Why Decluttering Fails (And How to Make It Last This Time)
The typical story goes like this: you feel inspired to declutter, and you tidy away as much as you can, taking several bags to charity and your home looking neat and tidy for a few days. Then, as time goes by, it slowly starts to accumulate again. And so the cycle continues because you are working only on the symptoms of clutter and not the root cause. You are viewing decluttering as an event and not an ongoing process which incorporates habit, emotional connection and choice. If you don’t work on the root cause it will re-accumulate in the background leaving you feeling worse than you did before.
I think one of the biggest reasons that organizing systems fail is that there’s no personal criteria system for what does get to be in the space. There’s no series of questions or values that are used to evaluate each item, so the decision to keep or discard is based on feelings, whims or is never made at all. Things are kept “just in case,” or out of obligation, or because they tie to an identity that is no longer current. These loose guidelines make it easy to bring new items into the space just like it was to remove the old, and the cycle continues. The antidote is to create a purposeful, repeatable evaluation system that balances function and sentiment, but draws a hard line on clutter.
Inadequate systems for maintenance is a second insidious enemy. Often, organizing is seen as a monumental task that will be complete once the house is perfect. The truth is that houses are dynamic, and that without certain daily habits like clearing the dinner table at night, or placing the day’s mail in a specific location, or taking 5 minutes each week to tidy, things will always revert to clutter. The error in thinking is that once a space is organized, it will somehow magically stay that way. The truth is, it takes maintenance, and that maintenance must be built into your daily and weekly routine in a way that makes it as effortless as cleaning your teeth.
A huge part of the struggle is emotional. People struggle to part with gifts, mementos, or reminders of a former self. It can be painful to get rid of something that has a narrative attached to it. Knowing that is OK, and you can still be kind in your decisions helps. You don’t have to throw away memories to make room for new ones.
And when you do finally manage to declutter from the inside out? It will stick. Your home will no longer feel like a nemesis, but a gentle companion to your present circumstances. You will have more confidence in your choices. You will form better habits without much effort. You won’t feel the need to reorganize all the time. You will not only have a decluttered home, but you will have a greater sense of liberation and mindfulness. But you can’t bulldoze your way to this outcome. You can’t rush to this outcome. You need to be gentle. And you need to work on the disease, not the symptoms.
