04 | Where Clutter Comes From
04 | Where Clutter Comes From
In this episode, I define the meaning of the word ‘clutter.’ I also talk about three ways clutter surfaces in your home.
Feeling uncomfortable is typical when we force ourselves to confront our stuff. Over time our brain naturally adjusts to being surrounded by clutter. It processes excess stimuli as being “normal.” Our brain tricks us into feeling like stuff just appeared in our home overnight.
Excess or overabundance is subjective. Your unwanted items may be someone else's treasure. Noticing how items arrive in your home will better empower you to take control. As the gatekeeper, you're in charge of what comes in and what goes out.
The clutter in your home didn't magically appear. You've actually allowed all in, one way or another. By increasing your awareness from this day forward, you can reclaim your space, let go of self-judgment, and make choices and change for the future.
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Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing an Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer, and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast, we'll go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to episode four, “Where Clutter Comes From.” Moving is the classic moment where we have to confront and take stock of every item that we own. That's why most of us avoid it. The process of going through every cabinet, every drawer, every closet is daunting. You finally see all that's coming into your apartment or home over the last handful of years, and you recognize how little of it has gone out. There’s more coming in than going out. Sheltering in place during the pandemic was another such opportunity for all of us. Being in one's home month after month was another moment where each of us was confronted with all of our stuff. Think back to the last time you asked yourself, where did all this stuff even come from? It's as if in that moment you are seeing the items anew.
Did you know that your brain gets used to all the visual stimuli in your space? It adapts over time to the quantity of items in your home. In order to process all that it sees, your brain normalizes the amount of objects and readjust this baseline that it has without you even knowing it. In today's episode, I'm going to define for you exactly what clutter is and identify three ways that clutter surfaces in your home and life. Surprise! It doesn't just magically appear, even though I know that it feels like it does. I hate to break it to you, but you've actually let it all in. You've unknowingly given each item permission to take up space in your life and that my friend is the honest truth. Before you jump to any feelings of self-judgment, I want you to give yourself credit. Just like Instagram or TikTok or Netflix are all addictive pleasure monsters that grab your attention and gobble it up, clutter sneaks into your home and unwittingly gobbles up your space.
The first way that clutter shows up is not as clutter at all. The objects you own have, I'll call it a pleasure life cycle, and I'll break that down here shortly. Second, as you know, there's always more coming in than there is going out. You have to actively stop the flow or reverse it through awareness to make changes. Third, clutter is created through delayed decisions. We'll discuss decision making again and again in this podcast. After working with clients for a handful of years, I now see decision making as one of the most powerful skills a person can have in their toolbox. So first off, what is clutter? Technically, clutter is defined as confusion or disorder, the lack of order. It's also defined as an excess of unwanted things. For me, the first definition, confusion, disorder, those seem more appropriate for our internal experience when you're feeling or experiencing clutter in your mind or schedule.
This episode will focus on the second definition, the excess of unwanted things. This is why I'll always advocate for organization or an organized life being a personal or individualized experience. Excess is subjective. Your sense of excess is different from everyone else's listening to this podcast, and that's okay. Excess is “more than.” It's relative. There's no baseline that will make sense to both you and me. The term “unwanted" is the same. Your trash may be my treasure and vice versa. Wanting something is subjective. For nearly 20 years, my husband collected records, LPs. He loved the hunt for original pressings. He loved South African jazz and blue note American jazz. Before streaming music became commonplace, he'd play albums in the evenings and on the weekends. I was totally supportive of his passion.
However, I didn't want his records as much as he did. I enjoyed them for sure, but collecting, keeping, displaying them, that was his thing. I didn't see them as clutter, neither did he. Maintaining his collection took time and attention. He couldn't simply keep buying records without regularly taking a look at what he already owned. Certain LPs held emotional and vintage value. Others got played frequently and others were of lesser quality, mass produced and just weren't as great of albums as some of the others. These were the albums that ended up as clutter for him. Again, clutter is considered to be the items in your home that you no longer regularly use and don't have adequate space for. Keep in mind, records are 12 by 12 and require a certain size of shelving, so adequate space is necessary. It's also items that require time and attention, energy to maintain without giving much reward.
