Book 196 - A Year of Magical Learning (1 of 2)

Reflection Title: Learning to Let Go of Things...Literally!

Book – The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson (Part 1 of 2)

Book Description: A charming, practical, and unsentimental approach to putting a home in order while reflecting on the tiny joys that make up a long life.

In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning "death" and städning meaning "cleaning." This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner rather than later, before others have to do it for you.

In The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, artist Margareta Magnusson, with Scandinavian humor and wisdom, instructs listeners to embrace minimalism. Her radical and joyous method for putting things in order helps families broach sensitive conversations and makes the process uplifting rather than overwhelming.

Reflection:

My Therapist, Loretta, recommended this book to me after one of our sessions where I described to her one of my biggest sources of anxiety in my life, which is the clutter that is slowly accumulating in my home. It feels like it has been building and building over the past few years, and with the addition of our children's stuff in the last few years, I’ve hit my breaking point.

I love order in my life, especially in my home. I’m not OCD or anything, but I do believe that everything has a place, and it doesn’t belong in my home if it doesn’t. My mental capacity is limited, and if something isn’t in its place, then I won’t know it exists. It will sit there forever and will never get any use unless I know where and how to find it. What’s the fun in that for myself or the item? This makes me think of all the unused toys in the movie Toy Story, what a sad existence. Everything has a purpose in this world, or at least should.

Order, consistency, and all the things I need to live my life in its place provides me with peace of mind. More importantly, it frees up my mind to focus on other deep thinking meaningful work projects that matter way more than using my mental capacity to remember trivial things like where did I put that cowboy hat I got on a trip to San Antonio once 10 years ago and I haven’t worn it since?

This is how I’ve always lived my life since the I can remember, unfortunately, this is not the same philosophy on stuff management as my partner in crime, my wife. We’ve been married for 10 years and together for 15 overall. While I would say we have a very happy marriage, the biggest area of conflict in our married life has always been accumulation of stuff, and what to do with it. My stance is if it doesn’t have any function, get rid of it. If it does, put it in its place. Her stance is, helter skelter. Just keep buying more stuff and shoving it into places and it will all work itself out. You can see where the conflict arises. We’ve managed to find ways to co-exist thus far in our cohabitation, but the recent addition of the accumulation of children’s stuff is pushing this conflict to a head.

I have no more room in my attic! I literally get a nauseous feeling even writing about how cluttered it is in there. I do my best to avoid ever walking in there, but sometimes I can’t avoid it. It was already overstuffed with decorations, old furniture, and random crap, but now it is literally busting at the seams with my wife randomly throwing all the kid’s toys, bouncers, and clothes up there. I can hardly even walk in or around it anymore.

Something needs to change!

This is where Swedish Death Cleaning will come into play. I plan to spend my next monthly “challenge” on Death Cleaning my house and my stuff. I plan to set a timer for 20 minutes each night and go into that attic, my closet, and my garage and bring items out to either throw away, donate, or give to a loved one. My plan is to do what the author, Margareta, recommends and spend some time reflecting on the memories of the items, thinking about the role it played in my life’s story, and then letting go and moving on.

This should be a fun month, hopefully I can get my wife to join in the fun. I’ll keep you posted on how my death cleaning is going with a part 2 follow up.

Question: What is your personal philosophy on stuff management?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson