The Challenge of Decluttering

The truth is: decluttering is not hard. Really.

Your closet look like this? Nope? Mine neither.

You look at an area that has too many things. You select the items that you no longer need. And then, you get them out of your house. See? Simple.

But we all know that this isn't the reality for most of us - especially myself - for about a million reasons.

Two books were influential in jumpstarting my recent attempt to remove clutter and chaos from my life: The Year of Less by Cait Flanders and Nobody Wants Your Sh*t by Messie Condo. The first being a memoir of how and why she systematically removed excess from her life and the latter being a crass and mostly foul-mouthed "get up off your keister and DO the thing" inspiration. They both spoke into the million reasons why clutter had adhered itself to my life, my home and my mind and offered hope to get out of it. (Despite my numerous attempts before).

I learned of the Swedish practice of Döstädning' - literal translation- "death cleaning" -- which stems from the Swede's cultural tradition of decluttering and organizing one's life before passing away. Essentially, when you die- someone else is going to have to deal with your physical possessions - so don't be selfish and leave them with a mess. Don't cause fights or angst within your family about "who gets what" or frustration in "why would they leave me this when I really don't want it."

We were never meant to live with this many THINGS. At the end of the day- that's all they are. But the amount of time and energy that consumes us to merely DEAL with the after effects of excessive consumerism is horrific.

Ultimately, I made the decision to embark on a Death Cleaning Challenge because of the detrimental role that clutter and chaos have had on my marriage and my home. Long story short and without details- my husband and I (and the death of both of our mothers) had both had played roles in contributing to the aforementioned mess in our home. And the mess was making us both crazy in very different and hurtful ways.

And so, enough is enough.

A quick Google search of decluttering and death cleaning will lead you to hundreds of articles and videos on how to do it. I found a site that offered a 30-Day Challenge and made it my own. Unfortunately, the algorithms of the inter-webs have made it so that I can no longer find the original source of several of the steps I've borrowed for attribution (trust me, I've looked).

So, at the time of this writing, I'm a week and a half into my self-inflicted cleansing. And it's been one of the most beautiful things that I've ever forced myself to accomplish. Also, at the time of this writing, the cleaning has been stalled because of life getting into the way and travel. I'll be honest - the items unchecked list on my kitchen wall look like foster animals at the pound and make me feel sad.

However, I'm learning to embrace this idea of being kind to myself as I attempt to get back on track and more closely adhere to the self-imposed schedule. AND - I'm very proud of the work I've done so far. It's exciting to think about what it means for my future self and marriage that gets to reap the benefits of a deeply decluttered home.

If you are considering a Death Cleaning of your own - You can do it! Just make yourself a schedule and do your best to stick to it. Or don't. But just keep going. Your mental health and sanity are worth it!