It’s not until years or decades later that we ask ourselves, “Where did all this stuff come from?!?” We feel a combination of surprise and overwhelm, like we’re somehow seeing our homes anew for the first time. The coronavirus pandemic has sparked this question in many of us. We’re spending more and more time at home, and the visual stimuli is proving all too much for our brains. I notice it in myself.

With all five of us working and learning from home, I’m seeing the piles of clothing, toys, or school materials as the source of my stress. I’m telling myself that, “I should clean up…,” or that, “We should have less…” and those thoughts — combined with delayed decisions have been pulling me down. 

The Clutter Conundrum 

I wish that every item sold came with a warning label that read, “someday you’ll have to decide to let this go and that will take work.” We love to buy. We love to “save money” by buying in bulk. If it’s a bargain, we find a way to justify the purchase. Acquiring something new gives us an emotional and hormonal rush, and that dopamine supports our decision for why we want or need the object.

We find something that sparks our interest, that speaks to our soul, or meets our practical need and we bring it home. The downside is that with every purchase or every gift received, each of us is inherently agreeing to the work required to let it go one day.

Clutter is defined as confusion or disorder, an excess of unwanted things. It’s a broad category that includes items of value, items in good working condition, items that are broken and useless, and items that can be resold, repurposed, or recycled.

Clutter is considered to be the items in your home that you no longer regularly use, don’t have adequate space for, or require your time and energy to maintain (but give little reward in return). Because the category is so broad and solely defined by the homeowner, occupants of the home barely notice the accumulation of clutter over time.

Most objects come into our home intentionally. We decide that we want them. Then time passes. The item becomes obsolete. We forget about it, or a newer more attractive item replaces it. However, we never stop to decide what to do with the original object.  

For example, many of us purchase picture books when our children are young. Friends gift us their favorite picture books, and grandparents love to buy books to show their grandkids that they’re thinking of them. Everything about this is beautiful.

As parents, we have emotional attachments to certain picture books from our childhood. We grow our collection, then our children outgrow it altogether. The question then becomes, “What do we do with this lovely library of books?” We know that they hold value (both sentimental and monetary), we know they take up space, we know that they’re in good condition and won’t deteriorate very quickly. Do we hold onto them for a few decades so that our children won’t have to invest in picture books? Do we hold onto them for a few decades so that our grandchildren will have something to read when they come visit us? 

It’s this conundrum that is the essence of clutter. By not deciding what to do, we put off the decision for another day. We decide not to decide. We tell ourselves the books will be used, and we tell ourselves that we should hold onto them. The question we rarely ask ourselves, though, is, “What will keeping [the picture books, etc.] keep me from doing these next few years?” 

Perhaps the answer is nothing. Perhaps they’ll be safely stored out of the way until someone decides to access them. But they’ll still take up space, they’ll still collect dust, they’ll begin to deteriorate, and there’s no guarantee that the next generation will even want them to begin with. We’ll still be left to haul them away or donate them to a worthy cause. Keeping the books has equal potential advantages to potential disadvantages. Either way, they’re still your responsibility.

Delayed Decision Making

Items that are broken, damaged, or irrelevant are easier to make decisions around, because we know that they’re no longer as useful as they once were. Why then, do we let those items languish around the home?

Making decisions is hard. We much prefer to put decisions off, telling ourselves that “we’ll get around to it later.” Making decisions takes more energy and mental stamina than we’re often willing to acknowledge.

Every object we pick up and touch, we take time to think about it’s backstory. We question whether we’ll actually use it again. Often times our brains will take the easy route: the voice in our heads will say, “I don’t know,” and put it back down. Overwhelm, anxiety, and a myriad of other emotions set in and the antiquated home stereo system, the dull knives, and the blouse with the small stain go back to their places.

Overabundance happens to us all. Clutter has become the norm for many of us, and that is how our homes (and our parents’ homes) become repositories of unused stuff. The disorder comes from all the tiny, seemingly harmless sets of delayed decisions year after year. We think we’ll get around to it one day, but it never seems to become exciting or energizing enough for us to get started.

We fail to recognize that not making a decision is actually a decision in and of itself. The clutter we surround ourselves with is the result.

Professional organizers are trained to guide and support the decision-making process. We view clutter as a puzzle to be solved. We don’t judge the homeowner; instead we understand how the objects in a client’s home are directly related to delayed decisions and the emotional process of buying, attachment, and preserving memory. We employ the process of decluttering to bolster the client’s decisions, empower them to engage with what they own, and to select what is most meaningful for their home and lifestyle today.

We spend less time talking about what a homeowner is giving up and more about how decision-making contributes to what they’re gaining. The final result of decluttering is a balanced home and a calmer mind.

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