If you're someone who gets sentimentally attached to a lot of things, it's
possible to clear out everything that doesn't pass the Three Question Clutter
Test and still have a cluttered home. If your sentimental items tend to take
over your home, the hard truth is that the only way you're going to achieve a
decluttered and organised home is to reduce the amount of sentimental stuff you keep.
It can help to develop "a curators eye". Imagine you're helping someone ELSE
create an archive. should this item go in it?
does it do a good job of promoting happy memories? Does it stand out or is it hard
to spot because there's so much other stuff around it? If it's drowned out by
other stuff, which of those objects is most important to you? What's the best
way to preserve and/or display the item? This is particularly good for ornaments.
Stand in the doorway of your lounge and pretend you're a guest seeing it for the first
time. How does the room make you feel? What draws your eye? What assumptions do you
find yourself making, and what conclusions do you find yourself drawing
about the person who lives here? Do the same for your bedroom? Does it make you
feel relaxed, safe, comfortable and at home? Does your kitchen make you feel
cozy, healthy and inspired to create delicious nutritious meals - and maybe
also exciting, indulgent treats? Can you use your bathroom easily without
knocking things over? If this room was in someone else's house, what would you think
that they should keep and what should they get rid of? Remember how we talked
earlier about getting clear why you're keeping something. If you've got too much
sentimental stuff and you love it all, it's time to think about whether you
need so many items that fulfill the same purpose. Do you need lots of things that
remind you of the same person or event? A wonderful, long-standing Green and Tidy
member who I'll call Mary emailed me unsure what to do about her extensive
collection of shot glasses, each picked up as a souvenir of a holiday or a visit
to a place of interest. A week later, she emailed again to tell me she'd had a clear
out. She asked herself "Do I have another souvenir from that
destination? If so, which souvenir do I prefer?" If the other souvenir won, the
shot glass went in the charity bag. Well done Mary! Similarly, another member
suggests keeping the reminder that's most evocative: the one that does the
best job of invoking your memories. Set a limit for yourself on the amount you'll
keep. One way to do this is to create a memory box, or archive, and limit yourself
to it. When it's full, if you want to add something else, something has to go even
though it passes them not clutter test because you love it. My Mum suggests
choosing a box that gives you pleasure itself, perhaps one that's a sentimental
item in its own right. If you've got a lot of sentimental stuff, you'll probably
need several memory boxes: boxes for specific events like your daughter or
son's wedding; a box for your children's schoolwork and artwork; a box for mementos of your
childhood; and so on. But remember, the aim here is for your home to function well,
for you and anyone else that lives there, so don't just keep getting more and more
memory boxes. The point is to set a limit on what you keep. It can help to develop
a practice of keeping just SOME of what you're tempted to keep. if you find yourself
keeping every theater programme, flier, ticket stub, museum admission, event
etc, consider whether you need a reminder of EVERY event? Is every event
really that special? By definition, not everything can be special. And do you
need so MANY things to remind you of the ones that were special? Do you need the
flier, the ticket AND the program from that theater trip? How about just the
ticket and the programme? If you inherited your grandmother's pretty china
dinner set, which you will NEVER use, could you keep just one teacup or plate?
Perhaps you could turn the teacup into a candle holder or hang the plate on the
wall? At the end of the day, your memories live inside you. You won't lose the
memories if you let go of the items. Another way to limit the amount of stuff
you keep is to refuse to be someone else's storage unit.
Have you become the repository of all your family's treasures? If you're
short of space, don't store stuff for other. If they want stuff, they need to
take it and house it. Invite them to take what they want by a set date, letting
them know you're gonna get rid of it after this. Similarly, it
can be tempting to keep things for your kids to have in the future but is it
really a kindness or just an excuse for you? Will they really want the stuff or are
you just avoiding making decisions and offloading your clutter issue onto
them? If your kids are already grown up, check with them whether they want you to
keep that stuff for the. If they do, why don't they take it now? If they don't
want to, are they sure they're gonna want it in the future?!