O Is For… Organization!
Contributed by Tina Holland.
I have a visceral reaction to the word Organization. I both love and hate it.
I love when each item in my house has its own spot on a shelf, in a drawer, on a hangar or in a closet. But when the laundry stacks up, books are scattered, or my latest craft project has exploded in glitter all over my office, then I feel like a failure and I hate organizing my house back to its happy state.
I accumulate less these days. Mostly because I don’t have the disposable income I had when I was employed so I’m more conscious of my purchases. I buy more ebooks and less real books, I check books and movies out from the library vs. purchasing them. I buy less clothes, because I spend my writing days in sweats and loungewear.
I still have too much and I just inherited more stuff. In some ways the stuff of my parents is harder to toss aside than the items I’ve accumulated over the years.
Enter “Swedish Death Cleaning.” Here is an article that talks about the concept as it relates to personal possessions.
https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/how-to-do-swedish-death-cleaning
I used to get every issue of Storage Magazine and I’ve read Marie Kondo’s “Life Changing Magic of Tidying ” but it just doesn’t resonate the way Swedish Death Cleaning does. One of the concepts of Swedish Death Cleaning is to prepare so your heirs do not inherit a mess. So in many ways it encompasses all aspects of your life to include finances. Perhaps that is why it is appealing. In handling the aspects of my parents estate, I knew what I did not want to leave my children – the burden of having to figure stuff out.
In some ways it is similar to Marie Kondo’s concept of keeping items that spark joy and minimization, but also it feels less punishing in the sense that I haven’t done anything wrong because that was then and this is now. I think too that it embraces a sense of legacy which feels very timely.
Tina, this is a thought-provoking way to regard organization. I love the idea of any concept of organization that doesn’t feel “punishing” because, like you, I feel like a failure when I can’t keep control of all the “stuff” in my home. Thanks for sharing a gentler way to tackle the clutter that builds up for so many of us!
This is second article am reading about cleaning and organisation. I so wanna implement it
Fed up of accumulation and mess at home
Will check out that swedish death cleaning tips 🙂 good dya
Dropping by from a to z “The Pensive”
Thanks for this – I sort of constantly feel like I’m organizing my clothing, books, and general bibelots. It’s hard to let go of any items with attached sentiments. One way I recently discovered is to donate to charity raffles, where, for example, that heavy crystal bowl may benefit someone else. I’ve decided not to worry about the heirs though, which takes some of the strain away. A list of local auctioneers, choice thrift shops, and the phone number for The Junk Guys will help them clear everything up in no time!