“Let It Go…“

We all have stuff. We Americans are notorious for having more stuff than pretty much everyone else in the world. I was recently in a conversation in which the term “stuffitis” came up. While it may sound like a silly, made-up word, I knew exactly what we were talking about. But how do you know for sure if you have it and what to do about it?

Turns out, stuffitis appears in the Urban Dictionary. It’s defined as “A condition of human suffering, in owning way too much stuff, and realizing that one owns too much stuff.”

So… I initially wouldn’t have included the part about “realizing” that you own too much stuff. Many people have too much stuff by my standards, but perhaps they don’t know it. The threshold is different for everyone. But I suppose I have to agree that the real problem is when your stuff gets to the point where it’s bothering YOU. And I definitely agree with the “suffering” part.

The first step in recovery is of course admitting you have a problem. So do you?

You may ask yourself…

Here are some questions to ask yourself to know if you may be “infected.”

• Do I have more stuff than I can reasonably manage?
• Am I spending a lot of time straightening and I give up before I ever get around to actually cleaning?
• Do my floors or flat surfaces serve as storage in my home?
• Am I avoiding a closet, basement, attic, or garage because of what’s in it?
• Do I find myself lamenting over my house’s lack of adequate square footage or storage?

If you can answer any or all of these questions in the affirmative, you may be afflicted with stuffitis.

Two major contributing factors

As Americans, I think we’re particularly predisposed to stuffitis because of two factors in particular:

The first one is the level of affluence in our country. Even “poor” people here often have an excess of stuff.

The second major factor is the busy pace of life, which often keeps us from adequately keeping our stuff under control. Compared to the lifestyle in many other countries, we stay at a feverish pace at work and school and even in pursuit of leisure.  Where there is barely time to sit down to even one relaxing meal in a day, the time it takes to maintain our stuff and stay organized is often squeezed out from being anywhere near top priority.

Acute or Chronic?

Stuffitis can also be acute or chronic. And acute stuffitis can definitely turn chronic. Let me explain. Whenever any of us have major life changes, it often introduces more stuff into our lives, while at the same time creating a time crunch.

A few examples of major life changes–

• new babies
• children starting school or college
• weddings
• deaths of loved ones and funerals
• caring for sick or aging parents
• bouts of physical or mental illness

All of these events can bring on an acute case of stuffitis. However, if we never return to a place of equilibrium (i.e. everything has a place), at least where our stuff is concerned, the stuffitis can turn chronic.

Stuffitis is a little like taxes. You pay taxes because you make money. In the same way, you have stuffitis because you have stuff—but perhaps an overabundance of it.

But with stuffitis, at some point there is a reckoning. And unlike taxes, you can’t really cheat it, except with death. But then your children will have to clean up the consequences of your stuffitis. So like a tax, it must be paid. (Wow! That got grim in a hurry…)

So I have list of steps you can take if you are suffering from a case of stuffitis, and you are ready and WANT to do something about it:

1. STOP buying containers.

It may seem like a strange place to start, but don’t be fooled. Containers are stuff. There are two types of people who love containers: the very organized and those who aren’t but really want to be. In three years of working as a part-time professional organizer, the most containers I’ve ever seen were in some of the most disorganized, over-stuffed places I’ve ever seen.

Containers don’t help you get organized any more than buying skinny clothes help you lose weight. In fact they exacerbate the problem because they give you the illusion you are doing something about it. We have entire stores devoted to containers that entice us to chase after the ideal, most clever, best-looking storage for our stuff, rather than face the fact that we have too much of it.

Most houses built in the last seventy five years or so have lots of built-in storage. (One hundred years ago is a different story…) On top of that we buy furniture that has built-in storage. The plain truth is that most of us have ENOUGH storage, and the overage that doesn’t fit is indicative of stuffitis.

Containers should primarily be used to keep things tidy and separated within your built-in storage. We truly rarely have the need for lots of extra (especially large) storage bins. And when you actually begin to do something about your stuff, I can almost guarantee you already have enough bins, boxes, and containers on hand to get the job done.

2. Enlist help.

You could go it alone, but if you’ve tried and given up before, it could be that having someone to help or at least be there is the ticket. 

Family

Family is the obvious solution here, but not always the best. People who may live with and are frustrated by your stuffitis, or who may berate and judge you on account of it can make things worse.

On the other hand, culling through your belongings is a very intimate process, and family often will stick by you through thick and thin. So family is by far the the most common choice, where help is concerned. Just remember, it might be a good idea to set some ground rules in the name of civility. 

