One: stop the inflow!

Are you overwhelmed by your stuff, struggling to keep your house tidy, or finding it hard to focus on what’s most important to you? This is for you.

Welcome to my series, “Make a Start on Decluttering”. Named so because few people can do it in one fell swoop.

I’ll be releasing these posts over the next few weeks, and while there are practical, how-to tips in each post, the focus is on changing your mindset, and reframing how you look at things, to make decluttering possible.

I have personal experience. I have twice been overwhelmed by my stuff, and twice had to fix it. Let me tell you I’m not going back for a third try!

(By the way, I’ve got a bookish competition running right now … see here. ☺️)

Overconsumption has become surprisingly normal.

One: Stop the inflow

You can declutter until the cows come home. But if you keep bringing stuff into your home, your hard work will come undone.

Shopping is the principal way that new stuff enters most homes, though some people also have influxes of family items. They come with their own set of issues, being sentimental. I’ll write more about those in a later post. 

Just know there’s no need to win against the inflow before starting on physical decluttering. That’s not why I’m placing this point first. It’s not about achieving it, or overcoming it, before you move on.

Rather, it’s about awareness and beginning the inner work on the emotional and habitual forces that have caused you to become overwhelmed with stuff you can’t control.

Ignore stopping the inflow at your peril. Yet, don’t feel despondent. Change is hard for us all - it’s hard for me! But it is possible. So possible.

Shiny, new, and hard to resist…

The Diderot Effect

This phenomenon can occur when you buy something new, and it’s handy to understand and recognise it. This isn’t some newfangled thing people made up in the 2010s when the idea of minimalist living kicked off. It was first written about back in the 1700s when Denis Diderot noticed his nice new dressing gown made many of his other possessions seem, well … old hat, and in need of an update. 

That it was a dressing gown that helped Diderot notice this is very amusing to me. I can only imagine it was a very nice one. Nicer than my faded chenille number, I’m sure. But moving on … (🤭)

The takeaway here is that even if you aren’t consciously aware of the phenomenon’s workings in your life, Diderot warned us that buying something new can set off a “spending spiral”.

This spending spiral occurs as your brain notices the difference between the shiny new thing and the old, less cheerful things. This can lead you to want to update further possessions in keeping with your newer, pretty thingamajig.

There’s no need to go on a permanent ‘no-buy’ to avoid the phenomenon. A little awareness goes a long way.

Examine your thoughts and feelings after spending on something new and try to catch yourself before you suddenly have not only one new item, but five (that you never really intended)!

I love my pink casserole, and I will not lie: it set off the Diderot effect. I made another couple of purchases after that. Then I caught myself and firmly asked, ‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?!!’ I tough-loved myself and, fortunately, I listened. But it won’t be the last time I have to get tough.🤷🏻‍♀️

You don’t have to own everything

This is a concept that I have found helpful, and you might even say that I love it. It’s so exquisite.

You can love and appreciate things without having to own them. 💥

Imagine! Can it really be true? Yes, indeedy. It can be true. It is true.

It sounds bizarre in this hyper-consumerist environment we’ve got going on. But you can go against your mind and the lies your heart might tell you; you can go against advertising, and definitely against the influencers.

You can simply admire something without grasping for it. You don’t have to haemorrhage cash and end up with another unnecessary thing to store at home just because it looked pretty or because you saw it ten times in Instagram posts today.

Really.

Steven Wright is a comedian who once joked,

‘I have the world’s largest collection of seashells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you’ve seen some of it.’

And his joke is funny!

But more than that, there’s wisdom in it.

So much so that I’ll always remember the moment I first heard it and got it. (It was actually in a TED talk on minimalism. I’ll post the link if I come across it again)

The concept blew my mind.

You know, I once had half a dozen rotary phones and more than half a dozen typewriters - and I was just beginning to ramp up. Can you imagine? No shade on someone with the space, and time, and deep love for collecting. But those weren’t my only collections either. Things were getting crazy.

But this idea that we don’t have to own everything … it opened my mind. It opened my heart. It helped me let go of things I didn’t have the capacity to keep good and enjoy. No time, no space. They were weighing me down.

Some of my “stuff” has even been ruined by pests and mildew. The issue of storing so much that you can’t look after it was even referenced in the Bible, in Matthew 6:19:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”

When I look back I can see how much I’ve wasted - so much money and so many things. But everyday we each have a choice to continue down the same path or to change direction.

And it turns out that I can admire the beautiful things in the world without feeling like I “need to have them for myself”. And so can you. 👍🏻👌🏻

Another example: the amount of art and craft supplies I had. I mean … wow. No one would have the time, not to mention the energy, to really use them. I had to be honest with myself in the end and just let. them. go.

So, my advice is to start now, letting these new understandings mull around in your mind. Let them take hold. Let them help tweak the way you think and decide on spending, and on your “stuff”.

Let them underpin all the other work you do towards your decluttering project.

You’ve got this! 💪🏻✨

Online shopping has really opened up the options - we can shop for more variety and at any time of the day. Positives, yes, but plenty of negatives.

Strategy:

Want something new? If it’s not essential, add it to a wish list … and wait.

How long you wait is up to you. Commonly, people wait a week or a month.

After that time, if you still want the item and you have the means (financially) and the space to store it, go for it. Nobody is stopping you.

But it’s amazing how many times you never think about the item again or, if you do, buying it loses its urgency.

This has worked for me many times, and although it didn’t involve placing the item on a list, a similar process occurred to me just last week in a department store. I got excited to see their Halloween decor display (as I do 🎃🤷🏻‍♀️), and before I knew it, I was carrying around a plastic witch’s cauldron with full intention to buy it. 🙄

By the time I’d done a couple of other things in-store, though, I realised I didn’t need it and, more than that, I didn’t want it. I didn’t!

The last thing I’m saying is that you have to give up buying in general. I’m simply saying that we don’t need to buy as much. We don’t need to buy without thinking. Awareness is a beautiful thing. 💛

It’s really hard for me to stick to one topic with decluttering and letting go of stuff, because there is so much I want to share with you. But I’m going to be patient, keep on writing, and hope that my scribblings and advice will find their target audience, landing with those who need to hear it. ❤️

Thanks for reading, lovelies. I’ll be back shortly with part two.

Morgan x 💝

P.S. I’d love to have you join my email list to receive my (very occasional) news. Most emails are a wrap-up about my fiction writing, with some links to blogs I’ve written (whether it’s decluttering, writing, or simply my view of life). Plus, occasional sales offers and competitions.