Yet. More. Stuff.

At university, I grew accustomed to minimal living.

I packed my bags carefully, and in this de-cluttered bliss, anything I didn’t need glared at me so obviously so I just got rid of it. Ahhh….

Returning home means returning to all that excess stuff that didn’t make it into The Wayfinder. Most of it fits into the No-I-Don’t-Need-It-really-But-Maybe-I’ll-Hold-Onto-It-Just-In-Case category. My room is spacious and so naturally, it attracts clutter. And that’s kind of overwhelming. It’s easy to take a couple of unwanted items to Oxfam, but a roomful? Where to draw the line? It’s like a battle of Awesome Stuff vs. Borderline Clutter and the Awesome Stuff is rather outnumbered.

De-cluttering was a thing from my past, and coming home to it was like Georgina Sparks coming to town to remind everyone of That Dark Time.

To top it off, I noticed myself feeling sluggish. Flopping onto my bed was becoming a habit. Face-in-pillow kind of flop, shutting my surroundings out, or trying to. I need my clean surfaces, for with clutter my eyes whiz and my mind goes with it, and then I just Flop.

The clutter was actually draining me.

So I decided to take action. The task of de-cluttering everything was equally daunting and addicting, depending on how fired up I felt – I was either too lazy to get started, or too pumped to stop. The point of the de-cluttering is to be able to think more clearly and live less distractedly. Sooo let’s not spend life getting distracted to the point of de-cluttering all day, okay.

Each night before bed I pick one area that irks me. A drawer, surface, shelf, whatever. My task is simply to make that space not irk but inspire. This is usually a combination of rearranging, recycling, and donating. One space at a time. Maybe this process will never end. But it certainly helps to chip away at it.

And trust me – the Flop feels so much better after a bit of effort to deserve it.

P.S. More on clutter, of a different sort.