Friends

Friends are a great solution, but it takes GOOD friends (or weird people like me who enjoy organizing) to stick with you through what is often a lengthy, tedious task. Consider trading time with your friends and help them with their own stuffitis or other tasks with which they may need help.

Body Double?

If you are willing and able to do much of the work yourself, however, you may be able to get away with a friend who will agree to simply come and BE with you, to hold you accountable to staying on task. They can even “be with you” virtually. 

In the organizing world, we call this person a “body double.” Someone to simply be there to keep you focused. Body doubles are especially good for someone who may deal with an attention deficit (diagnosed or not). But it can also work if your ideal helper does not live in close proximity to you.

P.O. No, Not a Parole Officer…

Finally, if you have the means and the inclination, there are lots of great professional organizers that can help you tackle your stuffitis. I belonged to NAPO during my time as a pro organizer, and we were bound by a code of ethics and did loads of continuing ed in order to best serve our clients. It’s important to find someone with which you personally jibe, since as I mentioned, the process is quite personal. But if stuffitis is a real struggle for you, and you have the means, a PO could be money well spent.

Most POs also offer virtual organizing, which is more than just body doubling, and may cost the same or sometimes less than in-person organizing. I have done virtual organizing by way of FaceTime, professionally and also just informally with friends. 

3. Start…small.

But do START. Every organizing client I’ve ever had (TO. A. PERSON.) has said, “I just don’t know where to start.” The idea is perhaps that there must be a right and wrong place to start and there must be really horrible consequences for starting in the wrong place.

The truth is that the real danger lies in NOT starting. Starting in the wrong place or a less than ideal place could cause you to become discouraged or could make the task perhaps harder than it has to be. But much like buying more containers, waiting to find the perfect place to start may just be another avoidance tactic, conscious or not. 

So start small–more in terms of the amount of decision-making required than in terms of actual physical space. Don’t dive into a bin of family photos and mementos as your first step. Think of a place in the house that is fairly emotionally neutral. The kitchen might be a good place, as long as cooking is not your intense passion and you own every utensil and cooking implement that your similarly passionate “Nana” passed down to you.

Bathrooms are another good place for some quick wins and to start practicing using your decision-making muscle. And bathrooms are physically small places, so even though the storage may be packed with many items, there’s not a lot of storage in total. A no-brainer is to start with a medicine cabinet. Dispose of expired medicines, lotions and potions. For a step by step procedure see this post.

4. Know yourself.

If you are the type person that gets overwhelmed with a mess, don’t drag everything out of all your kitchen cabinets at once. Start with one drawer or cabinet at a time, and complete it before moving on.

You will most likely have to do some tweaking before the entire room is done. For example, you may have two different spots where you find serving bowls or knives, and combining those may make sense, causing you to have to do a little backtracking–more so than if you had dragged everything out and put “like with like” from the beginning. But the tradeoff is a good one if it keeps you from wrecking your kitchen for weeks on end because you get paralyzed from the enormity of the mess and cannot move forward.

Either way, generally follow the rule of putting things that are alike together and close to where they’re used, eliminating duplicates and unused items.

[An aside…]

[Throw out foods, drugs, or cosmetics that are past their expiration or “best by” date or reasonable shelf life. If you save them in the name of frugality, you’re keeping yourself from using current items while they’re still fresh, putting yourself in a perpetual cycle of using old products. Pay attention to what you throw out to inform future buying or restrain yourself from it. And get in the habit of only using products that are optimally fresh. It’s actually the opposite of wasteful. It trains you not to overbuy!]

Go for the low-hanging fruit

Throwing out expired items takes almost NO decision making, but builds some momentum. Next, examine items that seldom get used. It’s not imperative to throw out things that only get used occasionally, but weigh the value of hanging on to those items against the cost of the space in which they reside. 

And if you don’t think space is costly, take a look at a real estate website and see what home square footage is going for these days—or divide the square footage of your own home by your total mortgage including interest!

Other rooms that may be large may still be “small” in terms of “de-stuffifying.” My living room, for instance, is one of the largest rooms in the house, but has very little in the way of storage. If that’s the case in your home, your living room might be a good place to start. It’s generally where you receive guests, and spend time relaxing, so clearing the clutter there can have a huge impact.

5. MOVE.

Or at least pretend you are going to. Most of the time when you move, you take a hard look at your things and decide if they’re worth the hassle of packing and moving.

If you treat one room at a time as if you’re moving and pull everything out of the storage spaces, it makes it easier to identify what doesn’t belong. Additionally, just putting items in a different context sometimes gives you clarity on where they should go and whether or not you should keep them.

