I am Sheamus - Very Personal Development

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“There will be calmness and tranquillity when one is free from external objects and is not perturbed.” - Bruce Lee

“People’s homes are a reflection of their lives. It is no accident that people have a huge weight problem in this country, and clutter is the same thing. Homes are an orgy of consumption.” - Peter Walsh

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” - Hans Hofmann, Introduction To The Bootstrap, 1993

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!  I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.” - Henry David Thoreau

“How many things are there which I do not want?” - Socrates

 

Does your life feel like one big mess?

Is this chaos reflected in your home, at your desk and in your car? Bills, papers and junk mail stacked up everywhere? Is your wardrobe a nightmare?

Do you have dozens of plates, glasses, coffee mugs and some kind of odd mismatch of cutlery odds and ends?

Do you keep every magazine, book and comic you’ve ever bought?

Do you have endless piles of laundry that never get put away? Clothes you keep but never wear? Odd socks in your drawer?

Are your bathroom cabinets stuffed with shampoos, gels and cosmetic products you haven’t used in years?

Is your computer littered with thousands of old files? Your house full of old power leads and wires that were from equipment you haven’t touched in years? Your drawers stuffed with the manual from a VCR you threw out in 1996?

And the contact list in your mobile phone has about a hundred numbers of people you don’t even like?

Is it all driving you nuts? You can’t even think straight?

Yeah, me too. Clutter has got to go.

What Is Clutter?

Clutterer’s Anonymous defines clutter as:

… anything we don’t need, want, or use that takes our time, energy or space, and destroys our serenity. It can be outgrown clothes, obsolete papers, broken toys, disliked gifts, meaningless activity, ancient resentments, or unsatisfying relationships. We may be selective in some areas, but not in others. Objects may be strewn about or wedged into drawers; neatly stacked or stowed in storage.

My name is Shéamus, and I’m a clutterer. I’m good at it, too. My specialities are old clothes, crockery, books, magazines, bills and pretty much anything else that comes on paper.

I’d like to say my wife was the tidy one, but she’s just as bad. She specialises in books and clothes, too. She likes to fill the boot of the car with as much crap as it can possibly handle.

No surface in our home is safe. In fact, the cleaner a surface is, the more attractive it becomes - for clutter. Great big stacks of paper will suddenly materialise there as if by magic, or the work of some smirking poltergeist.

Every so often we’ll both wig out and go through some mad but fleeting ‘clear-out’. This usually involves stuffing things into bin bags and then offloading it on whatever charity shop is on the way to the mall - where we’ll buy more things we don’t need.

We have three children. They’re as bad as us. They didn’t have a chance, bless ‘em. If all you know is clutter, then clutter is all you know. It’s like being a fan of bluegrass.

I can’t think of a single practical advantage of being a packrat. Gone are the days when the relatives of late hoarders unveiled a treasure trove of riches and antiques amongst the decades of obsessive storage. People like me aren’t putting aside jewellery or valuable paintings. It’s all junk. It’s virtually all worthless junk, too.

Sentimental value? Ha! That old chestnut. Believe me, I might tell you that those jeans I haven’t been able to get into since I was 21 are important to me now, but let’s see how I feel about them when the apartment is on fire.

When we moved homes a couple of years ago, and spent three days filling up and dumping literally forty black bin bags of junk, we swore we’d never do this again. But we did. We’ve very bad people.

I’m reached the end of my tether. Clutter is ruining my life. Clutter is my life.

I want a life without clutter. I want the simple life. I want tables and desks and bedside cabinets and televisions and kitchen surfaces that are always free of mess. I want to be able to run the vacuum cleaner over the carpet without first having to spend half an hour moving stuff out of the way. I want to be able to find my black Calvin Kleins each and every time I want to wear them.

I never want to see an odd sock again.

And the solution isn’t putting things in boxes. Or filing them. Or buying a bigger wardrobe, or moving everything into the cupboard under the stairs. That solves nothing. That’s just moving the clutter. Like a lion going to a different cage at the zoo, it’s still out there, waiting. Waiting to consume you.

Clutter cannot - and will not - be organised.

What you need to do is PURGE!

The Pareto Principle

As the Manic Street Preachers once said in their infamous spring-cleaning rant, everything must go. Well, almost. If we observe the Pareto Principle in light of the garbage that we choose to keep in our homes, then only 20 per cent of the things we own are essential to 80 per cent of our lives.

We can look at this in a lot more detail. For example:

• We wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time
• We use 20% of our glasses/crockery/utensils 80% of the time
• Whilst reading, 80% of our time is spent with 20% of the books we own - throughout our lives
• 80% of the DVDs we watch come from 20% of our collection
• 80% of our time is spent using just 20% of all the files on our computers. The hard drive patiently manages the other 80% for that 1/5 chance you might decide to have a look

And perhaps more critically:

• 20% of the clutter in our lives causes 80% of our confusion

The Pareto Principle is not without criticism, and one shouldn’t be too concerned about whether anything actually perfectly meets the 80-20 parameters. It might be 70-30, or 90-10, or 95-5, or whatever. The point is that as a model it helps one to focus on probable cause and effect. If we can eliminate just 20% of the clutter in our lives, we could see a significant improvement, potentially in everything.

20% isn’t good enough for me, though. I want to kick clutter’s ass. I want 80%, minimum. Just imagine the benefits of being free of all of that chaos.

I Spent Good Money On That Stuff. I’m Not Going To Just Throw It Out!

Oh yes you are. Or, alternatively, try one of these solutions:

1. Sell it on eBay.
2. Attend a boot sale.
3. Give it away to friends.
4. Take it to a charity shop.
5. Burn it.

Whatever happens, you must get rid of it.

I’m going to be doing all of these things. Starting this week, I’m first going to go through each room and throw pretty much everything away that has zero value. What is zero value?

1. It cannot be sold for anything (on eBay, etc)
2. It won’t be useful to anybody I know (i.e., friends, a charity etc)

I’ll put those things to one side. What I won’t do is store them. I’m going to leave them out so they’ll bother me. This will make sure I don’t get complacent and let the crap start to build up again.

Some friends are coming to our house to pick up some of our baby stuff this week. My youngest child, my daughter, is nearly three. But we still have her cot, Moses basket, rocker and God knows what else just sitting around the apartment. It’s all gonna go.

Next, eBay. I’m selling whatever I can. This includes but will not be limited to DVDs, magazines, books, clothes, sporting goods, general bric-a-brac and maybe even a kidney.

Whatever doesn’t sell on eBay will be part of the boot sale I’ll be attending a fortnight from now. My wife and I have agreed - we’ve sworn (but this time we mean it) - that whatever is left from the boot sale will be either dropped off at any relevant charity shop or taken straight to the dump. Immediately, on the way home.

Whatever money we make from this venture will be used to buy items that will prevent us from cluttering in the future. This may include handcuffs and a straitjacket, but likely will be shiny new units, desks and drawers that have a coned surface. And maybe some barbed wire.

I’m psyched about this. I’ll keep you up to date on my progress.

Clutter must die.

Other Articles You May Like To Read:

• Clutter Wars - The Phantom Menace