LET ME GUESS ONE OF THE THINGS you noticed as you toured your home. Clutter. Stuff. Junk. Piles of books, magazines and papers. Closets and chests jam-packed with clothes. Drawers full of bits – keys from forgotten locks; buttons from long-gone jackets; old receipts and notes; a dusty throat lozenge; a button; a few elastic bands. Don’t feel guilty: we’ve all got it. Everyone has junk, apart from those unreal, robot-like people who live in glossy home-magazine minimalism (and frankly, I’m sure they’ve got stuff too – they just have bigger closets!).
You may be attached to your clutter or you may loathe it but, whatever your attitude, you need to clear it. You’ve heard this before; you’ve read it in a host of magazine articles and in every book on feng shui. So why this war on mess? Surely we don’t want our homes to become impersonal, empty wildernesses? Well of course not. But there is a world of difference between a home which reflects its owner’s personality in carefully chosen objects, magazines and books and one which is so jam-packed with stuff that your mind reels.
First and foremost, it is very hard to feel relaxed and comfortable in a home which is messy. On a physical level, clutter attracts dust which makes many people sneeze or have other allergic reactions. On a psychological level, clutter irritates the mind; it reminds us of things which need doing, fixing, finishing, starting even. Clare Cooper Marcus points out that when our home environment gets ‘out of control’ we feel disordered in ourselves:
Who hasn’t had the experience of tidying a cluttered desk and subsequently feeling more able to think straight? Or of cleaning out stuff from an attic or storeroom and feeling a great sense of accomplishment, or perhaps a feeling of being more in control?
I couldn’t agree more. I find I become depressed and overwhelmed when my study becomes messy and disordered. An hour or two’s ordering and a clear, clean desk makes my whole spirit feel lighter and work progresses as if by magic. International space clearer Karen Kingston puts it this way:
If you have a pile of papers in your room your energy automatically dips because you know it needs attention … every time you walk into your home and there are things that need repairing, letters that need answering, junk that needs clearing, your energy can’t flow internally because of what is happening externally.
CLUTTER — BLOCKING THE HOME’S LIFE BLOOD
Mess and clutter don’t just affect us, however, they also affect the homes we live in. In the dictionary you discover that clutter means confusion, a confused heap, turmoil, din. It is also a variant of ‘clotter’ which means to run into clots. Imagine your home as a body. In our bodies, blood runs through our arteries, veins and capillaries. If, for any reason (smoking, bad diet, too little exercise etc.), these blood vessels become furred and thick-walled, the blood cannot pump effectively through the body. If the blockage becomes too extreme, the blood cannot squeeze through. Sluggish blood flow is one of the major causes of blood clots which, in turn, can lead to heart attacks or strokes. In a house the equivalent to life blood is energy, or chi (which we will talk more about in Chapter 11). If the energy in your house cannot circulate easily, it becomes stagnant and sluggish, just like the blood. Nothing affects this subtle energy as much as piles of rubbish or unfinished business. So imagine that all those piles of papers and books, the broken tennis rackets and fishing nets, the drawers stuffed with old clothes are clogging up the arteries of your house. The solution suddenly becomes really obvious: clear them out.
THE BIG CLEAR-OUT
The first major practical step you can make to rejuvenate and restore your home is to clear the mess. It’s not a particularly ‘soulful’ exercise you might think, but trust me – it’s essential. There is no ‘correct’ way of doing it. Lots of books recommend you take it easy – do a drawer at a time or spend an hour a week. Personally, I don’t have the patience for that: I’m a bit of a ‘plunge in and get it over with’ type. Every so often I have either minor or major purges. Something will set me off: I’ll trip over something or have no room to put a book on a shelf, or not be able to find a receipt.
My decluttering tends to be fast and furious – and very brutal. But that may not be for you. If this is new (or difficult) for you, take it easy. The great thing about decluttering is that you can always do more.
