Hi everyone
I'm concerned i've taken this whole uncluttering business a bit far...how do you tell when you're just as bad as a horder, but in the other direction?
I literally HATE clutter now, and while not yet a minimalist, I think about uncluttering all the time (its my stress-relief).
I love reading books and blogs and forum posts about it, and even help other people declutter.
Please reassure me i'm not a freak!
Same thing happened to me. I came to the conclusion that I was avoiding something. That something was all the painting I had to do. It's easier and less messy to declutter than it is to paint a room, or worse, molding.
You poor thing - painting does suck!
I guess I do use it as a procrastination tool, but it just makes me so calm when everything is clean and organised without clutter.
Just a bit neurotic I think!
Good luck with your painting.
You know, I can see that happening with me. It is almost as if I am swinging to the other end of the spectrum.
I, too, love reading about it. My contention is that any education is not in vain.
I did have OCD at one point (not real bad) but I used logic to overcome it.
Perfectionist tendencies may be what you are experiencing. I like to do things perfectly or if I can't, I have tended to let it go.
I notice myself aligning objects, cleaning up as I am eating, looking for stuff to toss.
Now I am nowhere near having my stuff under control. I am working on it. I actually love my cool stuff. I enjoy collecting. But I am trying to control it rather than have it control me.
I'd be very pleased with a happy medium.
In no way am I interested in minimalism although I think there is a lot to be learned from it. It is just not for me- at all.
I had very little stuff with me a few years ago and that certainly did not make my life easier.
What I am basically aiming for is getting organized. I know I can do that as I was always super-organized at work while managing 42 eight year olds.
You are NOT alone. Try not to worry about it. I imagine it will get easier.
Hey, you help me unclutter! I'll do the painting! I actually like to paint! :)
You got a deal, Claycat. I'd love to unclutter and organize your space. I'd even make it sparkly clean using safe cleaners if it would get me out of painting.
I think of my "uncluttering time" as a meditation that also produces tangible results. I do have this habit of turning things a certain way and everything has to be arranged in threes...so that's a little weird, but it's better than collecting more stuff (I think :) I like the idea of minimalism, but I'm not anywhere near that yet. I joke with people that when I pass away at the age of 120 years old I will be down to one Rubbermaid tub! :)
Funny you should mention painting rooms...I looked at paint colors today...Claycat, would you like another job? :)
Fantastic that i'm not alone!
I did wonder if it was bordering on OCD - although I've never experienced that in the past and will occassionally let things get a bit untidy. I just love the thought of not having so many things.
Funnily enough I'm a teacher too terriok (i'm assuming thats your occupation), maybe its just dealing with the chaos of work (always busy, so much paperwork) that brings me to wanting peace and calm at home.
harlo, you are not alone.
i get the wild gleam of uncluttering in my eye and my husband says OMG have you been watching hoarders again?
lol.
why do i do it?
i just love the space and the quiet, and the feeling of relief and release, that i get from letting the unnecessary stuff go.
i love deciding what is unnecessary....it's very freeing and enlightening.
i did get a little bit OCDish with it early in the year; i suspect it was because i was so close to getting it all done.
i have had tendencies to minimalism for years, but only in the last year have i finally got moving on it.
i had to be in the right emotional place and feel very secure, and all that.
i have been reading about minimalism and voluntary simplicity for a long time....first books, then blogs and forums... and i am very interested in it.
i love to travel and see how other people in other cultures live, too. i am interested in what others find indispensable and how it contrasts with what i find indispensable.
harlo - I am so glad that you created this thread! I have also worried if I went to the other end of the spectrum and become obsessed.
I truly love uncluttering though - and I think that whenever something is a passion you will think about it more.
We just can't forget the point of uncluttering: To free us of unnecessary things so we can focus on what we love. Now that the uncluttering process is slowing down for me I have almost nothing to sell on eBay except for a random item here and there. At first I was disappointed and then realized that I had time to work on some art projects that I have been looking forward to!
I know this feeling. Yesterday I was organizing the apartment. I needed to work on my novel, but I can't focus if the apartment is a mess. My boyfriend kept "yelling" at me to quit cleaning and go edit, but I told him I can't unless the place is clean. (he's not a neat freak like me, so while he helps, it's not up to my standards, lol)
I also love painting! To me, it's relaxing. I love seeing the immediate results of getting something done. So gratifying!
Jen
I can't focus in a mess, either. And I like to paint. It's the one thing you can do to vastly change your environment in a weekend.
I've been very dedicated to uncluttering this year, but part of it had to be uncluttering my creative process. I was very stuck on having an entire project lined up before I could get started on it. Finally had a little come-to-Buddha moment with myself and forced a perspective change. Now I only have to have Step 1 ready to go. Miraculously (LOL) I am getting about 10x as much done this year as I have in the past.
I think we on the forum have heard from a couple of people who have taken decluttering too far - to the point of getting rid of things most people consider necessary, or to the point of alienating a family member - but most of us seem to have a clear idea of the environment we want to create. And most of us seem to check in here regularly (and thus probably also read other material about decluttering!) even after we've made much of our progress.
So I think it's okay to define the uncluttering bug as an intense interest, and not worry about whether it's pathological. :-)
If there's one piece of advice I'd give to harlo, it's to find a different word than "hate." Think about the way the word makes you feel, and you might conclude that you don't want to feel that way.
Thanks everyone for some very interesting points.
jsights - I know exactly how this feels. My main issue is that I find it extremely difficult to focus on other things when there is clutter or mess around, and because I live in a house with 3 other people, my mess (my room) is easily controllable = calm.
chacha1 - great advice. Perhaps clutter is just a strong dislike!
As for taking decluttering too far, the idea of having the bare essentials appeals to the part of me desperate for calm, but the thought of living without the things I love does not!
themusiclivez - I'm literally SO close to this point. I'm down to the things I do love and use, but still have a wee pile of things to sell.
bandicoot - "i love deciding what is unnecessary....it's very freeing and enlightening." I love this. Exactly exactly how I feel about it. After some big thinking sessions I've concluded that my brain is a bit muddled at the moment, a lot going on, and so a peaceful, clutter-free environment is needed to balance it out!
I'm so happy we helped! Sometimes it's just nice to know that others feel the same way :o)
I don't think I have taken my decluttering and striving for a minimalist life to extremes. Bandicoot..you hit the nail on the head. The key word that I need to remember is "unnecessary". Yes, the past few weeks and days it has been a relief and release letting old, uneeded things go and making way for new ones, not necessarily those of a material nature. In fact, a few of them are learning a second language, Yoga and traveling.
I have no intentions of giving away everything. However, let me tell you, letting go of a lot has enabled me to sleep better and be more productive both at work and home.
Yes, finding that definition for "unnecessary" is key (it's different for each of us). I think a lot of us have found that we perform multiple rounds of uncluttering, and each time we find our "necessary" threshold is higher - or to put it another way, the "keeper" test is more stringent. So it's clearly an evolving mindset, which is one reason we keep coming back to it!
Getting things down to the bare minimum would feel like penance, to me; I like a layered environment. :-) But PEEP (Erin's dictum of a Place for Everything and Everything in its Place) does a wondrous job of keeping an environment calm.
Couldn't have said it better myself, ChaCha :)
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