Different Types of Clutter - and How to Address Them

From Sterbal's Sundry Studies

What kinds of things do people hoard?[edit]

Commonly hoarded items can include clothing, mechanical parts, books, paper (e.g.,newspapers, magazines, mail), medications, toiletries, CDs, DVDs, containers (e.g., boxes, jars, paper and plastic bags) - and, more rarely, animals, waste matter, hair, dirty diapers, and decaying food. Often the items collected are valuable, but the quantity is in quantities greater than what can reasonably be used.

According to the dictionary, clutter is "A collection of things lying about in an untidy mass." That's pretty general. It also means that while some clutter needs to be purged (thrown out, donated, sold), some just needs to be cleaned up and put away. Both of these types will be explained here.


Medications, Toiletries, Containers and Kitchen Gadgets[edit]

Starting to declutter can be (and almost always is) overwhelming. Starting in the bathroom or kitchen can be less daunting, because those rooms are often smaller - and it is more obvious what actually belongs in those rooms and what should be elsewhere.


In the bathroom, put like things together. All medications in one "pile", all makeups, lotions and potions in another "pile".

Medications - Get rid of medications, both prescription and over the counter, as well as first aid supplies, that have expired, that you have excess of, or that you don't or won't use. Dispose of the items responsibly. For more information on how to do this, see: https://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/medicine-disposal.html

Makeup, Cosmetics and Toiletries - Sort like things to the next level, if needed. Look through what you've got and get rid of anything that meets the following criteria:

  1. Products that have expired or gotten too old.
  2. You don't like it for whatever reason.
  3. You have not used it within the last approximately 6 months.

It's actually really important, for health reasons, to get rid of old and expired makeup and other personal care products. Once you've decided what makeup and other toiletries to get rid of, you again need to dispose of them responsibly. For more information on how to do this, see: https://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/get-rid-of-makeup.html


In the kitchen, put like things together. Plastic food containers in one pile, jars in another, paper bag in one and plastic bags in another.

Containers (boxes, jars, paper and plastic) - For plastic food containers and jars - Prime items to declutter are those containers which are warped or stained badly, or that don't have lids (or lids that don't have containers anymore). In addition, if you've got a lot - keep the quality stuff, not the junky ones. Keep a reasonable amount only -- enough to hold the amount of leftovers you and your family actually eat before they go bad, for example. That is a week's worth of containers, or less. More information here: https://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/declutter-food-storage-containers.html

Paper and Plastic Grocery Bags - These bags can come in very handy for many things around the house, but we seem to have a never-ending supply of them, so they can pile up before we know it. Decide how many you think is reasonable to keep for your needs, decide where these are going to "live" - and then recycle the rest. Most grocery stores have a recycling center for the plastic bags, and paper can usually be easily recycled. For more information, see: https://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/recycle-plastic-grocery-bags.html

Kitchen Gadgets and Small Appliances - It can be a bit confusing deciding if something is a "gadget" or an "appliance," it's actually not a big deal whether you declutter an item when you do your gadgets or when you do your appliances. Generally, you can consider gadgets to be items like utensils, knives, measuring spoons & cups. Small appliances include things like blenders, mixers, toaster, toaster ovens, crockpots - usually something requiring electricity. Actually you could do all of these items at once - or break them into the two categories to address at different times, because the suggested rules are pretty much the same.

Easy things to declutter include anything broken or heat warped, since there is no point in keeping things that don't work. In addition, you may want to declutter duplicates of items, keeping your favorite or the one that works best and getting rid of the rest. Further, consider getting rid of utensils, gadgets or small appliances that only have one function if a multi-functional tool will do the same thing.

