Downsize and Declutter: Advice From A Reformed Hoarder

I call myself "the reformed hoarder," and I'm being literal when I say that. I don't mean "hoarder" in the hyperbolic way that people use actual psychological terms nowadays (for example, "triggered" is when someone with PTSD is triggered by something that reminds them of their trauma, even if it's subconsciously so, like the war vet who gets triggered by fireworks noise. It doesn't mean "annoyed by some idiot on the internet"). I mean, I used to save my cat's fur that I brushed off them in a Ziploc baggie because I felt that throwing out their fur was like throwing out my cat. THAT'S hoarding.

Without getting into the whys and hows of how such thinking develops, let's just say it's not as easy as learning to organize better or making a weekend project of sorting through things to give away to the charity bin. Ziploc baggies of cat hair. That's not an organizing issue.

In fact, I am the most hyper-organized person alive when the amount of things to organize is manageable. At pretty much any job I had, I would get comments like, "WOW. You are SO organized," and "You have excellent spacial skills," and "How do you keep all this straight!?" and "Your apartment must be, like, Mr. Monk clean!" ...if they only knew. I once was hired as a temp to organize two rooms full of donations to a charity. I took piles of stuff and turned it into essentially a store where clients could "shop" for what they needed. I had no organizing supplies; I stacked four chairs with a broom and a hockey stick laid across and hung hangers of clothes on them for a "closet." I was told I should work in marketing, by the marketing director.

Moving into my current abode was really what prompted me to start dealing with my shit, literally and figuratively. Why? Because I couldn't hide the hoard away. I had a decent-sized 1980s bedroom closet (so, not a walk in), and a coffin-sized coat closet for storage. I was tripping over piles of my stuff, which was in my face at all times, driving me mad(der). I can Tetris a closet like no other (because mad spatial skills), but there just wasn't enough room to hide it all away. So, I began.

I started with paper. There was a lot of it. I had saved pretty much every piece of mail that had ever been addressed to me in my life, every drawing I had ever done (or my baby brother had given me), every story or poem or idea on scrap paper I had ever written. Again, not kidding. At one point, I tried to hide all the paper in the bedroom closet. It took up every square inch. I wish I had taken a photo. After working on it for some time, I bought a nice, four-drawer filing cabinet on clearance, determined that I was going to somehow take 100 cubic feet or whatever the hell the closet is of paper and squeeze it into those four drawers.

I am almost done. That stuff stacked on top is the last of the Paper Madness.

Tl;dr: I promise I understand when it's overwhelming. It can be done!

So, a few tips on downsizing and decluttering:

1. Take it in stages, especially if it's an anxiety-making thing (hello, hoarders!) for you. Don't make like a TV show and expect to get it all done in one week or weekend. Don't feel like you must follow the prescriptions of professional organizers who can cull possessions like a logger culls trees without remorse or emotion. They say you are not allowed to have a "maybe" pile because that's unproductive and you'll just put everything in that pile and keep it. Yeah, my sort piles were 15% give away, 25% keep, and 60% maybe for many cycles, for a looooong time. But I couldn't have done it any other way; that was anxiety-producing enough. Every bag in the charity bin or in the recycle bin or in the trash was a victory ...a victory I had won for myself. That's important. If you want the habit to change, you have to figure it out for yourself. You can't hire a trash cleanup crew like on the TV shows and expect that house to not revert back to what it was. You can’t throw out your kid's treasures that you think are trash and expect them not to collect more (and probably worse, because now they feel even more insecure since you threw their last collection away. That's what I did as a kid). Even if you're not an actual hoarder, you're just a regular old packrat, you have to learn how to let things go in a way that YOU can maintain (and how to avoid adding to the collection). Maybe that means you are not allowed to go to thrift stores because you will bring home all sorts of cool crap you don't need. Maybe that means you set limits for yourself (one of mine: I am not allowed to buy more yarn until I use up most of my yarn stash (I knit). I knit a bunch of mats for cats at shelters and scarves for homeless people in the winter in order to use a bunch up. Currently, all of my yarn fits in one trunk (I used to have two or three times that amount). Maybe that means you learn to say no if you are other people's hand-me-down target (being poor will do that - a lot of crap I had to get rid of, I didn't want in the first place but was foisted upon me by others). Whatever it is, you're not doing it wrong if your progress is slow and your process does not leave your home looking like a minimalism photo shoot. Progress is progress. I used to stress over that bag going out the door. Now I happy dance. Do you know how many "keep/maybe" boxes I opened back up months later and was able to let 3/4 of the contents go, shaking my head at myself like, "Why couldn't I let go of this??" All of them, pretty much. It gets easier. You'll get there. Travel at your own pace.

2. Once your clothes actually all fit in your closet (again, every article of clothing I had ever owned since I was sixteen, because hoarding. If you are not like that, you are thirty steps ahead), try this trick, which I started in January of this year: turn all of your hangers around backward. As you wear things, put them back in the closet facing the normal way. At the end of the year, you'll see what you haven't worn in a whole year, which makes choosing to get rid of things easier.

I have clothes in there that I am honestly surprised the hangers are still backwards. In my head, I thought I wore those things. Sometimes I have pulled a thing out to wear specifically because I was like, no, I like this, I'm going to wear it and save it, only to discover that I didn't like how it fit (I have dropped six sizes in recent years), which was "oh ...that's why I don't wear this anymore." I'll have to do a post of the purge from the closet this December/January, maybe. I've already pulled a few things out this month to give away.

Three (I have no idea why it won't fucking format number three correctly and keeps changing it to number one): If you are an actual hoarder like I was, or close, try therapy. I'm serious. It doesn't have to be ABOUT hoarding per se; but the more I dealt with my psychological shit and my anxiety levels went down, the more I could let go of my physical shit and bear the anxiety of doing so, which brought down my anxiety even more, and it became a beneficial spiral.

Four: you can recycle all sorts of odd things or find people who want them online, so if it makes you feel better to find things a new home, check out your local Next Door or Freecycle site, put your books in Little Free Libraries, see if there is a charity nearby that wants your old furniture, google or try Earth 911 to find a recycling facility, list any metal broken down appliances in the free section on Craigslist and metal scrappers will happily pick them up for you, etc. This takes more time than throwing everything in a dumpster or a thrift store bin, but if it helps you let go, then do it! Obviously not everything can go this way, but it helped me let go of a lot of stuff.

Five: make like you're in the depression, and "use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without." Being poor rather lends itself to this ethic, but conversely, lends itself to hoarding as well (because you don't know when or if you will be able to buy something if you need it again). If you are financially well off, pretend like you aren't and start making dinners out of what you have on hand to clear out your pantry, don't automatically replace things that break (or perhaps fix them instead), and patch that hole in your sweater. It's easier to let go when you have truly used up and worn out things; it's harder when you think, "but it's still good." This will also help keep you from adding to the mess with "retail therapy."

My goal is to fit into a tiny house. Yes, really! That would not have been possible if I hadn't started this process years ago. But now I can see it as an actual, achieveable goal!

And then my home really WILL be Mr. Monk organized!

What are your decluttering goals? Share in the comments! :)