Decluttering Triggers...

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Started 1 year ago by Rozzie
Latest reply from mdfloyd
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Rozzie
Member

So, what things trigger you to go on a decluttering spree?

Several things serve as triggers for me. I'm just "itching" to clear a massive amount of stuff from my life right now, even though I got rid of over a dozen carloads already in August.

What is causing this? Well, a couple of (well-loved) family members came to visit. One is an extreme hoarder. The sheer quantity of possessions that ended up in my house -- in every room on the main floor but the master bedroom and my son's room -- was simply staggering, especially when this was for only a couple of days. We're talking about a vehicle full of possessions. I would estimate that the items brought inside included at least six garbage bags (mostly clothing), 3 ice chests, a box of things, and a variety of assorted bags and misc. small stuff that came in a handful at a time. At least 1/2 of the visit was spend "fiddling" with all of this stuff (unpacking, sorting, resorting, repacking into garbage bags). This greatly reduced the time to visit.

I do NOT want to end up like this. I am now looking around me thinking WHAT CAN GO?

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

i start running around the place looking for things to toss, right after watching an episode or two of hoarders online.
to the point where my husband will mock-scream: have you been watching that bloody show again? stop watching it! there is nothing left in this house!

a dinner party is a great prompt.
as is having house guests for any length of time.

sometimes i do it just because i can.

Posted 1 year ago #
susique
Member

putting purchases away: bringing new things (they were on a list!) always makes me look at what is already in the cabinet-can always find something not being used when i had been through the cabinet purging several times. helps with buying also, i think about where the item will go and whether we really need it. have crossed several things off the list that way.

Posted 1 year ago #
Nithy
Member

I also get rid of stuff when I watch Hoarders. Or when I go somewhere with a lot of clutter. I am constantly reminded that I don't want to live like that any more.

Posted 1 year ago #
B-200
Member

When i cant find my stuff things go flying out. And when im looking m magazines or watch hoarders on TV.

Posted 1 year ago #
susanintexas
Member

My 89-year-old MIL fell last Thanksgiving and it popped the lock on her front door for us -- she had been cleverly keeping us out. Her 3 bedroom house was a MESS -- probably hadn't been cleaned in more than 5 or 6 years, if not longer, and piled with STUFF. The equivalent of 8 closets-full of clothes (after I picked up the ones on the floor, some still in bags with tags and receipts up to 10 years old); 367 pairs of pierced earrings (which she cannot wear, as they irritate her skin), plus an entire 4-drawer bureau of jewelry she bought at weekly excursions to pawn shops; 10 shopping bags full of old (paid) bills, receipts and canceled checks ... it took us a solid month to declutter and clean, with her consent and assistance.

When we asked her why she didn't ask us for help she admitted that she was ashamed of how bad it had got. I now clean her house once a week after I drop her off at the hairdresser (it takes an hour and 15 minutes) and life is good.

It got us thinking about our own house, though -- how would WE feel if someone had to clean up after us. Not good.

Posted 1 year ago #
djk
Member

I get inspired from reading posts like these above, and think about how we are all at different stages on our journey, and on different journeys; we don't all have the exact same goals or reasons for uncluttering.

Changes of season always bring out the purger in me, as well as the cleaning fiend.

as for the day-to-day upkeep--well I grew up in an uncluttered, very big house and I aspire to that aesthetic goal, even while living in a tiny place. So I could say that a feeling of airy,fresh, graceful,warm and cosy space is my motivation. Repeatedly downsizing throughout my life has meant that what fit with my goals in previous apartments/houses no longer fits my goals in smaller spaces. Sometimes I battle with that. Too small can simply be, well, TOO SMALL for the abundant life I want to live.

ATAD is perfect for me to assess what is around me and have an ever-critical eye on what is clutter.

Posted 1 year ago #
Rosa
Member

I don't really go on uncluttering sprees, but pretty much everything I do I'm looking at as an uncluttering opportunity these days - as I tidy the guest room for a houseguest, I pull some stuff off the shelves in there to get rid of. As we're packing up the summer clothes and getting out blankets and winter clothes, I've been weeding the summer stuff.

We're so overwhelmed with basic life stuff - school, jobs, family, basic social engagements, remodeling - that no other projects get done, but I still have little 2-5 minute declutering additions to my regular chores.

Posted 1 year ago #
themusiclivez
Member

When I get stressed out I declutter. I guess it is calming for me... I also get inspired when I read posts on here or when I come back from a friend's house that is particularly cluttered.

Posted 1 year ago #
susanintexas
Member

djk: you are so right about stages of life. 15 years ago we had jobs that caused us to move frequently, sometimes more than once a year and not always to the same city. We hung onto stuff because we never knew if we would be living in an efficiency apartment or a four bedroom house. Now we are settled -- when we leave this house it will be to a smaller, more manageable place. It makes no sense, for example, to keep artwork that is not currently hanging on our walls. If we don't like it enough to hang now, we won't hang it in a smaller place, will we?

Posted 1 year ago #
HelofaMess
Member

I had a big declutter before mynstep kids came to visit and I'll have another one between now and when the baby comes in Jan. Some of my decluttering needs something to kick start it (need a scanner before I can attack the filing system for example) and others I just need to jump in. My house has pockets that need uncluttering right now but to the 'casual eye' it's fine... I'm not happy yet though!

Posted 1 year ago #
Honore
Member

The show Hoarders must really be an inspiration to attack clutter! I've never seen it as I don't have TV, but I've reserved a Hoarders dvd from the library. It's popular. Dozens of people are ahead of me on the reserves list.

