The Declutter Scam

You may have have looked around your space one day and felt utterly overwhelmed by the clutter, like you were just drowning in Stuff.  That's what I did.  Previous to moving back to America, my husband had a job that kept us traveling, so we couldn't keep much stuff.  After moving back to the States, we intended to build a house and didn't want to get rid of anything until we were in our forever-home.  That didn't happen.  Years passed while we waited in a home that was far too tiny to comfortably hold everything.  One day, drowning in clutter, we finally had to admit that we were already in our permanent home and needed to make all our stuff fit.  

At first I tried to just tidy up and put things in their place, but that didn't do much to alleviate the situation.  The next logical step was to declutter my space.  I started with small areas like my desk or under my bathroom sink, and felt so energized by the result that I moved on to bigger and bigger areas like my living room and my wardrobe (the mother of all decluttering projects!)  It felt great!  

I started watching decluttering and minimalist videos on YouTube to help inspire and guide me through my efforts at organization and they truly did provide great tips and insight.  One thing that I tried to keep in mind is that delcuttering should be a regular part of my life, a repeated process, rather than just a one-time overhaul.  And, it's true that after the initial work of clearing out things I didn't love and/or no longer used, I would go back occasionally and see an item here or there that I felt I should part with, but this was small up keep; the major work was done.  I'm not trying to become a minimalist, after all, just wanting an organized home and less stressful life.  However, in the process, I was still subscribed to all those channels that helped me get going and here's the thing I noticed about those influencers I was watching: After two years, they're still doing major declutters multiple times per year while claiming to be minimalists.  How does that work?  

The simple answer is that it's all just for content.  Yeah, it's more than likely that their whole minimalist schtick is fake.  For people who claim to have left the material world behind them, they sure do seem to have a constant excessive amount of stuff to go through.  A person who is actually leading a minimalist life isn't daily or weekly bringing more into their home in such vast amounts that they need to do a major declutter quarterly.  However, those decluttering videos feel great to watch, almost like you've accomplished something yourself, especially when you have been sitting under fluorescent lights all day clicking away at the numbers in an unrewarding job; you watch a video like that and your brain makes you feel like you acutally just did something rather than only watching someone else do something.  And let's face it, YouTubers can't make their living from decluttering one time and then forever making follow up videos that say, "Yeah, still clutter free.  Nothing has changed."  Let me tell you how decluttering is supposed to work ideally:  

1.  If you're a true minimalist, you leave the material world behind.  You have only what you need and the minute you get something new (which should be rare and of-necessity) you immediately get rid of something old.  It's a lifestyle, a ritual, almost a religion. 

2.  If you're just someone who wants to have less clutter, then you do a major declutter, followed by occasional minimal declutters for upkeep, and for lifetime maintainence you try to simply stem the tide of what's coming in from now on by making mindful and  meaningful purchases rather than impulse buys.

3.  You struggle with over-spending, but want to escape the addiction cycle so you don't one day wind up on an episode of Hoarders.  So, you try to be mindful of keeping the clutter at bay while working on sticking to a budget, dealing with addictive spending, and building a home, wardrobe, lifestyle, etc that is timeless rather than needing to be overhauled seasonally with tons of purchases. 

Here's how it doesn't work:

1.  An influencer claims to be a minimalist but has to do major declutters on a regular (almost scheduled) basis.  They're not really a minimalist.

2.  An influencer claims to want a clutter-free home, but constantly does "hauls" or seasonal make-overs that involve buying tons of new stuff followed by huge "declutters."   They don't want a clutter free life, they're double dipping, wanting views for declutters and views for hauls.

Those are all just for content.  They're not how it really works.  The influencers are fine, the content is fine, just don't get drawn in to the haul-declutter-haul cycle.  As someone who has been through the process, both of doing lots of hauls and then of wanting less stuff and having to declutter, I can tell you with all certainty that I successfully decluttered my home and my life two years ago and now I am just maintaining.  No more major declutters, it's just maintainence now.  I'm not a minimalist; I am a mindful maximalist.  I don't do hauls (anymore) and I don't do major declutters.  Now I just enjoy my stuff.  That's the true end game of decluttering.