The Joy of Decluttering

I was scrolling and came across this quote. I stopped to read the comments and there was a mixed bag of responses, as there generally are on this topic.

Having been on my own personal decluttering journey for many many years I think people often misunderstand this. The assumption is that it means throwing out everything in your home that you don’t use right now or that you don’t look at with deep love.

My understanding is that this assumption is incorrect.

For example.

I have a pile of notebooks on the shelve over my desk – I don’t use them all and don’t have immediate plans to use them but when I look at them I smile. It could be seen as clutter but it brings me joy.

I had a pile pile of cookbooks in the kitchen. They stress me out every time I look at them. I know there is random pieces of paper in there and some books that aren’t actually cookbooks. It’s clutter that does not bring me joy.

Can you see the difference?

A lack of clutter does not mean a lack of stuff necessarily. I have a shelf with loads of pot plants on, it brings me immense joy, I add plants, get new pots – I love the space, it is not minimal and at face value looks a little cluttered.

When I read the Happiness Project, the author spoke about aspirational clutter which is the things we keep that we are waiting for the right occasion to use – the crystal champagne glasses, granny’s china etc. For me it is piles and piles of scrapbooking paper, stickers and embellishments. I do a craft but then use a paper I don’t love because I am saving the beautiful paper – for what, who knows!

So now I am intentionally using the paper. I have given away goodies that I know I will never use but other people will love. I am clearing the clutter and in the process creating beautiful things with the paper and stickers I love.

Another area I am being ruthless about is the kitchen. We had cupboards full of stuff when we moved in and merged David’s house with the stuff I had. Over the years we have added (and subtracted) stuff. Eventually there was no more space so I started getting rid of duplicates, things we don’t use etc. Then the big kids moved out and we gave them stuff. Then I really started focusing on reducing my waste when shopping for groceries so I needed less in the form of storage. Slowly we were able to start seeing the stuff we actually had. We found mugs/pots/plates/bowls we had forgotten about. Then we had a bug issue so cleared out everything to clean which meant MORE stuff left the building because I realised that we aren’t using so much of the stuff. (I mean do we really need 25 water bottles). If you look at our kitchen cupboards now you may think we don’t have enough but there are enough plates, bowls, cutlery, mugs etc for us to have a few friends over and not have to worry about what they will eat on but we can’t cater for the whole suburb (and why would we need to) like we could have a few years ago.

It makes me happy to see the empty, clean, organised cupboards. I see exactly what we have and we use most of it regularly.

Decluttering is not about getting rid of memories and things that bring you joy but rather intentionally focusing on those things and bringing them front and centre so you can seem them, enjoy them and appreciate them every day.