When we move, we’re forced to make decisions about where to put things in our new home that makes most logical sense, according to how and when we use it. As you “pretend move,” try to objectively decide if things are in the most reasonable place to facilitate their use, and if they are useful or at least well-loved.

I suspect that the closest that most of us come to some sort of equilibrium like I mentioned earlier is when we move. The last thing we want in a new place is to jumble it up with boxes and bins sitting in a corner, or stacks of junk on the flat surfaces. We usually work hard for weeks and sometimes months finding homes for everything.

Moving automatically causes us to re-evaluate our stuff

This idea of “pretend moving” was reinforced to me lately as I helped move a family member who had been in the same house for forty years, and also helped a friend who had lived in the same home for twenty years to do some cleaning out.

We discarded items that would have never been kept and certainly not packed up for a move if they had been unearthed in recent years. Both my family members and my friend had been living in less space than they could have on account of items that were lurking and taking up valuable storage space.

6. Adjust your mindset.

In addition to “moving” periodically, you have to accept the fact that you can NEVER STOP editing your stuff. It’s a fact of life.

Marie Kondo may have been under the impression when she wrote her first bestseller, that you can tidy once and for all. This, however, was prior to her marrying and having children. As I mentioned before, every life change brings on new risk factors for stuffitis. And living with other people, while rewarding and worth it, compounds the odds.

While I think a change of mindset and a concentrated whole house clean-out can make maintenance a lot easier, I don’t think most of us (not even Kondo) can take a “one and done” approach with our stuff.

Moreover, if stuffitis is a recurring, crippling struggle for you, you might consider paying for regular help, seeking counseling, or embracing minimalism, or all three! At the very least, I would recommend working on a mindset that de-emphasizes things.

We do not honor ourselves, God, or His creation by overconsumption and ownership of too many things. For some inspiration, check out these scriptures: Matthew 16:19-20, Luke 12:34, Luke 12: 19-21, 1 John 2:15, Proverbs 27:20, James 5:2-3.

7. STEM THE FLOW.

I can’t emphasize this one enough: It does you little good to be willing to let things go if you have a bad habit of constantly bringing more stuff into your home. I’ve mentioned equilibrium several times: You have achieved equilibrium when everything has a home in your home. Everybody knows what this looks like. We call it tidy. When everything has a home, cleaning is easy. Finding things is easy. Your stuff doesn’t rule over you. 

Do not, I repeat, do not shop recreationally. Unless it’s shop-looking (without buying! i.e. “recon”). You’d be better off buying gas and going for a ride in the country or seeing a movie. Shopping should not be a form of escape or entertainment. 

Need ≠ Want

Shop carefully for the things you need (NOT WANT). And make every effort not to bring something new into your home without removing its predecessor. Or at least something that functions the same, or takes up the same space. If you have achieved balance or equilibrium with your belongings, introducing something new WILL throw off that balance. 

Try to pay attention to the types of things you repeatedly bring into the house. Much like buying containers to try to fix your stuffitis, if you feel like you’re struggling to keep the house clean, you may be bringing in an excess of cleaning products. On the other hand, if you’re struggling with self-image, you may be loading up on clothing or beauty products. Using the one-in, one-out rule can help to pinpoint your problem areas that are making your stuffitis flare up.

You’ll never see improvement until you make dealing with your stuffitis PRIORITY.

Many of us end up being forced to deal with stuffitis in times of crisis, when our plate is already full. For example, an injury or sickness forces many people to have to clear out areas of their home for caregivers to be able to function or to make way for special equipment. Or an unexpected move precipitates our having to deal with backlogged accumulated stuff.

The more ideal approach is to recognize stuffitis when you don’t have any major life crises going on. And make it a priority to deal with your extra stuff just as you would regular home maintenance.

And talk about life-changing! I believe you get back every moment of effort you invest in overcoming your stuffitis. You save time, money and energy in having things in their place and easy to find. And as a byproduct you’ll hopefully build the margin in your own life to minister to others as those inevitable life-crises roll around.

I speak from first-hand experience on stuffitis as well as from an organizer’s perspective on the subject. So if stuffitis is where you’re living right now, know that it’s a common ailment. Also know that you don’t have to continue to live with it. You can live well with less. Even if it’s a long hard struggle to get there. I feel your pain and I’m pulling for you.

What about you? Are you dealing with acute or chronic stuffitis? How do you go about dealing with it? Please share in the comments!

Blessings,