It's predictable that at various stages of life
people change homes. At each stage it's for a different
reason -- it's time to leave a school dorm for an
apartment, accept a promotion that provides an
opportunity for a larger home, merge two homes as a
loving relationship becomes more permanent, find more
space for an expanding family, move to a new city when an
employer relocates, take advantage of a housing
opportunity in another neighborhood, and, eventually,
find a smaller home when the children have grown up and
moved on with their own lives.
Sometimes an accumulation of things sticks around for
the entire journey. Sorting through it all inevitably
will be a problem when you move to another home. "If I
could do it all over again, I never would have saved most
of the stuff that years later we put into trash bags and
tossed,'' says Gerry Watson.
For 30 years, the Watsons lived in the same house in
Tiburon. When they decided to downsize, they spent months
wading through the accumulation in their lives, deciding
what to save and what to toss. "It was the hardest part
of the entire move,'' Watson says.
The key to happiness: Simplify. Now.
What do you see around your home? Are books stacked
willy-nilly in the bookcase and spilling off tabletops?
Are years' worth of recipes waiting to be filed, let
alone cooked? And what about the closet filled with
clothes from three sizes ago? Even if you lose the
weight, think about how great a reward it would be to buy
new clothes as a celebration of the thinner you instead
of saving and wearing what's clearly out of date!
The reason stuff is saved or hoarded is complex.
Naturally, there's the "this might come in handy
someday'' rationale, but often hoarding is rooted in
fears and insecurities about finances -- "I'll never have
the resources if I let go of any possession, no matter
how worn, useless or superfluous.'' Hoarders need to
remind themselves that resources will always be available
so letting go of stuff shouldn't have to be so
difficult.
This applies at all stages of adulthood.
The first move after a person leaves home is often the
most exciting; it's an adventure to embark out into the
world and be responsible for your own home. Family
members are all too happy to donate a table, a chair, a
dresser to the cause of helping make the new home more
comfortable. This gift is sometimes a kind way of
clearing their own clutter.
After awhile, a promotion comes along, income
improves, and you want to make your home less a
collection of hand-me-downs from loving family members
and more a reflection of who you've become. You want to
buy your own furniture.
And while the furniture your aunt, cousin or mother
gave you may have some sentimental value, when it's time
to refurnish your home, you question whether it will fit
in. If it doesn't, how can you dispose of it without
offending a well-meaning family member?
The guilt associated with divesting oneself of these
well-intentioned hand-me-downs is the army within the
Trojan horse that came with the gift. Do you pass it
along to another, more appreciative family member? Do you
return it to the giver? Or do you donate it to charity?
The answer depends on how family members feel about the
piece and your feelings about giving things away.
If the piece has sentimental value because of its
association with a family member, just know that material
things are not what real memories are made of; the
experiences you had are.
Sometimes tossing an item is its only possible destiny
-- it's too used, worn or obscure for anyone else to
benefit from it.
Home organizing experts, including Margaret Fearey
Walsh of Changing Places in Greenbrae, agree that the
best approach to clearing the clutter, whether to prepare
for a move, downsizing or clearing out space in your home
--and life -- is to take it slowly and in stages. Don't
try to do it all in one day, and give yourself breaks
along the way. It wasn't all accumulated at once, so
getting rid of stuff is expected to take some time.
Start by assessing what you have. Go through the
entire house, including storage areas. Determine what's
important to you and other members of your household.
Some items to be given away will be obvious, others will
take more time and will even need negotiating. These
include things that appear worthy of donating but someone
in the family has an interest in them, including
collections, unused heirlooms, sentimental things (boxes
of every school paper ever brought home by each child)
and indulgences.
To help you with the sorting process, use boxes
labeled "donate,'' "toss'' and "save.'' As these boxes
fill up, move them out.
Put the "save'' boxes in an area that's out of the way
of the next batch of things to sort. If you do this
gradually, sorting and tossing will seem less daunting
and the temptation to salvage something destined for
tossing will be minimized.
Once you get into the swing of it, you might even take
another pass at the "save'' boxes and cull them even
further.
Few people regret divesting themselves of things they
can barely remember owning. And if given an opportunity
to have the item again, they would probably say, "Why did
I keep that in the first place?''
Remember three things about saving stuff.
- First, when you move, that which you pack on the
one end of the move has to be unpacked on the other
end.
- Second, one day it'll be your kids' (or
strangers') job to sort through all the stuff you
saved. They'll wonder why in the world you kept some
of the stuff you did. Is that the legacy you want to
leave behind?
- Third, you are not your stuff.
Sound like good advice? If so, look around your home
and think about what you really need to keep to live
comfortably in an uncluttered home. Start divesting
yourself of the rest.
