Clutter Home Quotes

It's only just beginning to occur to me that it's important to have something going on somewhere, at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on. [...] You need as much ballast as possible to stop you floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one guy on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then? I've got to get more stuff, more clutter, more detail in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge.

The point is, you need to distinguish between what honestly moves you and what the world is telling you should melt your heart. If something doesn’t reach you on a personal level, let it go. It’s hard enough dealing with everything that does.

I appreciate my my sleep In sleep my conversation is witty My home is dusted My office work is up to date The dog is even well behaved And food is on the table on time But then when I'm asleep I don't have you to clutter and confuse My hungry heart

If you love home—and even if you don’t—there is nothing quite as cozy, as comfortable, as delightful, as that first week back. That week, even the things that would irritate you—the alarm waahing from some car at three in the morning; the pigeons who come to clutter and cluck on the windowsill behind your bed when you’re trying to sleep in—seem instead reminders of your own permanence, of how life, your life, will always graciously allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it.

Every time I’m in an airport, I think I should drastically change my life: Kill the kid stuff, start to act my numbers, set fire to the clutter and creep below the radar like an escaped canine sneaking along the fence line. I’d be cable-knitted to the hilt, beautiful beyond buying, believe in the maker and fix my problems with prayer and property. Then, I think of you, home with the dog, the field full of purple pop-ups—we’re small and flawed, but I want to be who I am, going where I’m going, all over again.

What I know for sure is that when you declutter – whether it’s on your home, your head, or your heart – it is astounding what will flow into that space that will enrich you, your life, and your family.

You can always hope and wait for someone to want something in your home, but you cannot wait forever, and sometimes you must just give cherished things away with the wish that they end up with someone who will create new memories of their own.

There's memory clutter, which reminds you of an important person, achievement, or event from your past. I think memory clutter often gathers in the homes of people with some degree of depression. And then there's "I might need it one day clutter, in which people hang on to stuff in anticipation of an imagined future. Among these folks, I've noticed a recurring theme of anxiety...Maybe it's possible that the stuff we own and obsess over is the physical manifestation of the mental health issues that challenge our minds. --p29.

If a gift has come to you wrapped in obligations and tied tightly with a ribbon of guilt, then it's not really a gift at all. It's a manipulation. A gift should be something freely given that enhances your life and reminds you lovingly of the giver. If it's not, you simply should not give it a place in your home.

We move much too fast, and too frequently, to pause to savor landscapes or avoid disfiguring clutter.

Learning to prioritize is the secret to annihilating clutter.

Proper storage is about creating a home for something so that minimal effort is required to find it and put it away.

I asked myself, “Who would I be if I weren’t busy? What would be left of my life and me after I removed excess stuff from my home and allowed my day to have unscheduled open spaces?

Parents should also question much of the contemporary emphasis on special materials and equipment for learning in a child's environment. A clutter of toys can be more confusing than satisfying to a child. On the other hand, natural situations, with opportunieties to explore, seldom overstimulate or trouble a small child. Furthermore, most children will find greater satisfaction and demonsstrate greater learning from things they make and do with their parents or other people than from elaborate toys or learning materials. And there is no substitute for solitude - in the sandpile, mud puddle, or play area - for a yound child to work out his own fantasies. Yet this privilege is often denied in our anxiety to institutionalize children.

Imagination makes all the difference.

Your inner critic is a loving liar.

Having too much of anything results in chaos, confusion and clutter.

But the kitchen will not come into its own again until it ceases to be a status symbol and becomes again a workshop. It may be pastel. It may be ginghamed as to curtains and shining with copper like a picture in a woman's magazine. But you and I will know it chiefly by its fragrances and its clutter. At the back of the stove will sit a soup kettle, gently bubbling, one into which every day are popped leftover bones and vegetables to make stock for sauces or soup for the family. Carrots and leeks will sprawl on counters, greens in a basket. There will be something sweet-smelling twirling in a bowl and something savory baking in the oven. Cabinet doors will gape ajar and colored surfaces are likely to be littered with salt and pepper and flour and herbs and cheesecloth and pot holders and long-handled forks. It won't be neat. It won't even look efficient. but when you enter it you will feel the pulse of life throbbing from every corner. The heart of the home will have begun once again to beat.

Your body is the temporary temple of your Spirit. What you keep around you in the extended temple of your home needs to change as you change and grow, so that it reflects who you are. Particularly if you are engaged in any kind of self-improvement work, you need to update your environment regularly. So get into the habit of leaving a trail of discarded clutter in your wake, and start to think of it as a sign of your progression!

