Plans fell through this week, but I was considering doing this instead for an article anyway. This time using a video isn’t a filler but one I wanted to share with you guys. After all, this is about decluttering with the goal of having an easier time managing my stuff. The idea is using my mindset for me: “I have an article to write, I must clean something!” And if anyone gets a benefit from following my progress, so much the better. Even the reviews are going towards that goal, seeing if I really want to keep something or not and why. Plus there’s the Clutter For Sale section, which hasn’t been completely useless.

Sometime during the week and without prompting, YouTube recommended “How Decluttering Is Actually Making You Messier”, a video by That Practical Mom. This isn’t a decluttering method video, like some I’ve used as actual filler. (…too many times last year.) Instead, the host, Kallie Branciforte, looks at how we might be doing it wrong by being trapped in a cycle. From the video description:

If decluttering really worked, we’d only have to do it once. Meaning most of us would be done by now. But, that’s not what happens… why? I’m digging into an interesting fact I’ve come to know about decluttering. How most of us get caught in a loop: Buy, accumulate, declutter, feel better, repeat. Why? And how do we get out of this loop?

I don’t know if we ever stop decluttering. I have bought few new things since I’ve been out of work and sick. And yet I still find that some of my methods have been incomplete or some of my records have piled up as I get medical reports and other things in the mail. Sometimes a layout I made turned out to not work or I want to redo the dividers in my art supply drawers. (I’m bouncing between two ideas on that. Hopefully I’ll choose something soon, which you’ll see in action here on this site.) So there are more issues that this loop. That doesn’t mean that she’s wrong, either, since I started this site while I still had regular income and there had to be a problem there somehow. Let’s look at her video and see if she indeed does have a point. We can always do better. Also, hamster trivia. ‘Kay.

Cute watching her daughter join in the declutter scenes.

I can confirm in part the idea that decluttering is caused by a need to relieve stress that the clutter caused. While I have a checklist goal of what I want to do this year, which didn’t help me the last two years, I try to leave room for a declutter I know I need now. Not being able to find something during the week or having to go through a bunch of crap to find it early on in this project was the result of having too much and being disorganized. Usually when it happens out it’s more the latter. The idea for organizing I had turned out not to work. I redo my art corner maybe once a year. I’ve redone how I set up my clothes drawers more than once since this began in August of 2010.

There’s also the fact that some of these projects have been huge, like the Comic Organizing Mega-Project, or going through videos and Transformers. Those take time and between the job I used to have, being sick or just really tired, and the stuff I do the rest of the week that I want to turn into a job (and have trouble just keeping up with the work itself), I’ve only marked one day a week for those. I have tried to get myself to do the smaller ones when I’m just relaxing. The checklists ‘o crap that’s part of this year’s goal is something I can do when I’m taking a break from article and artwork until I can work my workflow to where I can get back to videos, or organizing my computer for better production flow. There’s stuff I should have done years ago and didn’t because just getting the thing out that day was more important, so I had time to deal with life issues, doctors, seeing family members, chores at home and things my dad needs help with, and so on. Yesterday had a poor night’s sleep and helping shovel snow. These are my issues, however, I don’t know if the host has another job besides maintaining the home and making YouTube videos. She could be a pharmacist or human cannonball act at a circus or something. I wouldn’t know.

I do like that she worked to fix the backpack rather than just replacing it. I think of it as “practical upcycling”. Upcycling is a new form of recycling, taking old stuff and repurposing it or fixing it rather than melting it down. I watched an old Canadian show called Junk Raiders in which they made an office space with as little new stuff and money as possible. Donations and stuff people were getting rid of were fixed or turned into something new. Why waste what you have when it still serves its intended purpose or can be used for a new one? My webcam is a phone with terrible storage. My mics are second had or old but still work. My art desk is an old computer desk that turned out to be perfect for my needs. This was just one pocket. Even if she didn’t sew it there are ways to close up the rip on one pocket for a water bottle that’s made to be dropped if plan A doesn’t work without breaking. That’s where Operation: A Use For Everything comes in. If I can’t use it, then I toss it or get it to someone who can, like my friend did with his old mics.

I don’t think I ever had an actual empty space when I was done. I’d have to go back through previous projects, but while I might have emptied a box, space was used for other things, like getting all of the boxes I didn’t need out of the toybox and turning it into where I store my shoes. Cleaning behind the couch section in my bedroom I used to sit on is space I don’t see very often and it’s still the only place I can put my massage cushion. I’ve been trying to use space more efficiently but I still don’t have a space that’s truly empty when I’m done with anything no matter how much stuff I’ve tossed or relocated. My goal is to use my space better rather than make something empty. The whole “fresh start effect” part? I’m totally with her on.

 

I wonder if my disconnect with the “declutter loop”, as she calls it, is because I wasn’t in that loop. I didn’t replace old stuff with new stuff because I didn’t get rid of enough old stuff while getting the new stuff. My Transformers were probably the only thing I was set to get rid of but couldn’t figure out how as eBay testing didn’t get me any traction on stuff I was trying to get rid of and until this site I didn’t have any other option at the time. Now I have to deal with two of the issues she mentions: organizing my time and what I think I’ve focused on with this site, figuring out my system. Maybe that’s why I spent so much of last year going over different methods to see if anything could help. I’ve redone a few systems over the years because what I came up with didn’t quite work for me and drawers had to be reorganized, as well as work spaces to find the right layout for me. Even then sometimes the layout worked at the time but things changed and I needed a new layout. Getting new stuff now isn’t an option while looking at my stuff is something I’ve slipped on in my quest to come up with a better system to start out with.

As for the rest of it, I agree with a lot of it. Commenters kept saying that declutter maintenance is neverending, and that I do agree with. Vigilance is important in making sure stuff goes where they belong, that time has to be made to do the smaller projects, which I made part of last year’s unlisted goals, which are the ones I was more successful with than the bigger projects. I don’t know if getting rid of the clutter spots is important, but what is would be making sure you don’t accept it as part of the space. Putting a notation of things stops being helpful when it becomes part of the “scenery”. That whiteboard list of declutter projects became part of the scenery and I forgot to check it to see what project I could work on that week if nothing immediate came to mind. I still need to clean it and start over. I wonder if clutter at some point just becomes part of the scenery and we don’t think about it until we assess our design, like having guests over, or more likely when it gets in the way of things you want or need to do.

Making my own organizers or using things I have to help organize rather than buying them may be a benefit to me as well. That effort put into them rather than just getting the quick boost from buying it might be a benefit based on what she’s saying. Buying stuff for a stand-in to acceptance is not good collecting and how I ended up with too many Transformers and media that I turned out to not be interested in. I wonder how much of my collection came from wanting a “pity Transformer” when I’ve had a bad day. Many of them were good purchases, and many were not.

Time and systems are definitely things I’ve been working on, and I think she makes some very good points. Every journey is different but there were things in there that are universal and some that didn’t fit my particular situation but might fit yours. I hope to be in a better spot at the end of this year than I was at the end of the last two years. Maintenance is never ending but if I can finally find the systems that work maybe I can finally put myself into a working pattern and get through the big jobs. I don’t have as many of those as when I started, but there’s still a lot to do. It’s working, but it’s not finished just yet.