Archive for the 'Decluttering' Category

My landlord visited my flat recently, and saw all the bags of stuff I am storing up for the shop, as well as the clutter I am not giving up. “You have a lot of stock”, he said “That is fine. But you should not bring in anything more.”

I was glad to hear that I have a lot of stock, but I did not want to lose my tenancy so I started to move stuff to my mother’s house. She will not evict me because I do not live there. My old bedroom is now full and I have started taking over the guest room for sorting purposes.

It’s time to sort because I’m finally working out how to display the goods in my shop. There are lots of possible ways to categorise the things I loved, things I still love, things I made,  things I regret buying, things I picked up off the street, things people gave me but I don’t know why etc. etc.. It is going in the direction of putting objects into groups with a name, such as: “You say Tat, I say Treasure” and “Presents: welcome and unwelcome”.

I’m starting to struggle with the realisation that my things will be going for good, and I was showing my friend Deirdre all the stuff I am hoping to reclaim. She was laughing at me and advising I label these “high risk” and keep them near me in the shop, at all times!  Perhaps I should tie them to me, or carry them around in a bag, or hide them in the shop and see if they get found by someone who wants them as much as me…

Declutter, my arse    

Here’s a task you can try, to help you declutter your clothes:

1.  From memory, write down a list of all the clothes you own.

2.  Compare this with your wardrobe.

3.  Now throw out everything you forgot to write down.

This is the kind of madness you can read in some of the “How to Declutter” articles and websites. The idea is that if you have things which you can’t recall then you must not need them. But I can barely remember my height, weight, or who owns what in the flat where I live, let alone all the clothes I own.

Because of my need to gather stock for the Help Me! Help Me! shop, I have been trying to change my attitude towards decluttering, and do it more often. It is becoming a bit of a game: what can I let go of this week that I wouldn’t last week?

I was decluttering in my flat recently and picked out a few of my wineglasses to give away. I thought I would offer them to my flatmate first in case she wanted them. She is Estonian and her English is excellent but sometimes she gets muddled and uses English in strange ways. She talks about the good police person, bad police person, and when I laugh she warns me not to “sell her for comedy”.

This time she was definite and coherent. “Priscilla” she said, “I know you do not like this glass, but it belongs to me and I would like it if you would not declutter my things.”