The relationship we build to the things we surround ourselves with bears more than a fleeting resemblance with our human relationships: we go in slowly, get acquainted with a presence, then take that presence for granted and normal.

And ultimately there comes a time when we could scarcely imagine a life without that person – or those things – that we have welcomed into our life. But sometimes that relationship has to end.

There are several categories of things that I tend to come across in the homes of most people I work with – and to some degree, the same applies to workspaces.

Pretty much all of my clients have these things: clothes, paperwork, and books. And most of those clients tend to have at least one of these three categories that have grown out of proportion and have turned into a problem.

I have worked with a long series of very diverse clients over the years, and I have come to understand that sometimes the decluttering sessions can end up not being about reducing the number of items, or making a space liveable again. In many cases it’s not even about emotional release or dealing with sentimental attachments.

Sometimes it’s about something completely different…

Do you own a lot of DVDs? I bet you do, even though you may also have a subscription to a lot of TV channels, maybe even Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube Red or others.

The question to ponder now is this one: how often do you realistically pull out a DVD and watch it?

Some thoughts about this introduction to the subject:

Yes, I know: who in the world still listens to music from physical media? You’d be surprised to hear that an awful lot of people hold on to CDs, simply because they have a huge collection and they are content with the music they are used to.

And that is without even considering the many vinyl lovers out there!

Since we are looking at linguistics, here is another pair of words that have ended up being used in ways that make them pretty much interchangeable, especially when it comes to advertising.

The thing is, though: they have distinctly different meanings, and mixing them up in your mind is a sure-fire way to make you doubt any decisions you might be ready to make when it comes to decluttering!

This is a bit of an excursion into linguistics, and I hope you’ll find some solace in the knowledge that it will lead to decluttering about halfway into this blog. Maybe you are intrigued by this change in pace, though. Good for you!

Why bring this discussion up in a decluttering blog? Well, it’s an important consideration when it comes to making decisions on adding to what you own. A consideration that I would think of as being much more difficult to make than the distinction between ‘I need’ or ‘I want’…

I have written and talked about paperwork at length, and usually I have been focusing on diverse elements of dealing with paperwork, be it at the point of entry (i.e., your physical mailbox or your email inbox), your desk (i.e., either a real desk or whichever space you usually deal with your papers) or any kind of filing system you may have set up for things you want to keep.

Looks like a pretty complete list of things to do with paperwork, doesn’t it? Look closely, though: it does only look at the physical aspects of this matter, not the mental struggle you experience when dealing with paperwork…

You may have seen mention on social media of people giving up something for a certain period of time, usually for a month or a week. Alternatively, some have decided to regularly stop tweeting on, e.g., Tuesday and Friday, or not drink caffeine for one day each week.

Many of these activities are labelled as ‘challenges’ to beat others, but if anything we are challenging our own resolve by going through this perceived ‘ordeal’.

In all likelihood you have a home of some sorts: it doesn’t matter if you own a sprawling mansion, if you live in a rental flat, or if you are couch-surfing with a friend for the duration. Wherever you put down your head is where your home is, right now.

A home serves a lot of purposes, and in my work I meet people living in all manner of situations. In the majority of cases, my intervention in based on the notions of ‘too much’, ‘overwhelmed’, ‘disorganised’ and ‘time running out’. But is that all there is to decluttering?