Decluttering: How to Declutter Your Home More Minimalism, Fewer Books

By Marie Scott

The day comes when you look around your house and ask yourself, "How did all this stuff get here?"  If that day has come for you, then keep reading.

If stuff has taken over your home, you're feeling cramped, cranky and at the end of your rope.  None of the stuff that's invaded your living space (with your willing collaboration) is making you happy.  But you're paralyzed.  You have no idea where to start!  You're hauled up short by the enormity of the task, so you put your concerns aside and keep moving.

But there's a better way to live. 

There's a way to take back your home from the needless clutter that has taken over.  That's why I wrote Decluttering:  How to Declutter Your Home – More Minimalism, Fewer Books. It was written with you in mind.  This book will help you not only declutter your home, but your life, your budget, your relationships – even your computer!

This book provides motivation for the project you're facing – taking back your home from unnecessary stuff – breaking it up into categories of items and approaches to clutter in the various rooms of your home.  It's a tool made up of a series of smaller tools that you can deploy to wrestle your clutter problem to the ground.

And if you live in a family household, you'll find out how to get everybody in on the fun!

●Learn how to give your reluctant spouse a push in the right direction

●Read about how to get your obstinate teenager on your side

●Find out how a Decluttering Progress Board can keep everyone on track

Get the kids in on the action with the Decluttering Challenge

If you've had enough of the stuff that's encroached on your home, then you need this book.  Start changing your life today by clicking here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zionseed impressions
• Release date: Dec 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386042587

Marie Scott

Marie Scott is an author, speaker, and wellness coach for widows and widowers. After she lost her beloved firefighter husband of thirty years to cancer, Marie began a quest to discover the potential of functional medicine to heal her body, mind, and spirit.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Whether you live in a house, a condominium or a sprawling estate, you’ve got stuff.

Lots of stuff.

Stuff creeps into your domicile, almost magically appearing and then disappearing.  Sometimes it appears years later.  And sometimes, like the mythical sock that gets lost in the dryer, it is never again seen.

And the longer we stay wherever it is we live, the more stuff we seem to accumulate.  Sometimes the process is gradual.  Like many people, we continually vow that we’ll change our stuff-accumulating ways.

This pledge usually coincides with a move.

And we usually keep our pledge until we’re again tempted by more stuff:

●  That sad-eyed velvet clown painting at the garage sale. 

●  The electric drill to replace the one, which has disappeared (but which is really in the basement – just not in the toolbox). 

●  Those fabulous shoes in that super special color that will perfectly match that dress. 

And all that conserved tinfoil, wrapping paper and bubble wrap you’re going to use one day sits in a drawer or cupboard. But, like the ball of rubber bands, it’s most likely you will never do any such thing.

But it’s stuff and it’s yours - even that pair of shorts with the hole in the butt. 

The things we accumulate and fill our homes with may have no reason to be there.  But accumulating things we don’t need is not rational. There’s something else at work there – like the underlying sense of security being surrounded by stuff gives us. This is the reason people experiencing homelessness travel with often nonsensical items, like broken radios.  It’s their stuff.

But you’re not experiencing homelessness.  You live in a home with too much stuff in it and you know you’re doing this thing the wrong way.  If you’re ready to do it right, then you’ve come to the right place. This book is about decluttering or more specifically how to declutter your home – more Minimalism, fewer books.

Less stuff.  Yes.  We have included books because you’re probably not going to read them again. Well, maybe a few but we’re not talking about those. In this book, you’re going to learn some solid tips for decluttering your home, based on solid advice and experience on getting to where you need to go. Let’s not waste any more time.  Let’s get decluttering!

CHAPTER 1:  WHY WE DO IT TO OURSELVES

I hinted at this the introduction you just read.  When we settle, we begin to fill our homes with all manner of stuff.  It’s easy to explain the phenomenon away by saying it’s a consequence of consumer society.  While that may be partially true, this reasoning does nothing to explain the emotions we attach to our stuff.