I decided to break the trend of accumulating stuff sooner rather than later. I moved to smaller homes ahead of my need. I downsized before I was forced to do so. I sorted and dispersed my things while I had the energy and the ability to either donate or sell my stuff.

The items in our homes that we feel we absolutely “need” are downright extravagances within the global landscape.

When I eventually moved to a smaller home, it felt cozy, like having a pair of jeans that fit me just right—no wasted living space and no baggy fabric.

When you organize and eliminate clutter, you free yourself from stress and anxiety by eliminating feelings of overwhelm.

Over the course of an average lifetime, because of all the clutter we live in, we will spend 3,680 hours, or 153 days, searching for misplaced items.

When we set goals that feel safe and achievable, we are caving in to our own preconceived notions of what we are capable of.

If you love home—and even if you don’t—there is nothing quite as cozy, as comfortable, as delightful, as that first week back. That week, even the things that would irritate you—the alarm waahing from some car at three in the morning; the pigeons who come to clutter and cluck on the windowsill behind your bed when you’re trying to sleep in—seem instead reminders of your own permanence, of how life, your life, will always graciously allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it. Also

When you are filled with inner clutter, the chaos reflects in your personality as obsessiveness, confusion, disorganisation, broken speech patterns, insomnia, indecisiveness, and lack of direction. When your home and world are in disrray, you can't relax. It takes more energy to be in chaos because you have to keep track of all the junk. Eventually exhaustion sets in. When you honestly look at clutter and ask if it's necessary in your life, buried emotions come to the surface.... Toss what's unnecessary so that you can finally relax, and your remaining possessions will have a clear place to land.

Homes, Gamache knew, were a self portrait. A person's choice of color, furnishing, pictures, every touch revealed the individual. God, or the devil, was in the details. And so was the human. Was it dirty, messy, obsessively clean? Were the decorations chosen to impress, or were they a hodgepodge of personal history? Was the space cluttered or clear? He felt a thrill every time he entered a home during an investigation.

Truly ‘good’ materialism leads us to want fewer things and to choose them with care, while bad materialism results in us filling our homes with needless stuff that we have no room for in our hearts. We clutter up our wardrobes, homes and lives because the messages our possessions are sending us aren’t being listened

Most home invasion victims with arms find themselves in Herbert Clutter’s position: surprised and overwhelmed. Unless you sleep with your .45 auto fully loaded and under your pillow, you’re apt to find yourself in the same position if the bad guys ever should show up in your bedroom, enquiring as to the location of your safe.

I am beginning to understand why I came here today. I needed to escape the cluttered struggles of everyday life, the battles born of a false sense of consequence. I spend so much time waving a sword in the air; I am exhausted and want to lay my weapon down. Like Don Quixote, I have been tilting at windmills. - Essay: Walden, Revisited

My aim is to sort the jumble of information we throw at these children and present it in such a way that they will have a greater chance of achieving independence and fulfilment.

Allow spontaneity in your life!

Think about appearances. I wanted my apartment to be less cluttered, and also to look less cluttered.

Little touches can make a big difference.

Most people do not need more space, they need less stuff.

Clutter. Even the word feels heavy when you say it. We've become consumed by stuff and so inundated by things that we almost have nowhere to turn.

Owning less creates an opportunity to live more.

Creating a landfill in your home does not mean that you’re saving the environment. You just moved the garbage.

There was something strangely naked about it...and after a second I realized why. It wasn't just the lack of clutter and the minimalist décor...but the fact that there wasn't a single book in the whole place. It didn't even feel like a holiday cottage - every place I've ever stayed in has had a shelf of curling Dan Browns and Agatha Christies. It felt more like a show home.

This was food without you. Our loft, rich with the international booty of baskets and carvings, took on the tacky, cluttered aspect of an import outlet: This was our home without you. Objects had never seemed so inert, so pugnaciously incompensatory. Your remnants mocked me: the jump rope limp on its hook; the dirty socks, stiff, caricatured deflations of your size eleven feet.

Danshari.” It’s a three-character Japanese word that means, in order of the characters,1 severing a relationship with unnecessary things (dan), purging clutter that overwhelms the home (sha), and achieving a sense of peace by separating the self from things (ri). Cleaning your home of clutter, the idea goes, also cleanses your heart and mind—regardless of where the stuff ends up.

Rather than cluttering up your home, stealing your time, and draining your wallet, the stuff in your life should serve a purpose and make you happy. If that isn’t the case, then your stuff owns you.

