5 Awful Truths You Should Know About Decluttering

You've decided to declutter!  Spring is springing, and your house is feeling crowded, dark, and grubby.  Things are coming alive outside, so why not add some life and energy inside?

I'm glad you're here.  Decluttering is one door to a life of freedom, purpose, and contentment.  It's totally worth the time and effort, which can be considerable.  But it's an investment in your happier future, with less stress, more time, and more focus.  Yay for all of that!

But I think I should warn you about some of the not-so-great aspects that you're going to discover as you follow this path.  Believe me, the end is worth it, but along the way you're going to be faced with some awful truths.

5 truths you don't want to hear but need to know

1.  Decluttering alone won't automatically change your life.

I promise a lot when I talk about decluttering.  And everything I say is true – but it's possible to do a gigantic purge and not get the life change you're looking for.  Decluttering can be like a Band-Aid for a compound fracture, when what you really need is surgery and a cast.

That's because many of us clean out tons of stuff we've accumulated, stuff we don't need or use, maybe even stuff we were given or voluntarily took from a loved one who has passed away.  But the first thing we do once the clutter is cleared is look at our new, lighter, emptier spaces and think, "Wow, this place looks bare!  It doesn't look like what I'm used to.  It seems like I'm missing something!"

And we make a trip to Target or Walmart or HomeGoods, or we go online to Amazon or Etsy, and we start filling the spaces again.

I say this with compassion, because I did it myself for many years.  I'd clear out a bunch of stuff I no longer used or wanted, and as soon as I held a garage sale or made my donation to Goodwill, I'd go right out and buy new stuff.  Sometimes I was thinking about the new stuff I wanted even before I purged.

This declutter ➞ shop ➞ declutter ➞ shop rhythm isn't really decluttering.  It's consumerism in disguise.

I thought that if I followed the "one in, one out" rule, I could keep shopping or accepting freebies.  But I never examined my behavior or my constant longing for new things.  I never thought twice about following a new trend or trading up from what I already owned.  I didn't think about buying items that I could keep and care for long-term.

It wasn't until I actually dealt with my shopping addiction that I began to make real headway toward simplifying my life.  Along the way, I learned gratitude, stopped competing and comparing, became more self-reliant, boosted my creativity, and so much more.

Related article:  End Binge and Purge: 4 Ways to Break Free of a Shopping Addiction

2.  Decluttering is hard.

Decluttering is time-consuming and decision-heavy.  It can be discouraging when you see how much tiring, physical work there is to do and how difficult it is to figure out what to do with everything you're purging.

But living with clutter is also hard.  You lose time looking for things you know you have buried somewhere in the mess.  It's harder to clean, whether you're trying to sanitize a countertop or even just run the vacuum cleaner.  If your clutter is the result of constant "retail therapy," you may also be dealing with all the stresses and limitations that come with debt.

Many studies show that living in a cluttered home is stressful.  In fact, chemically it places us in an ongoing fight-or-flight response, which taxes the resources we need to deal with other stressors in our lives.  Clutter not only makes us anxious, but it can affect our sleep, focus, memory, productivity, and immune response.  It can even make us fat.

So yes, decluttering is hard, but the alternative is even harder.

3.  Just because Grandma loved it doesn't mean you have to keep it forever.

Many of us are sentimental about things we or a loved one collected.  My mother-in-law has a souvenir spoon collection that her aunt accumulated during her travels to different states and countries around the world.  Mom didn't participate in those travels, so the spoons don't jog any memories for her.  But she still displays the spoons in a special wooden holder because they meant something to Aunt Eunie.

Someday that spoon collection will hang in an antique store, and some who see it may wonder how anyone could be cold-hearted enough to give away this obviously cherished collection.  They'll criticize the callous, ungrateful people who didn't keep the dusty items that someone else loved.

Maybe you've been feeling that way about an older family member's collection, or maybe you're the collector.  (I've done it too!)  You've invested a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of emotion in your search.  So of course it has to mean something.  Your collection has to be valuable, because you've invested so much to acquire it.  It would be hard to admit that if your house caught fire, you'd grab your kids and your pets and leave it behind!

The awful truth is that almost all of the stuff we collect and display has no real value.  We barely look at it unless someone new visits and they're forced to gaze politely while we show it off.  It's a money pit and a conversation starter.  (Don't we have anything else interesting to talk about?)  I'll prove it with #4.

4.  No one wants your stuff.

Maybe your Dad always told you that his coin collection was going to put you through college.  Maybe you thought your Beanie Babies from the early 90s were going to be valuable.  But the truth is, no one wants your stuff.

There are many, many articles about how older generations are downsizing and discovering that their kids don't want their stuff, and that it's not worth more than a fraction of what they paid or believed they could get for it.  They may sell some of it on eBay or Craigslist or hold an estate sale, but there's plenty they have to just donate in order to be rid of it.

Sometimes even the thrift stores don't want some items because they know they won't be able to sell them either.  This is an awful truth:  It's not worth anything if no one wants it.

Unfortunately, tons of things are winding up in landfills.  I don't even want to tell you how many truckloads of stuff my husband took to the dump as he cleared out his parent's long-time home after his father died and his mom moved to live near his oldest brother.  It was obscene.  But after family members took the few things they felt attached to, after we tried to sell things, after we tried to give things away, there was still a ton of stuff that no one wanted.  The truth is, no one had wanted it for a long time, because it moldered in storage for decades.

The only solution is to buy less.  If we buy only what we need, and then use it up or wear it out, we'll accumulate much less junk.  We can have comfortable, interesting lives without buying so much, but first we have to wake up from the consumerist dream.

Related article:  Getting Read for the Great Transfer and How to Make It Easier

5.  There's no magic formula.

There's no special secret to decluttering.  There are many methods, but there isn't one that's perfectly right for everyone.  (However, if you'd like to have hundreds of ideas and a lot of encouragement, you'll appreciate my books Goodbye, Clutter and Minimalist Basics, available on Amazon.*)

* This blog is powered by reader support.  If you buy through my links, I may earn a small commission.

You can use the KonMari method, and declutter category by category, keeping only what "sparks joy."  You can play the 30-day Minimalism Game, and remove increasing numbers of items each day for a month.  You can even start with just five minutes.  But in the end, it doesn't matter how creative the system is or how many before-and-after pictures you take or even whether you read my books.  What matters is that you roll up your sleeves and get started, and then keep going.

Author and entrepreneur Brian P. Moran puts it this way:

The barrier standing between you and what you are truly capable of is not a lack of information, ideas, or techniques.  

The secret sauce is execution.

You don't need to be perfect, you just need to show up.  Take the first step.  Don't worry about being amazing – just be consistent.  That steady process will transform your home and your life.