Posts Tagged ‘clutter’

Why Do You Buy What You Buy?

Unfortunately, we often buy things for the wrong reasons. It might be desire to appear more affluent, hip, intellectual, or worldly — to impress those around us with our taste. We could be attempting to make up for deprivation earlier in life. Or we may have an unrealistic expectation of what “success” is supposed to look like, equating material goods with accomplishment. We mistakenly think that our possessions will change our lives — that a treadmill will give us the motivation to exercise and the right calendar will end a lifetime of procrastination. It's that old “life-will-be-better-once-I-have-such-and-such” syndrome. How many fabulous “modern conveniences” do you own that are collecting dust in a cabinet because they failed to live up to your expectations?

Spend a few minutes thinking about the ways in which you accumulate “stuff” you don't need. Perhaps your vice is going to the mall when you are depressed. Or sitting at the computer and shopping for Internet deals until 3 AM. Maybe you're addicted to mail order catalogs, or kitchen gadgets, or cheap vacation souvenirs. We all have a weakness (some of us more than one!) — the trick is to identify those areas where you are most at risk and do what you can to avoid them. You can choose to stop accumulating more clutter, but only if you know where the clutter is coming from.

How Does Your Clutter Make You Feel?

Certainly, the mere act of “shopping” is not inherently evil. The real problem occurs when we fail to make room for the new by purging the old and obsolete. Unfortunately, cleaning out is pretty low on most people's to-do lists. How can you possibly make time to clear the decks — when you have carpools, business meetings, and deadlines to keep you busy?  I'll answer that question by asking another — how do you feel when you can't find something that you are looking for? Stupid? Frustrated? How about when you run across something that you haven't used once since the day you bought it? Guilty? Wasteful? Or when you look around you and see nothing but piles and stacks? Out of control? Clutter can evoke an amazing variety of negative emotions in people. It's said that “to surround yourself with worthless objects, renders you worthless.” If we define ourselves by our possessions, we judge ourselves based on our clutter.

How Much Is Clutter Costing You?

I define clutter as anything extraneous and unnecessary that takes up one of four valuable resources — time, space, energy, or money — without providing any tangible benefit. When you look at your life through this lens, it is clear that we are all burdened with some form of clutter — even those of us without stacks and piles all over the place.

How much of your square footage is designated for storage? If you didn't need so much space for your “stuff,” you could create larger living and working areas — or downsize to a smaller home or office (think about the reduction in mortgage and utility costs!) And just imagine the collective savings if everyone turned in the keys to their public storage units!

Now, take a minute to consider the time and effort you invest in caring for your belongings. Would these precious resources be better spent on other pursuits — a new hobby, relaxing with family and friends, achieving some of those goals you never seem to get around to? Don't forget the expenditure of emotional energy on your things — ownership can weigh heavy on a person's mind. “What if someone steals or damages my stuff? What if a tornado blows it all away? What will I do then?” How often has the stress you experience in your life been related to your material possessions?

Once you can understand where clutter comes from, how you accumulate it, and what's driving those behavior patterns, you can stem the tide. Remember, the goal isn't to become a monk and give up all worldly possessions, but to put a stop to the constant influx of meaningless “stuff” into your life — and start making conscious and deliberate decisions about each purchase.

Sweeping Away The  Past

Stop and think about how much your physical environment affects your mental state and sense of well-being. Living in a messy home makes you feel as though you've put on an extra 10 pounds. Being surrounded by dirt and piles of clutter drains your energy. When your living space is out of whack, it changes your whole outlook — you feel stuck, irritable, just not happy with the world. And it doesn't take much for the mess to accumulate — I know from personal experience that a month or two of chaos will take its toll on even an organized person's home!

But when your home is clean, clutter-free, and organized, it feels as though a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. You have room to move, to think, to enjoy life. Suddenly, you re-discover the motivation to tackle other projects — starting an exercise program, looking for a new job, going back to school, writing the great American novel. It's amazing what just tidying up your home can help you accomplish! I firmly believe that everyone should plan at least two good top-to-bottom cleanings a year — whether you live in a mini-mansion, a condo, or an RV!