Don't forget to get away every once in awhile, To lose yourself in a book Or in the woods behind your home Ride your bike into the sunset, Sit on your front steps and count the cars passing by, Lay on your roof and gaze up at the night sky, Drive along backroads with the windows rolled down Listening to nothing but the sound of rushing wind I hope you take the time to be alone, To sort through the cluttered shelves of your heart I hope you take the time to be silent, To close your eyes and just listen I hope you take the time to be still, To quiet your mind and experience the beauty Of simply Being

Withdrawing to make room for him, she turned and sauntered through a cluttered home that was not the least bit dirty or unorganized—only filled to capacity with whatever things moved her magpie of a soul.

Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence. But in that helter-skelter which we flatter by the name of civilization, the citizen performs the perilous business of government under the worst possible conditions. A faint recognition of this truth inspires the movement for a shorter work day, for longer vacations, for light, air, order, sunlight and dignity in factories and offices. But if the intellectual quality of our life is to be improved that is only the merest beginning. So long as so many jobs are an endless and, for the worker, an aimless routine, a kind of automatism using one set of muscles in one monotonous pattern, his whole life will tend towards an automatism using one set of muscles in one monotonous pattern, his whole life will tend towards an automatism in which nothing is particularly to be distinguished from anything else unless it is announced with a thunderclap. So long as he is physically imprisoned in crowds by day and even by night his attention will flicker and relax. It will not hold fast and define clearly where he is the victim of all sorts of pother, in a home which needs to be ventilated of its welter of drudgery, shrieking children, raucous assertions, indigestible food, bad air, and suffocating ornament. Occasionally perhaps we enter a building which is composed and spacious; we go to a theatre where modern stagecraft has cut away distraction, or go to sea, or into a quiet place, and we remember how cluttered, how capricious, how superfluous and clamorous is the ordinary urban life of our time. We learn to understand why our addled minds seize so little with precision, why they are caught up and tossed about in a kind of tarantella by headlines and catch-words, why so often they cannot tell things apart or discern identity in apparent differences.

We were the church. As the New Testament instructed. When it was time for Sunday morning meeting, we convened in private homes. To raise a structure and call it a church was the worldly way. A church made of hands was soon cluttered with altars and crucifixes, and was thereupon idolatrous. These false churches, they were not walking in Truth. They were whistling off to Hades. This was a shame, because I knew some real nice Lutherans.

Clutter is a form of visual distraction, and everything in our vision pulls at our attention at least a little. The less clutter, the less visual stress we have in our environments. A simple, minimalist home is calming.

Maligant items don't have to be reminders of bad times, like a breakup or a health crisis. They can bring back memories of loved ones or high points in your life. But if these memories leave you feeling sad or feeling that your life isn't as good now, then the objects are causing you mental and emotional harm and have no place in your home. ...The key to enjoying happiness and good health in a warm, welcoming home is to live IN THE PRESENT MOMENT surrounded by items that you cherish and that have meaning for you and your family. If too much of your time is spent replaying your greatest hits or struggling with old pain, you're not making new memories of your present life.

A home that nourishes life embraces the little moments and appreciates the rhythmic seasons of life, including the time necessary to cook real food from scratch...It doesn't have to take too much time, however, with efficient menu planning and wisely planned trips to the grocery store and farmers' market. The payoffs are astronomical - better health, good stewardship of our environment, and setting a good example for our children are just a few of the benefits. It also fosters an appreciation of the ebbs and flows of seasons because you'll be using fresh ingredients that are more readily available (and of higher quality) when they are in season. If you feel too busy to cook from scratch, then I argue that you're too busy, period. Reevaluate your priorities and commitments. If you want to live a healthy, long life and to pass the same luxury on to your children, then you MUST take the time to cook real food

No matter what stage you are in, acknowledging that our possessions, homes, and affairs can be problematic to those we leave behind is the first step toward taking proactive measures to reduce potential chaos and strife among those destined to deal with it.

Many families amass more objects than their houses can hold. The result is garages given over to old furniture and unused sports equipment, home offices cluttered with boxes of stuff that haven’t yet been taken to the garage. Three out of four Americans report their garages are too full to put a car into them. Women’s cortisol levels (the stress hormone) spike when confronted with such clutter (men’s, not so much). Elevated cortisol levels can lead to chronic cognitive impairment, fatigue, and suppression of the body’s immune system.

The problem is, the rewards and the costs of adding more things to the Home page aren’t shared equally. The section that’s being promoted gets a huge gain in traffic, while the overall loss in effectiveness of the Home page as it gets more cluttered is shared by all sections.

If you love home - and even if you don't - there is nothing quite as cozy, as comfortable, as delightful, as that first week back. That week, even the things that would irritate you - the alarm waahing from some car at three in the morning; the pigeons who come to clutter and cluck on the windowsill behind your bed when you're trying to sleep in - seem instead reminders of your own permanence, of how life, your life, will always graciously allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it.

