Editor’s Note: This is a post in the series, Simplicity in Action.
Robert
I’ve pretty much always known I needed to “get organized”. I was a messy kid and I’m still a somewhat-messy adult.
Back in 2006, I was still solidly mired in my packrat’s nest of clutter when I stumbled upon a book by a guy named Don Aslett. The book was called Clutter Be Gone, and I bought it for two of the top packratty reasons to buy anything – “because it’s on sale”, and “because I might use it someday”. Besides, everybody knows that you don’t actually have to read books – just owning the book is enough….right?
$3.99 and a drive home later, the book was tossed on a pile by the door. I did actually intend to read it – really! But it never happened, and piles do what piles do – grow, shift, and move.
Fast-forward two years.
I’m digging through my front closet (aka “the mini junk room”) looking for something else, and I stumble upon the book. I remembered buying it, I remembered that I’d intended to read it, and I decided to take stock of my current situation.
I had:
- An apartment full of stuff
- Stuff in an office downtown that I’d rented but currently wasn’t using
- Stuff in a storage unit
- Stuff in a former apartment (where a friend of mine still lived)
- Stuff in somebody else’s storage unit
I needed to do something. I read the book over a weekend, and formulated a plan to get things under control.
Since the apartment barely had room to for me to move around, I had to go through and do a pretty serious declutter before I could reasonably bring anything else in. Then came the stuff from my storage unit. Then the stuff from the office. Then the stuff from my friend’s storage unit. Then the stuff from my friend’s place.
I literally decluttered the same apartment five times in a row. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say there were lots of garbage bags, lots of trips to the thrift store, and lots of time (think months, not days) involved.
The Lessons From That 5-Pass Declutter
Sometimes simplicity is found only after making a long trek through complexity. If you’re trying to simplify your life, there are some things that are in your future – you might as well plan for them now.
I had hard questions. It’s not just “do I need/want this?” It’s “why?” It’s “am I being realistic?” It’s “what choice would (fill in a famous minimalist blogger or two here) make?” And then it’s “why do I care what other people think?” There are dozens of questions, and not all of them have easy answers.
I had downright depressing revelations of how much junk I’d accumulated. I must’ve handled over 50 computer power cords during my decluttering efforts. Not 50 types of power cords (although I could say that too!); 50 of the same type of cord. Each time I encountered one I rationalized that I needed a couple spares, so into the cord bin it went. It wasn’t until I went to declutter the bin that I discovered just how many spares I had.
I had mental wars due to wanting to give stuff good homes, but wanting it out of my space. Wanting to re-home electronics that I was no longer using caused me to save two piles – devices in need of wiring, and wiring in need of devices. It wasn’t until I knew every device and cord were accounted for that I felt I could safely throw away extras.
I came to grips with the fact that my space will probably never look like those pictures in the magazines. My computer desk, for example, will never be completely clear. It’s the home of the chargers for my phone and headset, a portable hard drive, an external monitor for my laptop, and a few other work-related gadgets. I have, however, purchased appropriate-length cords, connected them so they don’t dangle, and minimized the amount of things that I have to disconnect to take my laptop somewhere.
But It’s Not All Dark & Dismal
As I got further along on the journey, the questions have gotten easier. I’m finding myself less likely to buy excess junk, because I know what it looks like. My wife put it perfectly one day. She was looking at a bunch of tchotchke-type items on a shelf at a store, and said “there’s just nothing here that I don’t see winding up in a pile for my parents’ next rummage sale”.
My spaces are getting cleaner and more functional as time goes on. There’s definitely light at the end of this tunnel!
And there’s light at the end of your tunnel too. Your road to simplicity might make a beeline through the valley of complexity, and that’s both normal and okay.
Keep moving, keep progressing, and keep your head up. And if you’re having a hard time with those, feel free to stop by my blog, Cluttered to Clean, and drop me a line. I’d love to be able to help!
This is a great article, Robert, about the complexity of the uncluttering process. A while back I wanted to think that it would be a simple process and I would be done in no time at all. It did not take long to come to terms with the fact it would take time, but not nearly as much time as it did to accumulate all of the unnecessary stuff that was filling my closets. Thanks to Courtney Carver and people like you, I am finding my way through the stuff and making peace along the way. Thank you for sharing your story and for helping others with their journey.
Gail, I think you hit a critical point in your comment. “Making peace along the way” is a great summary of the goal of this whole process – at least from where I’m sitting. 🙂
It’s not hauling the stuff out of your place that makes you free; it’s becoming the sort of person who realizes their worth and security isn’t tied to their stuff.
Thanks for sharing your insight!
This is inspiring, thank you Robert and Courtney for sharing the story here. I’ve been decluttering our home the past three years, and my husband and I recently had a huge garage sale. We had so much stuff that people who came to our sale thought we were moving out! Decluttering and minimalizing is definitely a process and sometimes I feel frustrated how slow it goes. But reading Robert’s story helped me putting things in a perspective. I will keep moving, keep processing and keep my head up. Thanks!
Keep up the decluttering efforts Yuko – there’s light at the end of the tunnel! If you’re like me, you’ll find that the more you process, the easier it gets. 🙂
Thank you for sharing your story. I have found that I declutter in fits and spurts. I will have a big clear out and then for various reasons the process comes to a halt. I seem to become selectively blind when it comes to clutter. I get so used to it that I simply don’t see it anymore. Then all of a sudden something changes and I suddenly see clutter everywhere.
Sharon, I don’t think your situation is really all that unusual.
The reason the “process comes to a halt” may be that you’ve hit your “enough” point at that stage of your journey. You’ve cleared out the stuff that you feel is clutter, and what’s left is stuff you believe (on some level) to be necessary.