While I'm usually always on the look-out for clutter in my home, a few things give me an extra push to minimize even further:

- reading decluttering/minimizing blogs and this forum
- coming home from the thrift store (after donating and browsing awhile) and seeing that, really, nothing I have is too precious to eventually be sitting there at the thrift store, dusty, with an inexpensive little price tag stuck to it. Why cherish "stuff"?
- seeing other people's cluttered homes and yards (or even seeing cluttery interiors through people's windows as I drive down the street at dusk...lights on/curtains open)
- MOST OF ALL, I don't want to leave junk (no matter how "nice" that junk may be) for my loved ones to deal with when I'm no longer here. I want to make a clean exit and leave just the essentials, and a few extras because I'm human. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
jbeany
Member

All of the above and a few more... Hoarders always makes me clean house - in fact, I tend to play it online while I'm dusting, washing windows, etc. My office/dining room/kitchen and living room are all one open space, so I turn it on and scrub away.
Throwing a party is what got my apartment unpacked within a week. I moved in on the 20th and scheduled a party for the 27th. Everything was done by then, even if I didn't sleep much in between.
After several months seriously ill in the hospital, with complications that I almost didn't make it through, I came home and cleaned out everything I could. I knew that if anything did happen to me, the mess got left to my sister. That combined with an expected upcoming move cleared an awful lot of clutter. My grandmother passed not too many months after I got well, and she was a hoarder. Having to add clearing her estate in to the mix of my own illness and moving cured me of a lot of sentiment. Junk left by the carloads - quite a bit of it posted on here on ATAD.
Last reason to declutter is that monthly hormonal surge that makes me irritated with everything. Rather than snarling at people around me, I attack all the dust, dirt and clutter in my path!

Posted 1 year ago #
Beth213
Member

Reading this website is such a kick start for me to declutter some more, because I am always reading about something someone else got rid of, and realizing I have the same or similiar and maybe I should also lose it.

And like themusiclivez, I clean when stressed, it's the one thing I can do that I have complete control over!!!!

Posted 1 year ago #
chacha1
Member

jbeany - hormones do it for me, too. Only instead of a displacement activity (i.e. I'm not suffering with mood swings) I just get a very strong nesting impulse. I do my best housekeeping instead of having PMS. :-)

Other than that, what triggers me is TV: (like many others) Hoarders, How Clean Is Your House, even What Not to Wear. And also, I am just really easily set off on the "do I need THIS" tangent now. My keeper threshold has gotten quite high.

Just last week I needed to dust the tops of the bookcases in my bedroom (see above re hormones). On top of each one was a miniature room-box (like a dollhouse, only just one room. My Mom made one, I made two). I decided the smallest could go in one of the big bookcases in the living room, so now I only have two room-boxes in the bedroom: Mom's, which is a work of art, and the one I made that I particularly like - not art, but fun.

After having reorganized several shelves of books to fit the third room-box and having looked at it for a few days, I realized I really don't care about keeping it. It's a very nice box, but what I did with it is not particularly special, and only a few things in it were meaningful. So I took them out last night and added them to my other box (it's a Victorian Traveler box, full of magpie stuff, the more the merrier!), reorganized my books again, and the third box is now on the table waiting to go to Goodwill.

Posted 1 year ago #
Honore
Member

A new decluttering trigger just occurred to me - hearing about bed bugs! :( Thankfully I haven't had them and am taking precautions against getting them, but just the thought makes me want as few hiding places in my house as possible. The more stuff a person has, I've heard, the more work it is to get rid of the pests. I suppose this is true for any pest invasion.

Posted 1 year ago #
djk
Member

and I just thought of another--cat hair dust bunnies.
we have friends with allergies and I hate the thought of them feeling uncomfortable in our home. So I am paranoid about where all those dust kitties are hiding. It is quite a challenge to keep on top of them! So the fewer things I have, the easier it is to clean and I feel better about providing a clean and welcoming place for friends.

Posted 1 year ago #
pkilmain
Member

Oh, those cat hair dust bunnies spontaneously generate! I swear I find them within hours of cleaning/vacumming. :)

I get motivated by TV like the rest of you. Lately I'm finding that if I open a clothing drawer that's too full, I immediately start pulling stuff out to donate.

And right now I've misplaced a check DH gave me. Sigh. I really cannot fathom where it has gone, but I have sorted a lot of stuff looking for it. I fear he'll have to write me another one....

And finally, we got a "welcome to our house" letter from the place we rented in Hawaii for January. The part that got me laughing was in the "what to bring" section. Don't bother with clothes; Hawaiians don't wear clothes. :) Basically it said a few t-shirts, a few pair of shorts, sandals, underwear, bathing suit, and maybe a light shirt/jacket. In these days of exorbitant charges for baggage, I've been decluttering my vacation needs. I did 2 weeks visiting family and friends last spring with only carry-on, and I'm about to do the same for the next two weeks (leaving Sat night) with a week in Flagstaff, AZ and a week at the Oregon coast. Fortunately they're having similar temperatures, and I have access to a washer/dryer. Saving myself $60-$75 and the possibility of lost luggage. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
Sky
Member

The bed bug news made me scour everything and buy a new mattress! We were planning on sizing up to a king anyway so I went ahead and did it.
The hoarding shows make me sad and make me declutter.

Posted 1 year ago #
jbeany
Member

Even one of our local hospitals had a case of bedbugs! Ewww. Makes me much less enthused with the idea of second hand things that don't fit immediately into the wash machine, that's for sure.

Posted 1 year ago #

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