What is Clutter?
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You know you should get rid of your clutter. You know clutter is a drain on many different aspects of your life.
But just what is clutter? As you march purposely into your cluttered family room, intent on clearing out the clutter, how will you know what must go and what can stay?
Photo by Tom
Perhaps the most quoted definition of clutter was penned by poet William Morris (1834-1896):
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
Simple, yet effective.
The trick is turning this phrase into something that actually helps you eliminate your clutter.
Take a good look around at your stuff. An honest look.
If you own something, and you do not or can not use it, and you don’t even think it’s nice to look at, then why should you even have it? You shouldn’t; it’s clutter.
If you have a serious clutter problem, you may protest that all the items you have are useful or pretty, but this is no time to go easy on yourself. Take a critical look at your piles of stuff, and think about each item again. Is it really useful? Do you remember the last time you actually used it? Was it within the last year?
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, it doesn’t seem so useful now, does it?
Let go of it, because it is clutter. If it’s still functional, someone else can make use of it.
Now what about beauty? Beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder, but remember we’re being critical here. When you look at an item, does it make you smile? Do you enjoy looking at it simply for the sake of looking at it? If you don’t like how it looks, and it doesn’t have a use, it’s clutter and you can just throw it away.
As a first step, you might find it easier to put a piece of your clutter into its proper service rather than getting rid of it entirely.
A while ago, I had a little plastic box on my night stand. In the box was a wine stopper that we gave out as favours at our wedding last year. I kept it around as a keepsake, but in reality, it was acting as clutter. A perfectly functional wine stopper was sitting unused in my bedroom, taking up space on my night stand in a small box. I remembered Morris’ quote, and realized that I didn’t even have a reason for keeping it in the box, or even for keeping the box itself. True, glancing over at it did make me smile and remember my wedding day, but it was the stopper, not the cheap box, that was the keepsake. I tossed the box into the recycle bin, and brought the stopper down to the kitchen to be used. I still think of the wedding when I see the stopper in the drawer, or capping a bottle of wine, but now my memento also has a useful function.
Try picking up one item of your own clutter, and giving it new life as a useful item in your home!
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@ Joshua - Thanks for the Stumble and subscription!
Getting rid of the stuff you don’t need is a great start, because it gives you more room to organize all the things you do want to keep. 
Thank you! I am the most organized…unorganized person that I know. I signed up for your email. Next on the list is “Cable Clutter” I hate cables!
Gday Caitlin.
I think all of us have a little “horder” inside of us(Forgive me if spelt incorrectly)
We also have an impending move ahead & have boxes of christmas decs recently remove sitting in the lounge waiting to go into storage. We are hoping to locate to a larger house (renting for the interim) that will hold all of our “clutter”. A lot of it will be removed & those with plenty of life left in them get labelled for eBay. Most times I find that I keep forgetting about listing them therefore they sit around far too long.. until we decide again in the cycle that indeed they are to be listed on eBay! And so on…
Hey, good luck with your move later in the year!
@ Mandy - I have a couple posts about cable clutter, and I’m writing a new one shortly!
@ Socko - Good luck getting rid of as much clutter as you can before the move! Clutter can act like the proverbial goldfish in a new home, and grow to fill up all the new space!
There are also services you can look into that list items on eBay for you. I’ve never used one myself, but I have heard they work for people who don’t have the time to list their own items. They of course take a percentage of the money made, but it might be worth it to you just to get these items out of your home, in addition to making some money off them.
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I definitely need to apply that standard to some of the stuff that I have around. I think more of my clutter s stuff that I should have but need to put in an appropriate place, but getting rid of the stuff that I don’t need is a good place to start.
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