What is Clutter? Know Before They Take Over Your Life
You think you can tell if it's a want or need? The book "LIGHTEN UP. Free Yourself From Clutter" by Michelle Passoff gives us a few pointers.
“How to become a clutter connoisseur”
Like a wine connoisseur who can tell the vintage with ataste, or a "nose who can break down the ingredients of a perfume with a sniff, you can develop your sensory awareness to clutter by becoming familiar with its different varieties. Acquiring an appreciation for it in all its different forms can be useful when it comes to cleaning it up and preventing it from accumulating again. The following is a glossary of terms to help sharpen your detection devices.
Garbage. In its most basic form, clutter is garbage. On the average, three quarters of the piles of papers on desks and tabletops are things that just have not yet been tossed. It is nothing more complicated than that. I had one client who had a row of neatly tied bags on the bottom of one closet each labeled by year. Each bag contained that years unopened mail. This was the same man whose hall way was lined with boxes piled high to the ceiling. The boxes were emptied in his diligence to clean, but never tossed out so that his new clutter-free identity could shine through. Remember throwing out your garage is part of the process,
A mass of mixed up, fumbled, unlike objects is clutter. The cat's toys, stockings from Bloomingdale's, unpaid bills and the daily mail, and your car and house keys, all piled on top of the entry-hall table are clutter. The notes from a class, a little jewelry, some makeup, and a collection of loose change emptied out of a purse and put on top of a dresser are clutter.
Clutter is like a run-on sentence. It has no logic. A simple step to develop good reasoning is this: Separate all unrelated items from one another.
Unfinished business is clutter. A scrap of paper with a telephone number of someone whose call you have not yet returned, a letter you have been meaning to respond to, a half wrapped package earmarked for the post office, bags of clothing standing at attention by the front door ready to be given away, an unreturned catalog purchase, and a long list of undone to-do's-they are clutter as unfinished business.
In the heat of summer when I came across unopened Christmas gifts in one client's clutter, it was too obvious not to ask what they were doing there. "Oh, I keep telling my sister, 'Let's do Christmas, my client replied. Not celebrating Christmas by the time July rolls around is definitely unfinished business.
Lots of little unfinished businesses form clusters of clutter that are usually characterized by their mobility. Unfinished business movies from the mantle of the fireplace to the dining room table and then to a bureau in the bedroom, forming path of destruction until its call for help is answered. If left unattended for too long, clusters of petty unfinished business can turn into
big problems, major headaches, and costly mistakes.
Uncomfortable areas of life are clutter. Clutter is like a fungus growing on areas of life that you wish were not there in the first place but that will not disappear, regardless of how far down in the pile they are put. Usually, at the core of such a mess is something you are avoiding, knowingly or unknowingly. It is an area of life you literally want to bury but that, instead of disappearing, burgeons to the point of overwhelming your life.
“How to become a clutter connoisseur”
Like a wine connoisseur who can tell the vintage with ataste, or a "nose who can break down the ingredients of a perfume with a sniff, you can develop your sensory awareness to clutter by becoming familiar with its different varieties. Acquiring an appreciation for it in all its different forms can be useful when it comes to cleaning it up and preventing it from accumulating again. The following is a glossary of terms to help sharpen your detection devices.
Garbage. In its most basic form, clutter is garbage. On the average, three quarters of the piles of papers on desks and tabletops are things that just have not yet been tossed. It is nothing more complicated than that. I had one client who had a row of neatly tied bags on the bottom of one closet each labeled by year. Each bag contained that years unopened mail. This was the same man whose hall way was lined with boxes piled high to the ceiling. The boxes were emptied in his diligence to clean, but never tossed out so that his new clutter-free identity could shine through. Remember throwing out your garage is part of the process,
A mass of mixed up, fumbled, unlike objects is clutter. The cat's toys, stockings from Bloomingdale's, unpaid bills and the daily mail, and your car and house keys, all piled on top of the entry-hall table are clutter. The notes from a class, a little jewelry, some makeup, and a collection of loose change emptied out of a purse and put on top of a dresser are clutter.
Clutter is like a run-on sentence. It has no logic. A simple step to develop good reasoning is this: Separate all unrelated items from one another.
Unfinished business is clutter. A scrap of paper with a telephone number of someone whose call you have not yet returned, a letter you have been meaning to respond to, a half wrapped package earmarked for the post office, bags of clothing standing at attention by the front door ready to be given away, an unreturned catalog purchase, and a long list of undone to-do's-they are clutter as unfinished business.
In the heat of summer when I came across unopened Christmas gifts in one client's clutter, it was too obvious not to ask what they were doing there. "Oh, I keep telling my sister, 'Let's do Christmas, my client replied. Not celebrating Christmas by the time July rolls around is definitely unfinished business.
Lots of little unfinished businesses form clusters of clutter that are usually characterized by their mobility. Unfinished business movies from the mantle of the fireplace to the dining room table and then to a bureau in the bedroom, forming path of destruction until its call for help is answered. If left unattended for too long, clusters of petty unfinished business can turn into
big problems, major headaches, and costly mistakes.
Uncomfortable areas of life are clutter. Clutter is like a fungus growing on areas of life that you wish were not there in the first place but that will not disappear, regardless of how far down in the pile they are put. Usually, at the core of such a mess is something you are avoiding, knowingly or unknowingly. It is an area of life you literally want to bury but that, instead of disappearing, burgeons to the point of overwhelming your life.
