Piles of Stuff – Don’t walk by them and don’t add to
them
I don’t know how long you can live with accumulating
stuff before you, suddenly and inexplicably, have a complete crap meltdown.
Every few months you manage to get on top of things;
the piles of stuff get cleared away and boxes of crap are sorted through and organized.
The feeling is euphoric, but it’s bittersweet because it is generally
short-lived.
Do you have a drawer of doom, which is full of junk.
You rarely open it except to add yet another „I don’t know where to put this“
item. But then, when you chuck it
all? That’s when you realize you
have thrown your marriage/birth/ certificate or passport away.
Perhaps you enjoy filing your documents in the fruit
bowl to keep the bananas happy.
What about that beautiful kitchen table you’ve not
seen for eight years. “It all started when the kids began school” you stammer.
Or do you have kitchen shelves that seem to accumulate
stuff? Nobody owns up when you
scream out „Whose dildo is
this?!“ Do you just flip out and
start chucking stuff everywhere while shouting about how you can’t live in such
a pigsty anymore? Then do you just
get over it and carry on until the next episode?
Or what about the kitchen cutlery drawer, that has
pretty much everything that you can’t be bothered to put in a proper place? Or
probably don’t even have a proper place.
Is there a path to your bed or do the kids just crawl
over piles to get to theirs. Does your laundry never find its way into the
closet or dresser because they are overfilled?
Does your garage or office proudly contain 20 years of
scrap paper, color-coded and in chronological order? Is everything a highly organized junk pile?
Have you moved from place to place with a pile of
things you don’t want, simply because you can’t figure out what to do with them
that wasn’t somehow going to just get it off into landfill?
Do you seek out storage baskets wherever you shop?
You’re not sure how you accumulated SO much junk but it multiples each time you
buy yet another storage box. It must be some kind of voodoo.
You could blame the wretchedness on guests - years of
tidying up for them aka sweeping random stuff off the floor and surfaces into
less visible areas and bins. Everyone’s house looks about the same except the frantic two
hours before the relations from abroad come to stay. You could reduce the
number of friends and relatives, or get them way too drunk to notice while
they’re still on the doorstep.
Do you swear that the demons of your lives gets
together while you’re asleep and begins an assault on any unsuspecting areas
that are clutter-free. Perhaps
your reaction is exactly the same. *Turns over Community Chest card and opens
wine bottle*
STOP!!
If you’ve had ‘de-clutter room by room’ on your ‘to
do’ list since January and haven’t done anything, listen up. We’re in this
together.
You know the saying: "The easiest way to organize your
stuff is to get rid of most of it”.
Here are some ideas to help you get on your way to a
clutter-less (who needs completely clutter-free?!) life:
- Have a Toy Blitz. Take toys that aren’t used anymore
to a charity.
- Divide and Conquer! Separate your stuff into several
piles. Piles of things to keep, things to sell, things to dispose of, and
things to give away (that is the most fun pile to create). Find a home
for the things you keep, designate a date for your yard/garage sale, dump the
junk, and present the “gifts”.
- Like most things you own, you never know their true
monetary value until you try to sell them. Try to sell something that you spent
a bunch of money on and see what people are willing to pay for it. This is
really worth considering before you trade your hard-earned cash for something
new! How wealthy would you be if you hadn’t bought all this stuff in the first
place?! (I’m really giving my own
self a lecture here…)
Americans are hoarders: There are now more
self-storage facilities in the U.S. than Starbucks and McDonalds combined.
Roughly a quarter of garages are too full of stuff to hold a car. The average
home has $7,000 worth of unused belongings.
A new app called Stuffstr
is designed to help you declutter, whether you’re on a Marie Kondo inspired purge
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3OXvQZe7g8
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1-HMMX_NR8&t=322s
) or just starting to feel guilty about everything you own that’s going to
waste.
The app is designed to automatically add online purchases
to your personal inventory as soon as you buy them, and products can also be
added later. When you realize you’re not using something, with a swipe, the app
will give you options to give it away. You can notify family and friends that
it’s available, find the nearest place to donate it, or get a recommendation
for a service like Give
Back Box, which will give you a free shipping label and let you leave
donations on your front step
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