Also get rid of items you haven't used or needed in over 6 months to a year, or things you don't actually have room to store. That means if you've only got one kitchen drawer for utensils, you've got to keep decluttering the space until everything you keep fits into that space, with the drawer easily opening and closing and if the appliances don't fit in your pantry, keep decluttering until what you have fits easily into the space available

For more information on gadgets, check here: https://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/declutter-utensils.html For more information on small appliances, check here: https://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/declutter-small-appliances.html


Clothing, Papers, Books/Magazines, Music & Movies[edit]

Clothing

9 Questions To Ask When You Declutter Clothes

From: 9 Questions To Ask When You Declutter Clothes

  1. Does It Fit?
  2. Is It In Style? And Is It My Style?
  3. Question 3: Do I Look Good In It?
  4. How Do I Feel When I Wear This?
  5. Have I Worn This In The Past Year?
  6. Would I Buy This Again Today?
  7. Is This Item Stained Or Damaged?
  8. How Many Of This Type Of Item Do I Have?
  9. Would This Make Someone Else Happier Than It Makes Me?


Papers From: 6 STEPS TO GET RID OF THE PAPER CLUTTER IN YOUR HOME

  1. Come up with a system to deal with paper as it comes into the home. Create a place for it and deal with paper as soon as it enters the house so it won’t pile up out of control! This is one of the most important things you can do to have a clutter free home!
  2. To deal with existing paper clutter, gather your papers.
  3. Sort through the paperwork into groups/piles to:
  • Keep
  • Scan then Shred
  • Shred then Recycle or Toss
  • Recycle or Toss
  1. Organize the paperwork you’re keeping.
  2. Scan the paperwork in your scan pile. Store digital files in a secure location.
  3. Shred the paperwork in your shred pile.


Books/Magazines

5 Questions To Ask Yourself When Decluttering Books

From: How To Get Rid Of Book Clutter

If you want help paring down your books, here are some suggestions for questions about each of the books. There are also recommendations in the above link on how to apply these questions.

  1. Is This A Duplicate?
  2. Is The Material In The Book Out Of Date, Or Still Current & Relevant?
  3. Have I Read This Before & Will I Read It Again?
  4. Why Do I Want To Keep This Book?
  5. Could I Get This Book At The Library [or online] To Read Again?

These rules or principles also apply:

  • The Container Principle - You should only have as many of a thing that will fit in the container(s) you have available and space for. Your bookshelves are the containers, in this case.
  • The Anything/Everything Principle - You can keep anything you want - You just can't keep *everything* you want.

So if you have the room (bookshelves) for the books, keep what fits. And if you need more bookshelves, get rid of enough other (non-books) stuff to make room for the bookshelves and keep what fits.


Other recommendations/suggestions include:

  • Ask these two questions:
  1. Will I re-read it? If I don’t respond with an enthusiastic “YES!”, then chances are good that I won’t re-read it and it should go.
  2. Is it easily available at the local library? If so, definitely consider letting it go.
  • According to condition:
  1. Bad gets trashed or recycled
  2. Good gets rated according to interest and enjoyment:
  • Interest and Enjoyment Level:
    • Horrible Read – Donate
    • OK Read – Donate
    • Best Ever Read – Keep (if they fit in available designated area). If not, build another bookcase if I can get rid of enough non-book things to make space for a new bookcase. If not, re-assess and keep only the OMG/Best Ever Reads.


Magazines

From: Books, books, books, oh, and magazines.

If you have a ton of magazines, consider scanning specific pages you like and tossing the rest or donating them to a local cancer treatment center or women’s shelter. If you haven’t read them yet, ask yourself how long it would take to read one, multiply that by the number of magazines you have, and decide if you are really going to prioritize that much time to reading old magazines. Nowadays, most of the articles you get in magazines is readily available online. Consider cancelling your subscriptions and reading articles online.


Music and Movies

From: Declutter Music Collection: CDs, Cassettes, Records & More and: How To Declutter Movies & Videos

Depending on the volume you're dealing with, you may want to break this down by genres and formats - and do this in smaller batches, but the first step will be to gather all of the "grouping" that you are working on - together in one location.

Assess what types of formats that your recordings are in. For older formats, if you have replaced those items with newer formats and do not use the older formats, then donate or toss the unused versions.