Think about it. Objects have a pleasure life cycle. You either need something to function like a new cell phone when yours dies or breaks or you want something. I'd estimate in a terribly unscientific way that 90% of the items in your home are wants rather than needs. For example, at some point you were like, it's back to school time, so let's go get some fresh supplies. Or, oh, I want to try a new workout routine, so I'm going to go pick up some hand weights, another water bottle and a yoga mat. The process of buying something, whether it's a want or a need, gives your brain a hit of dopamine. It feels good to buy a new patio set. It feels good to buy new clothes. Then our brain just adjusts to having the item.
You wear the shoes and they give you a blister. Your kids use half the school supplies and you end up with boxes of crayons that are unopened or half broken. The hand weights gather dust and the water bottle fits awkwardly in the cabinet and turns out not to go in the dishwasher. The cushions on your patio set get left out on the porch one too many times and start to look a little faded and musty. Your new pants fit, but your old favorites are still your go-to pairs. Buying feels amazing yet eventually items feel commonplace. Our brain has normalized having it around. The newness wears off. Eventually a majority of the items we own become clutter. It's almost as if there's a continuum that items travel on, from desired to commonplace to obsolete to clutter.
Marketers want us to consume. They know that buying feels good and businesses want us to continue to keep buying so that the economy keeps running. However, I wish that every item sold came with a warning label in big old letters that read, “someday you'll be responsible for letting this object go. Please note that by purchasing it, you are agreeing to the future work of getting rid of it.” Can you imagine, like would you stop and pause? The next time you go to buy something online or at your favorite box store imagine this label being printed loud and clear next to the price. Clutter comes from our everyday items that you first think are a great idea or a great investment. They are one and the same. The second place that clutter comes from builds nicely onto item 1. There's always more coming in than there is going out.
I've just briefly discussed buying habits, yet there’s lots that comes into your home that isn't actively purchased. Kids bring lots of things home unintentionally. There's party swag. There's stuff from school or practice. There are souvenirs and trophies. There are those little bits and bobs that they pick up when they're hanging out with their friends, and then there's arts and crafts and creations. I wish you could see me rolling my eyes. Every event you attend, also right, like there's a tote bag, a notebook, handouts and advertising swag. Then there are gifts that we receive both wanted and unwanted from friends and family. It's everywhere. I want to pause for a moment here and invite you to think about the last few days or weeks. Note to yourself or visualize the objects that appeared in your life that you didn't actively, intentionally seek out. These are the objects I'm thinking of.
Clutter will sneak into your home without awareness. You're not always going to see or consciously agree to it. You are the gatekeeper to your home. If you have a partner or other adult housemates, they can also assume the role of being the gatekeeper. Get them on board. You are equally in control of the flow of items coming into your house as you are items going out. If you're listening to this episode as someone who's struggling over or feeling conflicted about the number of objects in your home right at this moment, becoming the gatekeeper is your first best step. Begin by noticing where the items are just magically showing up without your explicit permission, aim to slow down or stop the flow of what's coming into the house before you start decluttering.
Don't underestimate the power of awareness. It's a golden opportunity. Start by saying, “no thank you” at events where items are handed out. Items that are "free," are not free. The cost is clutter. The cost is that you'll have to make a decision at some point in the future to get rid of that item. Circumvent that process upfront by saying, hey, no, thank you. I'm good. Teach your children this awareness too. They might surprise you. Talk with them about the effects on the environment. Talk with them about the effects on your living space. Talk with them about how a decision to say yes right now is also a decision to revisit the item in the future.