Take another trip around your home, this time on the lookout for mess and clutter. Identify all the problem areas. Some will stand out like sore thumbs. But it’s not a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’; you need to go beyond cosmetic anti-clutter and check all those hidden places too: behind the sofa; in your closets and cupboards; drawers and dressers; attics, cellars and sheds. It may not be noticeable on a physical level but psychologically it’s still clutter and, however subconsciously, you know it’s there and it’s affecting you.
Decide which area you will tackle first and get prepared. Wear old clothes and bring out a series of cardboard boxes or large rubbish bags to sort things into. Some stuff is pure garbage and the only place for it is the trash. Other things might be useful to someone else, so put them into one box or bag. Yet more may belong to other people. Sort out everything and then dispose of it in whichever way you choose. I find it helps a lot to think that my old junk will give someone else pleasure so I tend to give all my clutter to charity shops. A friend of mine has regular clear-outs and sells it all at a yard sale. The money she makes allows her to keep up her hobby of rummaging for bargains. She loves the pleasure of the hunt and wouldn’t give it up for the world but readily confesses that if she kept everything she bought, she would have no room to move. Another friend, who is a complete fashion victim, has a clothes sale at work about four times a year. She sells off her old clothes to colleagues and so helps fund her next shopping trip.
When the junk belongs to your family, I would suggest you give them a certain amount of time (a couple of hours? a weekend?) to claim any belongings they really want. After that, out they go. Playgroups and nursery schools might be grateful for any old toys and games. Clothes might be welcomed at a women’s refuge or a centre for the homeless.
Still finding this hard? Let’s go through the various kinds of clutter …
Clothes
It’s tough getting rid of clothes. ‘It might come back into fashion’; ‘I’ll be able to wear it when I lose weight’ are two common excuses. It’s not just women who hoard clothes either. My husband cleaves to a T-shirt he wore back in 1976. He won’t let me get rid of his waterproof trousers although he rode his last motorbike ten years ago. And faded, hole-ridden shirts are sentimental because his mother bought them for him. A certain amount of sentimentality is fine. Keep the dress or shirt you wore for that first date of course; just don’t keep every dress and every shirt you wore for every date. Ask yourself these questions:
Any of these are good reasons to get it out of your life. It won’t come back into fashion – at least not in the same way. Trust me. There will always be something slightly different: the hemline will be longer; the sleeves wider; the print will be carnations instead of roses. You can’t win with the fashion business – they don’t make money from people hoarding clothes, and anything less than 20 years old will never be fashionable (at least not for another 20 years and are you really prepared to wait that long?).
OK, so you’re going to diet and get into those old clothes. Great, but why not treat yourself to some new ones when you reach your ideal weight? Use it as an incentive. Clothes that don’t fit will always make you feel guilty, and guilt is the very worst way to make yourself lose weight. It doesn’t work. So get rid of them, accept where you are at the moment, and as those clothes become too loose, treat yourself to more.
Magazines and Newspapers
You’ve already found out what to do with all those old magazines – use them for your journal and treasure maps. And once you’ve carved and snipped your way through a magazine, it loses its pristine beauty and is much easier to dump. Take them to a recycling centre if they’re really trashed, or maybe a friend who is also reading this book could make use of them. If you tell yourself you keep magazines for the recipes, go through and cut out the ones you want (be honest now – which will you really use?) and paste them in a cook’s notebook. Do the same with gardening tips. You have to realize one essential thing about most magazines: they repeat the same features every year so you won’t really be missing anything. If you don’t believe me, check a few: gardens are seasonal creatures and the same tips (planting bulbs, dividing perennials, choosing roses etc.) crop up every year at around the same time. House magazines will always run another feature on choosing a kitchen; doing up a bathroom; planning a conservatory (because they attract advertisers that way) so you won’t miss out if you throw away a whole back catalogue. Women’s magazines are no different. I wrote for women’s magazines for years and was regularly asked to write the same features again and again: how to revamp your sex life; how to give your relationship a MOT and so on.
