What The Heck Is “Swedish Death Cleaning”?

This article is going to be a bit unusual compared to what you usually see here at The Clutter Reports. Usually this is about me decluttering my living space and occasionally I’ll post a video of someone else cleaning if I don’t have anything to report but want to have something interesting since I have subscribers to the site and want to reward them for adding me to their emails, RSS feeds, and WordPress reader. Plus if they help inspire you and me with our decluttering, so much the better. That was the intent this week after a non-report last week and getting over a brief bout of sickness this week meaning I didn’t get anything done. So as I’m looking for a video for decluttering inspiration I came across a video by YouTube channel But First, Coffee with the title “I Finally Tried Swedish Death Cleaning (and it actually works)”. I have never heard of this before but color me intrigued.

So we’re going to watch this 12+ minute video and I’ll give my thoughts on it, stream of consciousness style. That’s something I usually do over at the media reviewing site, so I’m putting those skills to use here. Have any of you heard about or tried this? As I write this intro I have yet to watch the video so I have no idea what I’m about to walk into here. I’m assuming this is an expression and no Swedes were harmed in the decluttering of this space. Otherwise, I’m going in blind. Let’s see what this is.

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Transformer Collecting For The Declutterer

While failing to get caught up on my YouTube backlog I came upon a video by toy and media reviewer TJ Omega that got me thinking about collecting Transformers when space is an issue, given the current overflow of new Transformers toys. My current collection is probably only eclipsed by my comic and home video library…and I’m not even sure about the home videos. Being unemployed means I really haven’t had the chance to get more in years, and given the current space (or lack thereof) that may be for the best.

If you go to the store or a site like Amazon (there aren’t a lot of toy store options in the US and the toy section in regular department and clearance stores are disappearing faster than the department store) you’ll find not only mainline Transformers figures from Hasbro, already made up of multiple lines targeting kids and/or adult collectors, but licensed merchandise, home video releases of the show, collections of the comics, various types of prose books, and it seems the variations just keep on coming. Watch the video for yourself and see how far you get in all the different lines both transforming and statue that are coming out. Then return to reading as I have what I think is some good advice about how to balance collecting with de-cluttering while bringing up a few things not in the video.

Quick Report: A Number Of Projects

This week instead of a big project I did a bunch of smaller projects that needed to be done. It’s a short list but I got up late yesterday.

• The toilet needed cleaning. Exciting, isn’t it?
• Continuing from a previous project I went through the papers and stuff from that shelf under the art desk. Some things were thrown out and some things shredded, and a few things I kept and put away, like some reading material and manuals. I then did the same with a few holders at my regular desk. It always hurts when I toss out old birthday and get well cards. They were given out of love and there are days I can use that kind of reminder, but otherwise they’re just taking up space. Unless it was hand made it’s better to send them onward, and I’m only giving that cavate because I’m a creative person and something not mass-produced means even more than something bought in the store and signed. Sentiment can only go so far when you need to de-clutter.
• Finally I updated my financial records because I let it slip…again.

So that’s all I did this week, small but needed projects.

Cleaning The Under Art Desk Shelf

This fell slightly short of being a “quick project”. So I had trouble sleeping Friday night…again, but this time I was able to actually get some organizing done that I wanted to do last week. This is a shelf on the bottom of my art desk. As a former computer desk I guess this was an option for where the computer could go…provided you could turn it on and off with your toe? I don’t remember how I had the computer on this one though I don’t remember getting on the floor any time I wanted to load a disk or CD. Anyway it became a junk shelf until it was blocked by two big piles of comics. Since I was finally able to move those it was time to go after this.

It wasn’t a hard project and only took a few hours, though there are parts I need to still do, possibly next week and hopefully with a bit more sleep, but I got the important part done and that works for me. Let’s go over what I did, because otherwise this isn’t much of a report.

A Video About Decluttering Your Art Area

My art station is one of those areas I keep messing with. I thought this week’s project would be rather easy. It’s just some minor alteration and a bit of Operation: A Place For Everything thinking. Then Saturday came and I had trouble getting to sleep the night before. My brain just didn’t want to shut down so I ended up not only unable to work on this week’s project but I missed out on my cousin’s band performing because I was too tired to go. I’m not happy about this.

