extreme.  That sounds really good right now.

Any thoughts, Gentle Readers?  Tried and true tips for decluttering?

3 comments:

Lynn said...

I haz the clutter as well and I don't want it any more!!! It's amazing how much 4 people can collect over a period of time!

But I do like Fly Lady. I was hoping to follow her Holiday Ready house decluttering but that never happened. The one thing that I do LOVE is her 15 min worth of work. You can do anything for 15 min and sometimes that's just enough time to unload and reload the dish washer. And then I can walk away from the kitchen knowing that I did *something* in there.

Kay-From the Back Yard said...

Decluttering is a really interesting subject.

I started reading Flylady awhile back, and she kept nagging about my sink, which I always keep neat and clean. It's the closets, baby! But maybe I'll go back to her site.

Any ideas about how to stop stashing yarn?????

Susie J. said...

I haz teh CHAOS. :(