Then six months down the road, you come to the realization that you’re fine without all the stuff you got rid of, and your brain gives you the “okay” to move forward again.
I do the same thing! Decluttering my books, for example, was at least eight passes – spread out over four or five years. A bunch initially, a bit more six months later, a bit more five months later, etc. – with lots of re-thinking along the way.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. 🙂
Keep up the great decluttering work Sharon!
Robert, it was great to hear more about you from this post! I really respect you for all that you have done and are doing with the decluttering and the web design. You give us all hope. I know I need to do something as well in my house. I have been working on setting up an office for myself and in so doing have found lots of stuff I didn’t remember I had. Now, it is just finding the time to declutter! Thanks for sharing!
I would want a book entitled Clutter Be Gone to come with a wand for banishing the unwanted/unneeded stuff!
I appreciate your honesty about all the different rounds of decluttering that you went through and the questions about “is this realistic?” and the whys of keeping things. There’s the life I have, the life I want to have, and the life I think some book or doodad is magically going to bestow upon me. Getting rid of the latter has resulted in an extended visit to the wonderfully named “valley of complexity” but I’m getting there.
Thanks for sharing!
Don’t tell QVC or HSN – they’ll come up with a “decluttering wand”, available for four easy payments of $19.95. Of course it won’t actually do any decluttering, but that won’t stop them. 😀
You’re spot-on about eliminating the “magically bestowed life” from your way of thinking – that’s probably the biggest thing any of us have to do.
Once you realize that your stuff isn’t going to fix your life, it’s easier to find the path to move yourself forward. 🙂
Hi Robert,
Great post. I heard this line once and it struck me hard…”You don’t own a book until you read it.” I pick and choose my book purchases more wisely these days. In fact, I usually try to get a book from the library first (paper or e-book) and then if I really love the material enough to want the book for my personal library, I go ahead and buy it. It sure has helped reduce the book clutter, guilt associated with seeing the darned thing and knowing I haven’t read it yet and it makes better use of my tax dollars by taking advantage of the local library. A win all the way around!
Ree ~ I blog at EscapingDodge.com
Ree, I’m in the same boat as you with books. I used to have over sixty linear feet of books (one 8′ wide shelf, seven shelves tall, with more on a smaller bookcase!). I’m down to about one six-foot shelf section now, and about half of that is my wife’s.
These days I like reading digital library books on my iPad. It creates a sense of urgency (they expire in a week), eliminates late fees (they return themselves!), and is better for my eyes (larger print is just two taps away).
Sometimes I buy a few more Kindle books than I probably should, but I find I read more of them too – so it’s a net win for me. 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed the post!
Great post. Especially love this: “My wife put it perfectly one day…“there’s just nothing here that I don’t see winding up in a pile for my parents’ next rummage sale”.”
When we first began decluttering, my husband and I would joke that instead of taking whatever we were buying home, we should just drive it directly to the Goodwill drop-off, because we had accumulated so much stuff we never used.
Makes me wonder what the record is for buying-to-donating time. I wonder if anybody’s ever donated something they just bought that day?
Does receiving-to-donating time count? Because my in-laws flood us with gifts each Christmas, and while I’m opening them I’m mentally tagging, “Keep, Goodwill, Return to store, Goodwill” 😛
Bethany, I do the same thing – although I’m slowly training my relatives to give me less (but better) stuff. 🙂
Thank you for sharing, Robert, and thank you all for the comments. It’s more than inspiring to know there are others, too, whose decluttering isn’t done by a magic wand. What you usually see, are the end results of people’s homes and lives after years of work, and you don’t ever get to see the time, the energy and the thought that has gone into the process. Seeing the end result – a beautifully clear home, spacious and well planned wardrobe, clutterless livingroom and nicely made bed might be inspiring, but it might also give the viewer the idea that it’s all going to be easy and happy and fast and done over an hour. I’d personally be more inspired to see bags of clothing waiting by the door to be taken out to the charity shop, to see the thoughts of somebody sitting on the floor in the middle of piles and piles of books going through and organising. Because that’s what my decluttering looks like 🙂
Exactly – that’s what *everybody’s* decluttering looks like. It’s not that we wouldn’t love to have it done sooner. It’s not that we’re not motivated. It’s that, done right, decluttering is a process – and processes take time. 🙂
Thanks for your comments Anne!
Hi Robert 🙂 I really enjoyed reading your post. It depicts how decluttering is a process – and frequently a tough one – and that that’s OK. Not achieving it overnight does not mean failure. It’s also been a process for me!
Thanks for the inspiration.
Great post! So proud of your progress, Robert. Your wife’s quote is one to certainly remember:
“there’s just nothing here that I don’t see winding up in a pile for my parents’ next rummage sale”
Great perspective, and keep up the good work.
I was giggling through the entire thing because I do the exact same things! I have recently decided to move into a motorhome and therefore am forced to get rid of my stuff. Now that I am left with the bare minimum, I feel SO free! Thanks for the very motivational and humorous post.
I liked that you added the bit about it getting faster. That’s something I noticed and now there are several things that are no-brainers. This is encouraging when the going is slow at first!
It’s also nice when you run into future challenges, because you have a frame of reference. You’ve been challenged before, and you made it through. It helps motivate you to tackle the next challenges. 🙂
Thanks for commenting Kendra!
Oh wow! I did not realise the size and complexity of the journey you have travelled. I am quite blown away.
By sharing your story, and your blog, you are definitely inspiring others, including us. Thanks for your wise words Sir Robert 🙂