“Cleansing rituals” are common amongst native cultures as a way of releasing the old and making space for the new. These usually involve some sort of change in your physical environment, as well as a recognition of the attendant change in mental state — each action is paired with an affirmation of something that you're grateful for or something that you would like to welcome into your life. The shifting seasons signal an opportunity bring about a change in your energy, as well as your living space. Spring and fall are natural times in the cycle of the year for a cleansing — a breath of fresh air either before or after a long period of dormancy. I invite you to join me in my fall cleaning:

  • pull out any clothes that no longer fit and donate them to a local shelter — then take a moment to appreciate your body just as it is, in whatever form it takes — ask for health and strength in the coming months, and commit to getting in a little exercise every day
  • clean out the paraphernalia from any old hobbies that no longer excite you to donate or sell — take a moment to be grateful that you live in a society that allows you to participate in so many diverse activities — then pick just one of your many interests to focus on in the coming months, and commit to spending time on it each week
  • go through every room of your home, every storage space, and pull out any item that isn't beautiful, useful, or loved to donate or sell — take a moment to be thankful that you live in a society that allows such material abundance, and also be grateful for the fact that someone else will get a chance to use and love these things from your life — commit to cleaning one thing out every time you bring something new into your home from now on
  • go through your to-do list of “unfinished projects” and determine which ones are still important to you — give yourself permission to cross the others off, letting them go without worry or care, recognizing that you can't waste your limited time and energy on trivial or unimportant matters — then commit to a deadline for completing each remaining task
  • open the windows and let the fresh air flow through your home — take a moment to appreciate the beauty of nature — commit to getting outside at least once every week to enjoy the world around you
  • give your house a good scrubbing from top to bottom (including windows, floors, tub, toilet, dusting, mopping, you name it) — include all those “home maintenance” tasks that you've been putting off (like cleaning the gutters or checking the seals on the windows) — then take a moment to be grateful for this wonderful home and the people in it — commit to doing something every day that makes your home feel wonderful (fresh flowers, burning scented candles, a special place-setting at dinner, etc.)

You Have To Move A Pile Off A Chair So Someone Can Sit Down

Having a closet where you hide it all away is one thing (not good, but certainly a bit more tolerable). However, when your “junk” starts spilling out into your active living and working spaces, it's time to re-evaluate the situation. I have seen clients who couldn't turn on the stove because it was piled three feet high with unopened mail, used their shower as “storage” for  boxes of who-knows-what that they hadn't opened in 10 years, and never slept in their bed because it was covered with “stuff” they hadn't gotten around to putting away yet. If you are unable to use portions of your home or office because of clutter, it's time for the hard hat and shovel!

You Know You Own A Pair Of Scissors, But You Can Never Find It

Not being able to find things when you need them is a sign — your belongings are homeless and crying out to you for a place to live! Don't let them suffer any longer! If you want to stay organized, you need to have an assigned storage area for each and every thing you own. And not just any old place, but a logical, rational, and defensible spot nearest the point where you use that item. It's really pretty simple. Ask yourself where you would look for scissors when you needed them — that's where they should be stored. And if you use scissors in several different places around your home or office, buy 3 or 4 pairs and give each its own unique home.

It Takes You Three Tries To Get Out Of The House In The Morning

Let me guess — you walk out the door without your briefcase. You go back for your briefcase, then head out again sans keys. You return for the keys and get all the way to your car before you realize that your lunch is still sitting on the counter. No, you're probably not suffering from Alzheimer's at the tender age of 37. This is nothing more than poor planning. Take a minute the night before to gather up everything that you need to take with you in the morning. Put it in a designated holding area near the door so you won't forget it — a “launching pad,” if you will. You can even put a sticky note on the door to remind yourself to get your lunch from the fridge!