Current music/movies is usually either in the form of CDs/DVDs or digital files. One thing to consider is whether you still need the CDs/DVDs themselves - if you've decided to move your collection to digital. If you do decide to only keep the digital version you want to make sure you've got some type of backup in place so a technology failure does not just wipe out the entirety of your collection.

See the articles listed above for ideas on what to do with the formats that you are not keeping.


Tools and Mechanical Parts, Office Supplies, Art/Craft Supplies[edit]

Tools and Mechanical Parts

From: Tips for Decluttering Tools and: Basic Home Tool Kit List: Make Sure You Have The Essentials

When you declutter your tools, hardware, parts and mechanical equipment, you want to end up with only as much of these items items that you need to do home repairs and basic improvements - and have space to store them. Keep all the tools you regularly use, plus any on the list (provided in the second link, above) that you think will be helpful for normal repairs and small jobs in your home.

Get rid of any duplicates of tools, keeping the best one for use. And get rid of any that are broken or that you know you will never use (because you don't like it, or you have no idea how to use it). If you use a tool quite infrequently, and would be able to easily borrow a replacement in the future if you needed to use one, you may also want to consider getting rid of some of those tools.

For ideas on what to do with tools and materials you are not keeping, refer to the linked articles, above.


Office Supplies

From: Declutter Home Office Supplies

Gather all of your home office supplies from all the corners of your home where you have them stashed. Throw away anything that no longer works, or is broken. If you have too much of one type of thing. purge to a reasonable amount that you can use in a year or less. If you have excess that you cannot use within that time frame, consider donating to a church, school or somewhere else that can get more immediate use from them.

Then, redistribute back to all appropriate places the supplies that should be there, now that you've kept a more realistic amount. You should have some stored in whatever places make sense for where you consistently need to access the supplies. For most this is a home office or desk top area, but it could be your kitchen for example, if that's where you do your household paperwork.

In addition, if you have large amounts of a specific supply you've chosen to keep, consider designating a small supplies area that you keep the larger stashes and keeping a much small amount in your desk or kitchen drawer for current use. As long as your larger supply stash is organized and fairly easily accessible when you need it, it won't be a problem to just visit it to get restocks of certain supplies as needed.


Art/Craft Supplies From: Declutter Craft Room

If you have a fairly large amount of these types of supplies/materials, consider doing the decluttering in small sprints of 15 minutes at a time - to avoid being overwhelmed and experiencing decision fatigue. break down the task of removing your craft room clutter into smaller steps by either focusing on one type of item at a time, or one area of the room at a time. You can also "trick" yourself into the decluttering groove by dealing with the easy stuff first, and doing several passes over the same area being more ruthless each time. If you start with the easy stuff, then you mentally get ready for the tougher decisions.

Once you've gone through everything in the room, you may need to do it yet again, perhaps a couple of times. The reason is that you'll see how much space you've actually got. You have to keep decluttering until what you've got left fits into the space you can store it in, preferably with a bit of room for expansion so it doesn't all feel so jammed into the space.

If there is a type of crafting that you were interested in at some time in the past - but that you no longer have a desire to pursue, consider donating those supplies and equipment to a school or other club or group that could use those supplies. Likewise, if you have projects that you have started - but know you will never get back to (because you have lost interest, for example), either trash or donate. See the next section for information on Aspirational Clutter.

Continue purging until your supplies fit into the space you have designated for them.


Sentimental, Gifts, Aspirational, I Might Need It and Sunk Cost[edit]

Note: If any of these are a difficult category for you, save it/them for later. Do the easy decluttering first, and save the hard items for after you have built up momentum by exercising your decluttering muscles.

Notes from: https://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/book-clutter.html

It Has Sentimental Value So I Have To Keep It If you've got space for it in your home, and you are able to access it often to help you remember that wonderful and special memory, than it's not clutter. If, however, it's not important enough for you to display proudly, or have in a special place you can access often, and you don't find yourself paying any attention to it for months on end, it really might not be as sentimental as you think...

