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How to Make Decisionsabout your Clutter
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You are almost certainly struggling with making the decisions.
This struggle to make decisions is probably fueling your procrastination, leading to regret when you decide to be ruthless or making you feel overwhelmed, out of control and simply unable to make a decision at all.
Learning how to make decisions about your clutter that you can be comfortable with both now and in the future, learning how to make decisions about your clutter that are realistic instead of ruthless, and learning how to make decisions about your clutter that acknowledges that it's OK to be unsure about what to do with something you haven't seen for a while, will be the secret to your sucess when it comes to creating a clutter free, organised, relaxing and inviting home to be in.
The 4 biggest mistakes people make
when it comes to making decisions
1. They give themselves only 3 choices - keep, throw away, charity / sell
Have you ever decluttered using this process? Did you find that more ended up in the 'keep' pile than the others? That's because, if we've experienced regret with the decisions they've made in the past, then the next time we're more likely to be cautious, just in case, it might come in useful like the things did last time, so we put more in the keep pile.
Why doesn't this method work?
Our brain works best with 7 choices at any one time. If you have less than 3 your brain goes into panic mode and can't make a decision, more than 7 and your brain goes into overwhelm and can't make a decision.
Therefore, if you give yourself only 3 choices your brain is in panic mode. When our brain is in panic mode, it's more likely to be cautious and put an item in the 'keep' pile - just in case.
2. They don't make a decision but instead sort according to the 'type' of clutter
If you've ever found yourself surrounded by a sea of piles of clutter, then you'll know what I mean by this.
The problem wiht this is:
- We end up with endless piles of types of clutter - more than 7 which is a comfortable number of 'piles' for our brain
- We never reach the point of doing anything with the piles of types of clutter
- We don't have enough space to create all the piles of types of clutter, so we might end up with a 'pile avalanche' before we get to the point of dealing with the piles of types
Grouping or piling clutter according to the type of clutter it is e.g. clothes, paperwork, books is not actually making a decision. It's grouping clutter. You probably have an unlimited number of piles that you sort your clutter into and, when you come across something that doesn't go on one of the existing piles, you create a new one.
You need to make decisions based on the action associated with it, and the specific action - not 'keep', 'throw' or 'charity' but 7 action focused decisions to choose from.
3. They keep things because they 'might come in useful'or 'just in case'
Everything might come in useful. But not everything DOES come in useful.
Why is it that we can have things buried in our clutter for weeks / months / years and then, a short while after we let it go we discover we needed it?
Simple. It's your mind playing tricks on you.
Imagine your memory is like a filing cabinet. New memories are entered from the front of the filing cabinet and, as new memories are put in, older memories get further away from the front. When we try to remember something, our brain goes to the front of the filing cabinet and starts looking through the entries from the front.
When you've done some decluttering and let go of something amongst the clutter, what you've actually done is moved that memory from the back of the filing cabinet to the front. So, when you need 'something' for a particular purpose, your brain goes to the front of the filing cabinet and comes across that memory quite quickly.
Now, if you hadn't moved that memory to the front of the filing cabinet by doing your decluttering, it's likely your brain would have found a more recent memory of something that would have worked, or, if we're looking for something specific, we can't find it because our brain has to work through all the earlier memories before it reaches the relevant memory. That's why we usually give up looking for something and go and buy another one instead, even though we know we've got one somewhere.
It's important when we're making decisions about our clutter that we make REALISTIC decisions based on when the last time we needed or wanted that 'thing', how often we use or need those types of 'things', and whether or not we can put a realistic timescale of when we will use / do / need that 'thing' in the future. We can all convince ourselves that we 'could' use it - but realistically when will you use it? Could letting go of it enable someone else to use it quicker and more easily than we can?
4. They think about how to store things rather than whether they 'need' it and will use it
This is why storage companies do so well out of people with clutter - because they convince them that if they just have the right place or thing to put their clutter in, all their problems will be solved.
Yet putting things into storage solutions or off-site self storage is not actually making a decision about the need or use of an item, it's getitng things out of sign and out of mind. It doesn't acutally help them 'do the doing' because they forget it needs doing when it's out of sight.
The decisions you need to be making are whether you can or will use a particular item in your clutter within a clearly defined space of time. If you can't then let it go and pass it on to someone who can use it quicker than you can, so it frees up space in your home.
