I started my decluttering journey probably about seven years ago. Which was then complicated by needing to clear out my mother's house after she died about five years ago. Her house was even more cluttered than mine. While a lot of stuff did get dealt with there, a lot of came into my house because it was easier to sort it and parcel it up for donation at home.
Looking back now, I can see how my parents and my childhood (materially pretty comfortable but with quite a lot of emotional, financial and physical instability) shaped my attitude to Stuff....
I used to keep a lot of things (a LOT) for that annoying houseguest Mr Justin Case. And sometimes you do need those things and can dive into your very cluttered space to find them. Mostly you don't. After several decluttering passes, I've got much better at understanding whether something is really worth keeping and is likely to be used. Also whether it will be actually usable in the event I do need it, or if I'd be better getting rid of it now and buying a new one then.
I also had issues with "sunk costs" -- not just financial ("I spent a lot of money on that") but also where there was a lot of emotional investment. One of the hardest things I had to tackle was dealing with the ridiculous amount of paperwork I'd accrued over 20 years of being self-employed. As well as keeping financial records, I'd kept all the notes from the projects I done, because sometimes I did need to go back and check something or take a shortcut on a new project by going back to a similar old one. I just didn't ever get round to purging the oldest stuff....
When I started, it was really hard, because work is a large part of my identity and it felt like I was trashing me to take those files apart and recycle or shred them. Now, enjoying all the space I've freed up, I'm kinda antsy to get rid of more stuff, but everything I have left is within the records-for-tax-purposes limit. So it will have to wait a while.
Someone also recently introduced me to the concept of having stuff for your "fantasy self": the hobbies and activities you are totally going to spend time on -- except you never actually do. That wasn't a huge amount of my clutter, but it was some of it. (There may be a little bit of that left, but as I now have the room to keep some things -- like craft stuff -- that I would really like to work on once I'm not spending so much time on decluttering, they can stay for now.)
Like yukonsally, I'm now much better at checking whether I really want some new shiny thing before I buy it, and having less visual clutter is definitely good for my mental health (and it's more annoying when clutter creeps back). So I'm hopeful I'll stay on top of new clutter in the future!
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I started my decluttering journey probably about seven years ago. Which was then complicated by needing to clear out my mother's house after she died about five years ago. Her house was even more cluttered than mine. While a lot of stuff did get dealt with there, a lot of came into my house because it was easier to sort it and parcel it up for donation at home.
Looking back now, I can see how my parents and my childhood (materially pretty comfortable but with quite a lot of emotional, financial and physical instability) shaped my attitude to Stuff....
I used to keep a lot of things (a LOT) for that annoying houseguest Mr Justin Case. And sometimes you do need those things and can dive into your very cluttered space to find them. Mostly you don't. After several decluttering passes, I've got much better at understanding whether something is really worth keeping and is likely to be used. Also whether it will be actually usable in the event I do need it, or if I'd be better getting rid of it now and buying a new one then.
I also had issues with "sunk costs" -- not just financial ("I spent a lot of money on that") but also where there was a lot of emotional investment. One of the hardest things I had to tackle was dealing with the ridiculous amount of paperwork I'd accrued over 20 years of being self-employed. As well as keeping financial records, I'd kept all the notes from the projects I done, because sometimes I did need to go back and check something or take a shortcut on a new project by going back to a similar old one. I just didn't ever get round to purging the oldest stuff....
When I started, it was really hard, because work is a large part of my identity and it felt like I was trashing me to take those files apart and recycle or shred them. Now, enjoying all the space I've freed up, I'm kinda antsy to get rid of more stuff, but everything I have left is within the records-for-tax-purposes limit. So it will have to wait a while.
Someone also recently introduced me to the concept of having stuff for your "fantasy self": the hobbies and activities you are totally going to spend time on -- except you never actually do. That wasn't a huge amount of my clutter, but it was some of it. (There may be a little bit of that left, but as I now have the room to keep some things -- like craft stuff -- that I would really like to work on once I'm not spending so much time on decluttering, they can stay for now.)
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