WHAT DECLUTTERING IS AND ISN’T
Decluttering is stuff you don’t need leaving your house. And that’s really all it is. If five things leave or five hundred things leave, you’ve succeeded.
Decluttering isn’t Stuff Shifting. It isn’t rearranging or buying a new shelving unit or sorting into slots or drawers or baskets.
Decluttering isn’t organizing. When I realized decluttering and organizing were two different things and that it was okay to just declutter, I felt a weight lift off my soul. I no longer slumped my shoulders in defeat before I even started, knowing from experience that whatever “solution” I might create would surely fail like all the others had. Instead, I purged. I focused solely on getting things we didn’t need out of our house.
When I did that, a weight lifted off my home as well. As things left, life was easier, and my home functioned better than it had after any of my attempts at organizing, just because there was less. Eventually, I understood that is what decluttering actually is: achieving less.
But before we jump in, I want to go over some key terms. Through my own decluttering escapades I’ve come up with ways of explaining things to myself. Those of you who already know me and my made-up decluttering language will nod along. But if you are new to my style of decluttering, don’t get overwhelmed. We’re going to apply these concepts to each area of your home. If anything makes you say, “Wha . . . ? I don’t get that . . .” I promise you’ll get it as you read the book. We’ll go step by step through your home and your hang-ups.
My favorite made-up word is deslobification. It’s what I call the process through which I improved my own home from a constant state of oh-my-word-what-is-wrong-with-me to I-can-totally-do-this-even-though-it’s-never-going-to-be-perfect. Going from a worse-than-bad home to a livable one is how I learned these strategies and principles, and how I found a way to translate concepts that other people seemed to be born knowing into words that make sense to me and a lot of other people.
I definitely didn’t make up the word clutter, but I did make up a definition for it that helped me get it out of my house. I define clutter as anything I can’t keep under control. If a space in my home consistently gets out of control, I have too much stuff in that space. I have clutter.
Once I defined clutter this way, I finally understood why my friend and I can buy the same décor, and her house looks like a magazine but mine looks like a thrift store. I have a Clutter Threshold, and it’s unique to me. My Clutter Threshold is the point at which stuff becomes clutter in my home. When I’m living above my Clutter Threshold, there’s more stuff in my home than I can handle, and my house is consistently out of control. Living under my Clutter Threshold helps my home stay more naturally under control. I found mine (and you’ll find yours) through decluttering.
But it wasn’t easy. I suffered from Decluttering Paralysis, a real phenomenon that makes me unable to move when facing an overwhelming mess. I cured it by moving. By starting with the easy stuff. And strangely, every time I did something easy, the space looked better, and I was less overwhelmed.
Not that I don’t make mistakes. I totally do. But I’ve accepted that while Decluttering Regret (the realization that I need something after I declutter it) isn’t fun, I’ve survived every time. And the peace I feel over a home that’s easier to manage outweighs the frustration I feel over having to write “medium-sized cutting board” on my shopping list. I accepted that people with homes that are consistently under control prefer living with regret over living with clutter. I want to be one of those people.
But even though Decluttering Paralysis and Decluttering Regret are terms that make me sigh, this one gives me hope: Decluttering Momentum. It’s a real phenomenon. By starting with easy stuff and working through the steps I’m sharing in this book, I saw visible, measurable improvement in my home. As my home changed, I changed. And decluttering got easier and easier. I’m so excited for you to experience that too.