I practice this with my kids in two specific areas, swag that they got from parties and providers like the dentist and their art creations. Within a few days of picking up these free items or creating them I check back in with them. I'd ask if they planned to play with a toy or use the swag. I'd ask them if they wanted their art creation. I didn't assume. I'd listen to their response and then take action. If they wanted to get rid of it, I'd have them toss out the swag or donate it, recycle it, whatever the appropriate action. I'd remind them that the item was their responsibility. If they wanted to keep it, I'd say, sure. Then explicitly state that they needed to give the item a home. Again, it was their responsibility. This helped them see that they too have an impact on our home and living environment and then check in with them in a few weeks and repeat the process.
Reminding them that they could always decide that the swag or art wasn't earning its keep in their room or our home. It was less about pressure and more about ownership of the decision. So to recap, clutter appears in our homes through both intentional purchases and unintentional acceptance of free stuff like gifts. Every object has a pleasure life cycle, and by expecting that you'll love it at first, then get used to it. You'll better see the types of buying decisions you are making. Lastly, let's briefly talk about decisions. As I mentioned, decisions are a big topic for me, so much so that it's a skill that I actively teach and explore with my clients on a weekly basis. Becoming a powerful decision maker is one of the best identities in my opinion that a person can adopt.
Again, clutter is sneaky. In episode one, I shared about how objects weave themselves into our own story and our lives, items that seem useful or necessary, whether now or later on in someday maybe land, your brain justifies keeping them around. A great example is children's books. This is a category of belongings that I struggled with personally, and I've seen it again and again In clients' homes. As parents, we have emotional attachments to certain picture books from our childhood. Whether you read them at home, at school or at the library, your favorite picture books are part of the fabric of your childhood. If you're a parent or an aunt or a grandparent, there's a part of you that wants to share those memories, those books with the children in your life, so you invest in picture books, you accept them as gifts from others.
The collection of books in your life grows. Then one day your children outgrow them altogether. The question then becomes, what happens to this lovely library of books? You know that they hold value both sentimental and monetary. You know that they also take up space. You know that they're in good condition and won't deteriorate very quickly if stored in an airtight container. Your children's children might want them one day. Do you hold on to them for a few decades so that your children won't have to invest in picture books? Do you hold on to them for a few decades so that your grandchildren will have something to read when they come to visit you? It's this conundrum that is the essence of clutter. By not deciding what to do, you and I, we put off the decision for another day.
We decide not to decide. You tell yourself the books will be used and you tell yourself that you should hold onto them. However, the question we rarely ask ourselves is, what will keeping the picture books, for example, 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 the books will 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. You'll still be left to haul them away or donate them to a worthy cause. Keeping the books has equal potential advantages to disadvantages.
Either way, they're still your responsibility and they may be keeping you from something you want to do. Overabundance happens to us all. Clutter has become the norm for many of us, and that is how our homes and our parents' homes have become repositories of unused stuff. The overabundance and clutter comes from all the tiny, seemingly harmless sets of delayed decisions year after year. You think you'll get around to it one day, but it never seems to become exciting or energizing enough for us to get started. We all 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. When I work with clients, we start creating awareness and improving upon decision making from this day forward. Regret, shame, aggravation. Those are all emotions that may pop up when you think about the number of objects that are currently your responsibility. I get it. It's all totally normal. These emotions are absolutely valid. Yet the work of changing your habits can be done alongside these emotions. You can practice awareness around your buying habits. You can practice being the gatekeeper. You can practice becoming a powerful decision-maker all while these emotions are present in the background. As you gain strength in your awareness, you can support yourself with compassion and love for the unknowing decisions you made in the past. You didn't know then what you know now, and you have the ability to identify what's excess and what's clutter today. You've got this. You are more organized than you think.
I'm grateful for your time today. I look forward to seeing you next week where we'll dive into the century's old myth that domestic perfection can somehow be reached. Until then, talk to y'all soon.
Outro: Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode. If you liked this episode, and know of just one other person who’d get value from it too, I invite you to share it with them. I'd be more than grateful. I'd love to stay connected with you too. Make sure to follow this podcast to connect with me on Instagram @apleasantsolution and join my community at www.apleasantsolution.com. Talk to y'all soon and remember, you're more organized than you think.