You Pay At Least One Late Fee Or Interest Charge Each Month

If you had a standard way of dealing with financial paperwork as it came in, you wouldn't get behind. Set up a small filing rack where you put all of your bills — lined up in the order in which they should be paid — and write the due date on the envelope. Then, schedule time on your calendar twice a month to pay the bills that are due in the next two weeks. Treat your bill-paying time like an appointment — block it off in your planner and don't let anything get in the way of completing that chore. Of course, if you find that your bills are late because you simply don't have enough money to pay them, then it's time to re-evaluate your spending patterns and plug those money leaks!

You Regularly Request An Extension On Your Tax Returns

For some people, tax day isn't April 15th — it's August 15th! Most folks who file extensions do so because they can't get all of their paperwork together on time (but if you're an organized small business person like me who has been advised that an extension is the best way to skirt the first-come-first-served rule regarding audits, you can ignore this section!) Otherwise, set up a filing box just for tax documents. Break your receipts down into basic categories — office supplies, charitable donations, medical expenses, travel, etc. — and file any new ones as soon as you get them. Then, you can hand the entire box over to your CPA at the end of the year. Better yet, set yourself up on a computerized accounting program (your accountant will love you!)

You've Never Seen The Bottom Of Your In-Box

If you have a hard time staying on top of “to-do's,” I would first ask if you are setting aside time each week to deal with incoming paper. You should sort through all the new stuff — mail, faxes, memos, etc. — once a day. That means doing more than just putting it in a pile on your desk How on earth will you know what you need to do if you don't at least open the envelopes? When you pick up a piece of paper, make a decision about what action you need to take (put a sticky note on it to remind you, if you need). Then, schedule that action into your calendar. You should set aside regular time each week for making phone calls, writing letters, filing, data entry — whatever “to-do's” you normally do.

Your Typical Workday Ends Three Hours After Everyone Else's

Workaholism has become a serious problem in our society — but not everyone who works late does it out of a compulsion. Some people have to put in longer hours to make up for the fact that they are less productive during the regular work day. Do you get a lot done while other people are around — or are you constantly being interrupted and distracted? Make a list of all the things that draw your attention away from work during the day — drop-in visitors, clutter in your office, time spent surfing the web — and start tackling these “time wasters” one-by-one. Once you get organized, you'll find that you can go home on time every night of the week.

You Can't See Your Desk Under All The Stacks And Piles Of Paper

People who pile instead of file tend to do so because they have never set up a really useful filing system. Some are afraid that sticking an item away where they can't see it is a recipe for disaster — not if your files are working for you. Look at your folders — do the categories make sense? Are they grouped into logical clusters of information (all of your insurance paperwork together, utility bills in the same place, computer manuals in one home)? Do you have multiple files with the same information in it (a “car” file, a “Toyota” file, and a “vehicle” file)? Are your drawers cluttered with ancient paperwork that you really don't need? It might be time to re-vamp, re-organize, and clean out!

You Are Always Running Someone Else's Errands

Have you learned how to say “no” yet? I have never understood why people think that “no” is such a bad word — as though they are being disrespectful to the other person by turning them down. What you are actually doing when you say “no” is being respectful of yourself — understanding and accepting the limits of what you can reasonably accomplish in a day. You aren't doing anyone a favor by overloading your day with responsibilities. In fact, you are doing others a disservice by rushing from one activity to the next without giving any of them your full attention. And you are certainly causing yourself a lot of unnecessary stress. Stop it!

Your Life Feels Out Of Control

Many signs of clutter are tangible — you can see and feel them. But that vague sense of overwhelm can be ten times more damaging than a stack of unopened mail or a pile of junk in your closet. Do you feel that you are terminally behind and will never get caught up, no matter how hard you try? Or that you are losing your mind because you can't deal with the mess anymore? The first step to curbing these anxieties is to take that first step — tackle a cluttered drawer or a today's mail or a shelf in the garage. Just putting a dent in your mess will take a great weight off your shoulders — and often give you the motivation you need to dig in deeper.

What's Wrong With Loving Your Stuff?