I’ve seen some very interesting examples of the accumulation of what amounts to clutter.  In one instance, I found a stash of half-used jars of Vaseline.  There must have been a dozen of them in that dark corner of my aunt’s bedroom.  I was a kid, so I didn’t mind asking her about the weird find.  She told me it was for her feet. She didn’t tell me why she never finished a jar before starting another one, or why she had repeated this act of oddness on what appeared to be about a dozen occasions.

But that’s only one of the weird, inexplicable examples of stuff accumulation.  Collectors have a genuine problem with stuff accumulation, being physically unable to pass a secondhand or curio store without having convulsions. The promise of a stray vintage button is just too enticing and it would go so well with the other thousand at home, right?

A recent phenomenon

The Industrial Revolution is where I’d be willing to bet the genesis of having way too much stuff began.  With this historic turning point came a new prosperity and that meant people had disposable income.  Some call it play money or mad money. Honey, money’s money.  It’s an asset.  You worked hard to make it.  Why on Earth would you blow it on junk?  But a lot of people do.

While the phrase disposable income may rankle some (me, for one), disposable income is what people began to have, as the Industrial Revolution attracted people to urban centers and away from an agrarian lifestyle and subsistence living.  For once, there was money in their pockets after the rent, food, clothing and other necessaries were paid for. Suddenly, people had money to spend on decorative items, more clothing, things for the kitchen and other items.  The homes of Western Civilization began to fill with stuff.

But mass production kicked the Industrial Revolution into warp speed, making it possible to fill our homes with stuff whose obsolescence was planned, compelling us to buy replacement stuff for the mass-produced stuff that had become obsolete 10 minutes after we bought it.

And then came the mall; that inimitable magnet for hair flicking teenage girls and their hopeful potential consorts.  The mall is a collection of stores.  Its entire existence is predicated on making it convenient for consumers to spend money – all under one roof!  How exciting!

The rise of shopping as an entertainment has also been responsible for the spiriting home of a lot of stuff.  At no time is entertainment shopping more in evidence than in the months leading up to Christmas.  Western society is addicted to the Christmas season and its intense shopping.  Retailers plan for it all year, knowing that Christmas shopping is what keeps them afloat, in many instances.

While I’m sure there have been people throughout history who loved to surround themselves with stuff, never has the phenomenon been so widespread and as pervasive as it is in our times.

So, why?

Now that we’ve had two hundred odd years to become accumulators, we’re used to it.  But all that accumulation has some strong psychological roots. With the exception of hoarders (who we’re not talking about in this book), stuff accumulators are essentially using inanimate objects to express something about who they are.  They’re using their possessions to speak on their behalf. But they’re also using their possessions to either mirror or to entirely stand in for their self-image.

What we own and how we display it or invite other people to experience it is a way of telling people something about ourselves, without speaking.  It’s a way of signaling prosperity (which is seen as a virtuous estate, instead of for what it is – hard work, good fortune) and our position in society.

Our possessions provide a touch point for our identities and reassure us when we’re feeling adrift or uncertain.  To a large extent, the accumulation of stuff is an act of shoring up life against uncertainty.  Surely, if we have stuff, nothing horrible can happen to us.  Maybe we can even cheat death.

These are the subconscious reasons people are so enamored with accumulation.  I’m not talking about pathology (being nuts).  I’m talking about normal, human ways to deal with life and to understand their place in it.

It’s just a little more complicated since the Industrial Revolution happened – and way more cluttered.

So, now that we’ve taken a casual glance at some of the history of stuff accumulation and the reasons people indulge in it, let’s talk about how to approach the project of decluttering your home, one problem area of accumulation at a time.

But before you begin, you’re going to go around your home, taking photos of every room.  These photos will be used later and compared to the photos you take of each room after you’ve decluttered.  You’ll read about the pivotal role