For you guys who are just into reading I have an article from Simplyleigh Organized about decluttering your office. I went down a rabbit hole of various decluttering art room videos trying to find one to have a decent post for today. I eventually decided that rather than clutter this page (see what I did there) with videos I’d choose one that closest to what I’m doing. So even though I’m not really going into a “minimalist” lifestyle (yet, anyway) this video where The Minimal Mom declutters her kids arts and crafts area would be the one I went with. The tips are well given, it’s not a huge project (the art corner is only a tweaking project…a CONSTANT tweaking project for me, mind you), and it’s kind of fun. Hopefully next Friday I’ll get enough sleep to do a proper Saturday project. In the meantime I hope you get something from this.

Let’s Watch Someone Declutter Their Garage

Well, I was right about this week being crazy. It didn’t help that Saturday had blah weather around here and that killed what little motivation I had to do something this week. On the plus side I get to talk about something I don’t have to declutter…because our garage was already organized before this site and my declutter project proper even got started.

I don’t understand why people use their garage as a storage shed. Maybe it’s because we have storage space, but I’ve seen a garage not usable as a garage on multiple home improvement shows because there are boxes and totes of stuff taking it over. And of course there’s the old cliché of the wife yelling at the husband to finally clean out the garage, but the task being so monumental that he keeps finding excuses not to. So I wanted to find a video of a man cleaning out his garage. I wasn’t looking for anything that required a big financial expense or was setting it up as anything other than a garage and maybe a place to work on the car, the other purpose of a garage.

And so I found this video by YouTube channel GardenFork. Here he gives tips for decluttering your garage without really making anything TV worthy out of the final product. The thing about doing YouTube videos from home is the incentive to make it look like a good backdrop or set to film on and look professional. This is just a simple organizing and clutter removal operation, which is what I wanted. Despite turning my studio into something that looks good on camera as part of my projects, DIY on the cheap and easy decluttering to make the space functional for the intended purpose is currently the name of the game around here.

Let’s Watch Someone Declutter Their “Croffice”

Thanks to insomnia I didn’t have the drive to do any cleaning this week as I only have one day a week to declutter and organize. That’s part of the reason this is taking so long, but not the only one. With the next two weeks looking to be pretty hectic with doctor appointments Saturdays may actually be a quiet time while I’m still decluttering. It depends on the stuff I do for the other site and other things I need to be doing for myself. If I can finally get my sleep cycle under control I just might be able to put my living back together, if that sentence made any sense. If not, blame it on going to bed around 2AM and waking up at 12:30 PM.

However, I did want to give you readers something to look into. Part of posting my decluttering projects or doing a deep review to see if I want to keep this or that is putting thoughts in your head about your own journey. I know “minimalist” is the craze in decluttering but that may be too far for me, feeling sometimes like the opposite of “hoarder”. I am a collector, but getting myself to enjoy my collections by not having them too big or filled with stuff I’m not interested is part of the journey.

So is there the main focus of decluttering has been, my personal living space. This includes the room I’ve been trying to turn into a dedicated studio for my art and video projects. Technically it is but it’s still a mess, so maybe I can get some inspiration from the following video. From the YouTube channel ClutterBug comes this story from 2021, part of the lockdown years. The host is using technology we once thought would exist in science fiction to talk to a woman named Michelle through videophone. Michelle has a room similar to mine. Where I do article writing, comics and other art work, and the occasional video she wants to make a dedicated craft room/office combo, her “croffice”. However her place is around the same mess I was when I started, but thanks to the host and more time that I have to dedicate she finally gets to vacuum her floor. That will make more sense when you see the video.

Organizing The Hat Rack

Sorry, the window was brighter than I thought.

I like wearing hats when I go out. I just liked collecting a few as a kid and I’ve picked up a few more since, but I like wearing hats more as an adult than I did as a kid. I didn’t hate wearing them, I’m just more into wearing them when I’m out now. To keep them organized my mom opted not to just use a hat rack but picked up a pot and pan rack (I think that’s what that is) thinking it could hold more hats. It would if the hats weren’t falling all over each other. It’s kind of a mess and kind of a pain to get one hat without a bunch of them falling behind the couch, plus it doesn’t look very nice. This week’s project was to try to fix that a bit and find a different way to have the hats on there.