There's a saying in my family, “If one is good, 20 must be better” — and my mother lived according to that credo until her dying day. If she loved it, she bought a lot of it, bought a few more the next trip to the store, then picked up a couple extras just to be safe. While cleaning out, we found at least 100 purses in her closet (many of which hadn't seen the light of day since I was in high school.) She had clothing and shoes that she hadn't been able to wear in 50 years stashed away in her closet. I found paperwork in her filing system that went back to 1954. The craft room was filled with old half-finished projects dating back three decades (my favorite was a bicentennial needlepoint quilt that my mother started in 1976 and kept swearing she would complete “someday” — she might have pulled it out when I was about 12 and added a few stitches, but otherwise, that thing lived in a shopping bag all the way through my childhood until I went to college!) And my mother was never one to pass up a bargain at the supermarket — she could have single-handedly alleviated starvation in a medium-sized third-world country if she had donated her kitchen to the World Hunger Organization (as long as those children in Ethiopia didn't mind freezer burn, overdue expiration dates, and a lot of spam!)

You see, the problem is not just that my mother owned a lot of stuff, but that she owned so much of everything that a good bit of it went bad before she ever had a chance to use it. Three years ago, a neighbor gave my mother several lugs of figs from his tree. She canned them and stored them neatly away on a shelf in her pantry. Well I'm sorry, but a single 77-year-old woman living by herself is never going to be able to eat two dozen jars of figs in any reasonable amount of time — when we finally opened them, they had grown hair and turned moldy. My mother never really understood the concept of “expiration” — she truly thought things would last forever. She would find canned goods on sale at the store and load up, then be surprised to discover that they were no longer edible when she finally opened them 10 years later. We found cans going back to 1998, and ended up throwing out 99% of what was stored in the pantry, fridge, or freezer. In fact, a large part of what my mother had stashed away for use “someday” went in the garbage — dried up paints, melted candles, holiday decorations that had disintegrated in the heat of the attic, clothing that was munched by silverfish, and shoes that had become moldy with disuse. The irony is that my mother hated to waste anything, which is why she kept things forever, magically believing that they would be useful at some point down the road — but instead they just rotted away in storage, which then created more waste. A vicious cycle.

A Fine Line Between Collection And Pathology

So does this mean that my mother was a compulsive hoarder? I don't think so. My mother's biggest problem was “excessive acquisition” — she was a child of the Depression and had spent her formative years going without essential items like milk and shoes and soap powder. So somewhere in the back of her mind, she worried that there might come a day when she would again be without — and she stockpiled to protect herself from that possibility. My mother also derived a great deal of joy from finding a bargain — she figured out that spending less on each purchase meant she could shop more (“need” never really entered into the equation.) It made her incredibly happy to get a $160 brand-name purse for $2 at the thrift store (even when she already had 20 others in the closet at home) — or 3 dozen cans of corn for $1.50 at the “bent and dent” store (even if they were already out of date and would go bad within a month.) My mother's urge to accumulate was like a cancer, a form of self-destructive replication that eventually takes over its host.

But truly compulsive hoarding is a different matter altogether. It goes beyond simple acquisition and into the realm of dysfunction. Real hoarding impairs a person's mobility — these are the folks for whom every flat surface is covered with piles, and they can only get from room to room via a tiny little path carved through the middle. My mother (like 99% of the people I know) had a “junk room” filled with crap she never used, and her active living spaces were quite often messier than I would have liked (again, like 99% of the people I know) — but her home was functional. Pathological hoarding keeps people from being able to use living spaces for their intended purposes, it interferes with a person's daily activities. I've worked with A.D.D., C.D., O.C.D., and hoarding clients who couldn't cook because the stove was piled high with unopened mail, who couldn't shower because the bathtub was full of overflow from the closets, and who slept on the couch because they couldn't find their beds under all the stacks. This was not my mother! And hoarding can often become terminal, when the clutter causes fires or impedes rescue workers from administering aid in the case of an emergency. When paramedics came to take my mother to the hospital, they had no problem getting in or out of the house. I never worried for her safety in her own home — and even in all our cleaning out, we never found a corpse buried under any of the piles. Wink