Suggestions for letting go of Sentimental Items

  • Take photos of sentimental items to "keep" that memory. In all honesty the memory is in your head and heart, and you don't need a physical reminder, but taking photos can make it a little easier to let go. You might want to create a memory journal where you insert photos of the items and journal about the item - why it is important, who was involved with using it, etc.
  • Use the Container Method by designating a specific box or chest or closet to Containerize your collection of sentimental items. Once the container is full, for anything else that is added, decisions must be made on what is most important to keep. Something has to go to make room for what is added.

I Got It As A Gift, So I Can't Get Rid Of It The primary motivation for keeping it is so you don't hurt the gift giver's feelings. That is understandable. However, if that gift alone, or cumulatively along with lots of other stuff, is making you feel unhappy about your home because it is so cluttered, you have to treat yourself nicely too, and deal with the problem.

Suggestions for letting go of Gifts

  • If your friend or family member knew how you were feeling about the clutter, hopefully they would want you to be happier about your surroundings - and would be fine with your letting go of their gift(s).
  • In truth, you were pleased with the item - and the fact that they thought so much of you to give you a gift - and you probably enjoyed the item for a season. However, seasons change - and it is ok to remove items from your life that are no longer serving you.
  • If it is given as a gift, it is yours to do with what you will. The giver gives up control of the item at the time it is given. If the gift was given with stipulations on its future use, it wasn't really a gift, was it?

Letting Go Of The Dreams The Stuff Symbolizes Is Too Hard This is also known as Aspirational Clutter. These objects symbolize some type of dream that we don't want to let go of in our lives. No one likes to admit they didn't accomplish a dream, whether that was from failure or just choosing to go on a different path instead. When we can identify this as our source of discomfort with decluttering, we can make a significant breakthrough though. We can deal with our emotions and move on, and get rid of the actual stuff. It can be very freeing to let go of objects that no longer fit in with our current plan of how our life should be. It can be like we have given ourself permission to mark lots of stuff off our to do list - that we know we'll never get to anyway, but still write on there over and over for some reason. It can also remove a layer of guilt and emotional baggage we may not have even realized we were carrying around, and let's us feel that peace all of us who are decluttering are looking for.

I Paid Good Money For That So I Can't Let It Go This is also known as Sunk Cost Clutter. We have to come to terms with the fact that keeping the object will not bring the money back. Once it's spent, it's gone. Further, not everything that was once expensive really still is useful for us, because of changed circumstances and the passage of time. The "season" for its usefulness is in the past, and we have already received some amount of value from that item (if it was a good purchase). If it was a "bad" purchase, we can't fix what we've done in the past with our money, even if we've spent it unwisely. However, keeping objects that are clutter just because they cost us a lot of money in the past - just compounds the problem because clutter itself costs money, along with taking an emotional toll on us, and robbing us of time. Clutter costs by making us spend time taking care of it, cleaning it, insuring it, storing it, and paying for the space it takes up in our home. "Don't throw good money after bad."

What it all boils down to is forgiveness of ourselves for past money mistakes, or acceptance that not everything continues to have a high value over the years. Accepting these things will allow us to get past the emotions of it, and actually part with the object without guilt.

I Might Need It - or - What If I Need It Someday? This is also sometimes known as Depression Era Mentality. There is the practical advice that - If we haven't needed it for a year or two, we most likely never will need it. That's almost always very true advice. However, this may not addresses the mental and emotional reasons we feel this way about certain pieces of clutter. Instead, It likely comes from a fear of not having enough, which is more primal than just wanting to be a mass accumulator of things. This fear and emotion may come from not trusting ourselves, our "higher power" or others - to provide for us in the future. If we could replace the item with a couple hours of work or a few hours of creativity or could provide a low cost work around or solution for the problem the object is supposed to help with, let it go. There is also something called the 20/20 rule, where if we can replace an item for less than $20 in less than 20 minutes, we should let that in-case-I-need-it-item go. There's a point and time where we have to take a leap of faith and trust in ourselves, our "higher power" and our loved ones to help us with things - instead of thinking we're all on our own with no resources or skills.


Links[edit]


return to category:Hoarding and Cluttering

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