Clutter cannot be organized.

The Problem:

One infamous accident involved compulsive cluttering by the Collyer brothers, who were found dead in a Harlem brownstone under more than 100 tons of stuff they had accumulated.

Hoarding is a mental health problem in its extreme form and it always creates hazards, such as,  fire risk, rodents, black mold, danger of tripping and falling to name just a few.

Hoarders have a lifelong tendency to accumulate too much of nearly everything and with a seeming inability to throw out anything potentially useful to themselves  or someone else sometime in the future.

The result is a house crammed full of stacks of clothing, newspapers and other junk as seen on the TV show "Hoarders".

It often takes a crisis, major or minor, to prompt people to change bad habits, especially when the change is time-consuming and anxiety-provoking.   For instance a landlord threatens eviction or the city starts proceedings to condemn your property.

If you want to free yourself from the shame of hoarding, now is the time!

 

I) Steps to De-clutter

The excuses and impediments to coping effectively with a cluttering problem, are many. Once you recognize the pattern of thinking that leads you down the road of buying articles you don't need and can't store in your home, you are on your way to defeating the problem.
Any garden-variety compulsive shopper and clutter creator understanding the source of the problem and its negative consequences can overcome the clutter impulse and keep it from recurring by taking a few simple steps.

We live in a consumer society and acquiring more than we need is driven by the constant and never-ending commercials for goods and services we see on our television, in our newspapers and that arrive in our mailboxes.   The job of the marketers is to create "wants" where no "need" exists.  Recognize the situation for what it is, you are under constant bombardment by marketers to buy goods you neither need nor have room to store in your home.

First Step to Freedom:

Before a clutter problem can be defeated the person must recognize his "cluttering  mentality" consisting of rationalizing purchase, salvage or otherwise accumulating things he has no current use.   Buying things because they are on sale, shopping in thrift stores for things that might be fixed up for some future purpose and so on are all part of the problem.

This step is crucial because removed clutter will be quickly replaced, if the habit is not addressed.  The perpetrator needs to acknowledge the destructiveness of his behavior and develop strategies to resist further accumulation of clutter.

  Three Step Process:

1)  Tackle one project at a time and stick with it until it is done. 

“Start with the easiest, and be proud of what you’ve done,” Dr. Zasio said in an interview. Then gradually move on to more challenging projects.


2) Schedule time for clutter removal — i.e., an hour each day until you’re done.

Parting with stuff you’ve collected and thought valuable can trigger anxiety. Although the anticipated anxiety is usually worse than what actually ensues. Even acute anxiety dissipates, if you do something fun or relaxing until it passes.

3) Make three piles (or bins) of stuff: Keep, Donate, Discard. 

 Get rid of the Discard and Donate piles as soon as possible. 

Keep only those things that have a realistic “home” in your home.

II) Strategies to Maintain a Clutter-Free Home

A. Before buying anything: 

i) think first about where the products will go and

ii) how many of them do you already have.

Sales and bargains will repeat themselves, and you’ll get other opportunities.

If necessary, stop reading Wal Mart sale fliers and cancel your membership at Costco.

B. Everything eventually rots, rusts and otherwise becomes worthless.

Keep in mind that, like food and medications, beauty products have expiration dates, so buying more than you’ll need in the near future can be wasteful.


C. Bring nothing new into the house unless you have a proper place for it. 

“If you can’t identify a place for it to live, it probably should not come home,” she said.

“How many rolls of paper towels and toilet paper do you really need?” —  old cans of paint, picture frames, cleaning products and books...

D. Stop wasting time accumulating, storing, searching for and moving around unneeded, unwanted, worthless, outdated, outmoded possibly toxic stuff...


Time is a non-renewable resource and you don't want to waste it tending to Junk you cannot remember buying or why you bought it!






Link to source: 

‘The Hoarder in You’ - A Book That Can Help Cut Through the Clutter - NYTimes.com

By JANE E. BRODY

 For more stories and strategies you may read:

“The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life” (published Tuesday by Rodale Books). 

Robin Zasio, a clinical psychologist, a star of the show “Hoarders” and director of the Anxiety Treatment Center in Sacramento offers suggestion to smooth the process of restoring order to your home.


revealing the excuses and impediments to coping effectively with a cluttering problem, and she offers practical, clinically proven antidotes to them.