While it might seem that my mother was resistant to discarding anything (especially if you ask my sister), that's not completely true. She refused to get rid of stuff that she loved or thought she might use (which was a lot more than she really needed) — but she didn't hoard used tin foil or pieces of string or old coffee grounds (she did understand the difference between “trash” and the “good stuff.”) The woman was entirely willing to toss a newspaper once she had finished reading it (but she had so many subscriptions that she was looking at a backlog of 20 year's worth of publications to read “someday.”) And even though it took a long time, once my mother decided that something served no purpose for her, she let it go — last summer, we donated about 10 contractor bags of fabric to the Gee's Bend quilting collective, and at least 20 boxes of books to the local library. In fact, every time I talked to my mother this past year, she was always bagging stuff up for donation or shredding old papers. But it had to be her idea — she would not be forced to clean out before her time (again, like 99% of the people I know!)

I know organizers who would have easily classified my mother as a “level 1 hoarder.” But that diagnosis could be applied to (you guessed it) 99% of the people I know! Seriously, where do you draw the line? I have plenty of friends with collecting fetishes — bibliomaniacs and keepers of the shot glasses and even one woman with a spectacularly expensive assortment of high-end snow globes. And I know plenty of successful people who don't have a horizontal surface that isn't covered with “stuff.” But if the person is functional (pays the bills on time, holds down a job, isn't spending beyond their means or stealing, maintains a basic level of cleanliness, doesn't let the clutter impede personal relationships, and isn't living in a hazardous environment) — then where's the harm? My mother had a rich and full life, was involved in her community and well-loved by friends, and the clutter never really got in the way of that. As my sisters and I said while cleaning out, “At least it made momma happy.” She enjoyed the stuff she used, and she enjoyed the POTENTIAL behind the stuff she never got around to using, and I guess that has to be good enough.

Clear Out The Clutter

Your filing system is a lot like your junk drawer. Every time you find something that you think might be useful, you stash it away. Some of those things come in handy later on — others just take up space. But every once in a while, you have to clear the decks and start fresh with your storage. Now, here's your chance!

Empty every folder out of your file drawer and start by asking yourself if that category is still meaningful and relevant to your life. Completed projects, old client files, and obsolete reference topics may be able to go away. You can then sort through each “keeper” folder and clean out unnecessary and outdated paperwork. Remember, only current and relevant documents should reside in your active files. If you don't use it all the time but might possibly need to refer to that information again in the future, place the item in your archive files. If not, and there is no legal reason for you to keep it, toss or shred.

A New Coat Of Paint

While you've got your file system emptied, take a minute to look at your supplies and see if they pass muster. Are your folders getting old and raggedy, coming apart at the seams and losing their grip on your hanging file rails? Why not replace them with new, clean files. Are your labels a mess? Too many cross-outs and write-overs make it hard to find the folder you need — so get some fresh labels and neatly type or print the correct title for each file. Are your filing cabinets dysfunctional, with dented and hard-to-open drawers? If you have to fight with your cabinet every time you need a document, it's time to consider a replacement.

Also examine your naming convention and make sure that your files are labeled in a way that makes sense. The goal is to start each file with the name of the larger category to which it belongs (ex: utilities), then add on the descriptor that lets you know exactly what paperwork that folder contains (ex: utilities — water or utilities — electric), moving from general to more specific. Color-coding your files and/or labels is another great way to distinguish categories of files from one another.

Put It All Back In Order

Finally, it's time to get each document back in its home. Once you have all of your file folders labeled and placed in the drawer, check around your home or office to see if there are any loose piles of paper sitting out — on a desk, shelf, countertop, or credenza (don't forget to look for homeless papers stuffed into drawers or boxes, as well!) Go through each stack and clear out any junk — papers that you thought might be useful, but now turn out the be outdated, obsolete, or no longer relevant to your interests.

Once you've trimmed the piles down to only what you know you want to keep (and will use in the future), file those papers one-by-one in your existing categories. Don't just ask yourself where it should go, but also where you would LOOK for it when you need that document down the road. And if you don't have an appropriate category (or subcategory) for that item, create a new file.

By the time you are done, every piece of paper should have a home and be easy to locate whenever you need it. If you missed spring this year, don't worry — you can clean up your paper management act any time you need to. Don't put it off until next spring!