I had tested one way to get the hats on there and it seemed to be holding. So it was just a matter of doing it for all the hats…or at least the hats I could. By the time I was done, I also had a couple of donations and eliminations do I decluttered a bit as well. That’s a nice bonus.

Christmas Decorating Vs. Clutter

This is usually when I post this year’s Christmas decoration set-up before taking a Christmas break. As I write this the article is late by closing on five hours and the decorating isn’t done. I haven’t even taken any pictures because I’m just exhausted…and I wish that was the only issue.

When I do get it decorated, possibly some time tomorrow, you’ll see what I’ve arranged. As it turns out it won’t be as nice as previous years. The problem is that with all the sick time this year and this weird situation I’ve mentioned before where clearing one area led to clutter in another area has actually led to me losing access to one corner of my studio even though I’ve managed to open room in my bedroom. This is all my personal clutter as the house itself has gotten better, meaning my dad, who isn’t doing a regular weekly declutter project, is having more success than I am.

I’m hoping that in 2022 and possibly even somehow during these last weeks of 2021 I can get myself into a proper work and declutter pattern. I want to do more video content for my other site along with all the usual articles and weekly comic strip. I’m not even doing my annual Christmas superhero comic and I’m worried I won’t have the planned video review ready either. However, only so much can be blamed on how sick I’ve been this year since that doesn’t excuse the times I’ve been healthy, few as those days have been this year. After the surgery I could have done more smaller projects and I have to ask what happened when I could lift heavier things again.

I think I figured out the main reason I’m failing versus how good I was doing when I started this site. I don’t have a place for a bunch of this stuff. I don’t have a place for the photo stage my dad put together. I don’t have a place for the big lamp now that a small TV that belonged to my late uncle is sitting there…which is really why I have an inaccessible corner. What I really need is to better find a location for all this stuff and my emphasis for 2022 need to be removal over simply reorganizing. This is probably going to be the heaviest decision making but not being a hoarder is more than not adding to what’s there. I still need to better organize and that’s going to be a goal as well, but there are things I’m going to have to sell off or toss out and I have to accept that moving on.

As soon as I do have this year’s decorating done I’ll show you the picks, but I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and we’ll see you in 2021 while I start doing some thinking.

Quick Report: Some Random Projects

At best this report is “I did a few things”. Basically I only opted for a few smaller projects this week because it’s what I wanted to work on. While I’m strong enough physically to take on more intense projects again this week my brain just wasn’t in it. At least I…

• …cleaned up a small area of my bedroom which including throwing out a pair of shoes that I can’t wear anymore. The sides are out of shape so wearing them really wasn’t safe. Luckily I still have a pair of dress shoes and I’m thinking I bought them because the older shoes were out of shape but never had a chance to toss them and then forgot the whole thing. Don’t tell me you didn’t collect clutter the same way. I have a bit more room now and probably the best I can do without tossing stuff I actually need out. Like my bed. Not much of a bedroom without a bed.
• …reorganized my art space a bit. Again, just a corner of it and if it wasn’t for the third project this would be all about organizing corners. Not that it matters because I reorganize my art space every few months, or at least that’s how it feels like. I’m not even completely sure I maximized the area so in a few months I may be reporting on that project again. In fact I know I want to do some reorganizing with my various paper I use for writing and drawing once I go into one of the drawer organizing stages, which I hope to do soon if not next week.
• …started to add to my list of Saturday Night Showcase postings that I have in a spreadsheet. There are times I swear I used something for the feature on my other website where I promote fan and indie projects as well as the current official or licensed YouTube channels that have popped up. (I like to support the official release, but I haven’t done enough indie and fan works in a while. Maybe after Christmas I’ll go hunting.) I might have gotten further, though I don’t know if I would have finished, if not for WordPress going down during the whole thing and some other issues I was having on my end. I’m going to keep working on that so I can find things for my site. It’s still organizing so technically it still counts.

So I accomplished…most of what I wanted yesterday. It may not be much but the bedroom looks a bit clearer, I finally got rid of the unwearable (safely if you want to walk in them) shoes, and the stuff related to other projects. It’s still a victory and victories are what keep you working on a project. I just need to get back to making a few major victories now that I’m able to.