There is a lot that can be said about minimalism and the Tiny House movement, of course, and in general I’m very much on board with what both of those movements bring to the table. Minimalism is impressive in its stance to minimise the number of items in one’s household, and a tiny house has a lot of advantages over a regular flat or house.

Of course, they also have their drawbacks. Minimalism can easily come across as to the outsiders as having crossed a line and leaving behind comfort and variation and living in a tiny house can feel claustrophobic to those who aspire to live in wide and open spaces. I would assume that there are minimalists out there who would not want to live in a tiny house, as well as tiny house dwellers who are far from organised and minimalist.

We live in times where being active all the time is equalled to being successful. While this is not necessarily the truth, most of us will have bought into this idea to some degree. Let’s be clear about this: I’m not saying this is completely wrong. It can have a disastrous effect on your mental health, though.

Since we have at least half adopted that line of thought, it is increasingly difficult to do something that cannot be vaguely qualified as ‘productive’. The trouble is that quality time to yourself is only beneficial to yourself and while it is useful to you it never registers as ‘productive’ to others. And that leads to two effects: others will see you doing nothing of consequence and you’ll feel bad for being unproductive. Let’s tackle those:

As mentioned in the previous post, there are some clear differences between decluttering men and women, as far as I have picked up on them. One of those is related to our ability to collect things and how we accumulate items that fall into the broad category of ‘a collection’.

Keep in mind that a collection does not have to consist of physical items, but could be anything you can think of. Even if you believe that you are not a collector, on some level you’ll find an area in your life, in your home, in your free time, where you do actually collect things.

Decluttering as an industry is often portrayed as something that mostly women are involved in. It is most certainly true that the majority of professionals in the industry appear to be women. When it comes to clients, that image is a little more varied, and in my personal experience, I had my fair share of male clients. However, that is not necessarily what I hear from my colleagues…

This made me think that the perception in this matter may be a little biased and I started considering what the main differences could be.

Sometimes decluttering is about stopping completely and doing nothing. How could doing nothing achieve anything? Will my space suddenly clear itself of anything that has had its day? Of course not. The fact of the matter is this: if you get too embroiled in trying to let go of things your mind is going to start playing tricks on you.

It’s a question of no longer seeing the wood for the trees. When you spend a lot of time trying to achieve one particular thing, your vision may become blurred, for a number of different reasons.

In a previous post we looked at electronic storage and the usefulness of removing apps and programs you do not use any more. This time, let’s take a close look at the actual machinery that you use.

We all have some gadgets in our homes that seemed unmissable when we bought them and proudly brought them in. We were excited to use them for the first time and then found that they weren’t quite as useful as they seemed at first…

Most of us will likely have a computer or a smart phone that is in constant use. You’ll also find yourself downloading and installing apps on your phone all the time, or updating programs or operating systems on your computer on occasion.

All this seems innocuous but not only leaves traces on your data trail, but also may clog up your storage space and make thing run slower than necessary.

Decluttering can be a challenging prospect to go into and – like so many resolutions – often ends as soon as you start. This can have a multitude of reasons: you may run out of time, you forget, you don’t feel it’s all that important, you are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work it requires… take your pick.

But maybe there are other ways to do this that are more suitable for your particular needs and style?

Feeling lonely means feeling that there aren’t a lot of people who are ‘there for you’. Quite apart from the notion that this may just be a thought in someone’s head and they may find that reaching out will conjure up people who care about them, it makes it more likely that they retreat into a world where the things they own end up being imbued with emotional attachment that otherwise would be reserved for the people in their life.

This is the last of a three-part series on the subject of “clutter and loneliness”. I recommend watching Matt D’Avella’s video on the subject, if you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3aIQuMWJCA&vl=en

Besides the way we deal with clutter at home, loneliness  also has an effect on how we accumulate clutter. Of course, it does not make you go out and buy more stuff, but it certainly has an effect on the frequency and urgency with which we likely to add more items to what constitutes our ‘home collection’. Let’s look at some basic ideas about this…

This is the second of a three-part series on the subject of “clutter and loneliness”. I recommend watching Matt D’Avella’s video on the subject, if you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3aIQuMWJCA&vl=en