The only things that change are news and fashion. If you’re a teenager you might need to keep abreast of the latest trend. If you’re a grown-up you can catch up on the latest fashions at the hairdressers (much cheaper than buying all the mags). But if you do buy the mags they will be out of date within three months – so bin them.
Newspapers need regular pruning too. I remember a childhood friend’s house which had piles of newspapers stacked on the floor around each wall. The place smelt musty and dusty – and the family never seemed happy. Her father said he needed them for reference. Nowadays, with good public libraries and the Internet, there’s no excuse for hoarding papers. Take cuttings, if you feel the need, and file them neatly. Then recycle the papers once a week.
Papers
You can’t escape bits of paper. Bills, receipts, notes, letters and circulars breed like rabbits. But you can control them. Always tick the box asking that your details do not go on mailing lists when you send off for products by mail order or enter competitions. Put junk mail straight in the bin – or send it straight back saying you don’t want it and asking to be taken off their list. One useful tip I learned from a time-management course is to open your post standing or sitting by your wastepaper bin.
Unless it needs a reply or is really useful, put it straight in the bin. Now you should be left with the essential stuff. Here it helps to have a system. In an ideal world, my time manager taught me, you will deal with every piece of paper as it arrives. But who lives in an ideal world? So buy some of those attractive storage boxes – or cover shoe boxes with fabric or paint. You could have one for bills, one for tax receipts, one for letters and so on. As they arrive put them in the relevant box. But don’t forget to deal with them. Once they’re dealt with, either get rid of them or file them if need be.
I would suggest every house has its own ‘essential papers’ file, containing insurance policies, mortgage documents, investments, tax details, licences and guarantees, etc., all neatly filed away. Use box files or a filing cabinet for other essential reference material (but make sure it really is essential). Go through your files once a year and check it’s still valid. When I checked my filing cabinets there were faxes so old they had gone blank and stacks of out-of-date information.
Books
I’m not going to suggest you get rid of your precious library by any means. Books can furnish a home and they impart knowledge, creativity, imagination and escapism. But they do need to be kept in their place. It’s worth investing in attractive bookshelves and making a feature out of your books. Check that you need them all. Reference books, classics, old favourites, sentimental tomes – fine. But old potboilers you’ll never read again; holiday trash novels; out-of-date guides? Give them to the charity shop and make room for more.
Kitchen Clutter
Kitchens are storehouses for clutter: gadgets you never use; unwanted presents (fondue sets, waffle makers, woks etc.); burnt-out saucepans; non-stick frying pans which now stick; mugs you loathe? We’ve all got them. If they’re broken, bin them. If you simply hate them, see if anyone you know would like them, or advertise in the local paper. Or donate to a good cause. Anything that’s chipped or cracked or broken simply isn’t hygienic – so in the bin with it.
Miscellaneous
CDs, DVDs, vinyl, photos – some people love their collections. Others eschew them and keep everything digital. Just check that what you’re keeping is the stuff you really love, rather than the things you feel you ought to love. Often our collections stop being reflections of who we really are and run the risk of turning into ego piles. I recently had a huge cull of my books – I realized I was holding onto my vast esoteric library as a point of pride. I wasn’t going to read them again so off they went to new homes. Odd earrings? You’ll never find the other one so bin them or give them to a children’s playgroup for dressing up. Old keys, odd fuses, screws, nails and so on. Get rid of them – unless you want to put them tidily in a tool box. Cosmetics? You shouldn’t keep cosmetics for years – like medicines, they have a use-by date. If you’ve had any skincare products over a year, bin them. Ditto make-up you’ve had for more than two years. Medicines? Check their use-by dates and sling the old ones.
By now you should have acres of extra space. Your home should be feeling clearer, more open, more expansive – and so should your thoughts. However, I’m willing to bet there are still some problems …