What Keeps You from Uncluttering?

Coming into the New Year, we always choose to focus our January content on trying to help you to achieve a Postconsumer-related New Year’s resolution or goal. Last year, for example, we helped you out with tips on how to reduce screen time in your life and go on a media diet. This year, we’re going to help you get a fresh handle on clutter and de-cluttering. We already have a large library of content on the topic of clutter, but we think our latest series of nine articles can really help you jump into the New Year with a new mindset on clutter, stuff and staying clutter free. And the first step that you need to ask yourself (if it applies) is, “What is really keeping me from going clutter free?” You may be surprised at what you ultimately decide the answer is.

The Most Common Reason We Hear: I Just Don’t Have Time to De-Clutter

When we talk to people making a Postconsumer transition and beginning their journey, the topic of clutter almost always comes up. And when we ask them why they hold onto clutter or allow it to surround them, the answer is almost always the same (until we have them think further through it). Lives are busy and over-scheduled. Time is at a premium, and time is what you need if you want to de-clutter your house, apartment or other living space.

We’re certainly not going to debate that the initial process of de-cluttering your home is a time commitment. It absolutely is (though we have many suggestions on starting small and taking baby steps to help you get through the process without having to take a week off of work!). However, what we often find as we talk more to growing Postconsumers is that it’s not actually the time required that stops them. After all, we all find time for things that are important to us, and once you’ve done your initial de-cluttering then maintaining it isn’t time consuming at all. So what’s holding them back? Chances are that it’s one of the two following mental hurdles – and the chances are also good that this is what’s holding you back as well.

Mental Hurdle Number One: You Have Attached Emotion to Your “Stuff”

We actually have an entire old blog (an original old school blog) on the concept of “stuff” having memories and why that keeps you from letting go of things (as well as from slowing down your collection of new things). Fundamentally, we can understand having a memory box or chest that contains items that truly do have sentimental value to you and that you don’t want to get rid of – though as we’re about to discuss, at the base of it all no item actually has memories infused into it. What often happens though is that entire categories of “stuff” get labeled as having sentimental value. For example, we’ve encountered lots of parents who simply can’t let go of any item that their child ever used. Similarly, we’ve encountered people who have saved every item ever that was owned by a deceased loved one based simply on the sentence “But it was his/hers.” And don’t even get us started on holiday items and the refusal to separate them from emotional meaning!

The problem with this line of thinking is simply that it’s fundamentally mistaken. Emotions, feelings, memories – these are not infused in “things” or tied to “stuff” unless those things and stuff are things that you see or handle every day to remind you of the person, time, place or event that you’ve associated emotional value with. If they are packed away in a box, closet, attic, basement or garage, then their emotional and mental value was long ago determined to not be as important.

It’s a hard mental hurdle to get over, and we get that. Our best advice is always to take a photo shoot of the items you think you can’t part with so that you can always go back and look at them. But the truly optimum advice is this: start small, get rid of a few items that you associate mental and emotional value with and you’ll soon realize that you don’t miss them. Once that happens, you’ll find it much easier to move on with your de-cluttering process. But at the heart of the matter, learning to let go resides with you.

Mental Hurdle Number Two: You Have Been Programmed to Believe in More, More, More

Do you feel like somehow you’re less secure, or even a less valuable person, if you have less stuff? Don’t feel bad admitting it if you do. You’re among literally millions of people who have spent their entire lives being programmed by the consumer media machine to believe that your stuff – as well as how much stuff you have – somehow defines you. Some of this comes from a natural and organic place as a response to the Depression Era parents or grandparents that many of us had, but the vast majority of it comes from a combination of effective data-driven marketing and the amount of marketing and social expectation messaging that each of us receives each day.

The good news is that this type of mental hurdle is actually much easier to leap over than the first kind because it only requires mental awareness – not emotional purging. The bad news is that you have more combatants trying to keep you from doing it than you do with the first hurdle. There are very few, if any, ways to truly separate yourself out from society’s messaging of “more, more, more.” It’s entirely about making a conscious choice to do it and then working on it. Of course, we here at Postconsumers are ready and willing to help you do just that.

So, there you have it. To get you started on your journey to de-clutter this year, we recommend finding some time that is just “you time,” perhaps even with a cup of tea! Then truly reflect on what the obstacles keeping you from letting go of stuff and clutter are. Once you can look them in the eye, you’ll find that you have an easier time moving past them.

Did we miss a valid reason why you may not be able to let go of your stuff that you want to share with us? If so, just tell us about it on one of the social media channels below.