I have never believed that striving for perfection is a commendable habit. It just sets you up to fail before you even begin. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a wish for perfection totally paralyze a person who dwells on the idea that “If I can’t do it perfectly, I can’t do it at all.” “Good enough” is a target that’s, well, good enough. Having a welcoming, comfortable home is a wonderful thing, even if you have a little clutter here and there. It says that your home is loved and lived in. When you reach “good enough,” relax and enjoy the view.

TIDY UP YOUR WORKSPACE BEFORE YOU CALL IT A DAY. When you go to an office, you can leave your messy home, well, at home. Not so for remote workers. And this is a problem, because working in a messy space zaps your concentration. Research shows clutter can trigger the release of cortisol (the stress hormone). Messy homes are also linked to increased procrastination. Before you clock out each night, spend five minutes putting things away, organizing your papers, and removing dirty glasses. You’ll appreciate your efforts when you sit down to your desk the next morning.

As I approach retirement, I’m thinking about downsizing to a smaller home. I have all the artwork and toys and books that belonged to my kids. I’ve kept this stuff for them all these years, but they don’t want it. What do I do with it?” Often, we exchange a long look, and tears spring to their eyes. This is not a casual moment in their lives. The answer has great importance to them right now. Yet they’re letting a near-total stranger make the decision. My answer is frequently the same: “If the stuff you own is not helping you create the life you want, then let it go.

Because of my love of excessive efficiency, my former decluttering efforts went something like this: Oh, this goes in the master bathroom. I’ll make a master bathroom pile here. That goes in the playroom, so I’ll make a playroom pile. These nails should be in the garage, so here’s a garage pile. Six piles later, life happened. I left the decluttering project to go take care of life with every intention of coming back as soon as I could. But I didn’t. Either more life happened, or I forgot. When I finally returned to the project a few hours (or a few days or a few months) later, those totally logical little piles had morphed into one big pile that was no longer the least bit sorted. The clutter that once drove me crazy while it sat behind the cabinet door or inside the drawer? Now it was out in the open, outside the area I was decluttering. I’d created a bigger mess.

Taking the clutter out of your home can also help you to think more clearly. Living in a tidy home, where everything has its own place, actually gives you room in your mind to concentrate on more important things. It creates a home environment that is peaceful and harmonious for everyone that lives there. Having

If a gift has come to you wrapped in obligations and tied tightly with a ribbon of guilt, then it’s not really a gift at all. It’s a manipulation. A gift should be something freely given that enhances your life and reminds you lovingly of the giver. If it’s not, you simply should not give it a place in your home.

If your house is an overstuffed mess, I’ve learned that more often than not, it’s a warning sign that you have some type of trouble—large or small—in your mental and emotional well-being. In turn, a chaotic home that leaves little room for you and the other people inside can threaten your mental and physical health.

Every product you buy comes with a corresponding promise that you invest in. Your heart is set on attaining both. But while you’ll definitely come home with the object in your hands, you may or may not get the promise you see in your daydreams. Always look beyond the product to understand what’s really motivating your purchases.

Now’s the time to get rid of your first batch of malignant clutter. If you simply must have a reminder that this stuff was part of your life, take a picture of it, then tuck away the physical photo in a desk or stick the digital version deep into the belly of your computer. It’s time to give this clutter to the world outside your home.

Everyone, I think, has those places or environments that bring them calm and clarity. I can be alone with my thoughts any old place – at home, in bed, in the corner of some coffee shop somewhere – but there’s something about being outdoors and away from civilization, on a path, just putting one foot in front of the other, that helps me to metabolize my emotion in a way that nothing else seems to do. Walking alone affords me the time and the space to discard mental clutter, air out my ideas, stretch my emotional legs and simultaneously to breathe, feel a sense of calm and be absolutely, unequivocally present. I can’t think of any other instance where I can successfully do that.

Clutter attracts clutter. If you drop the mail on the kitchen counter, someone else is going to find it natural to leave his keys there. A dresser with receipts is also going to collect coins. A purse dropped in the entry is soon going to be joined by shoes and gloves. An empty soda can on the end table usually winds up with a few candy wrappers next to it.

I consider minimalism not as a destination but rather as a tool and a mindset to reduce distractions and overwhelm. It is not a competition. You are a winner if you find the amount of stuff and size of your home to be perfect for you and your lifestyle and situation. You only lose if you never consider the potential benefits of decluttering and leave your loved ones with messes and burdens.

How much do I love our family? This much. When any kind of emergency strikes, good or bad, we snap together like parts in a machine, like a submarine crew at war in the tin-can clutter of our home, none of the usual debate, character assassination, woeful monologues, and turgid hand-wringing. I've learned to love crises for this reason, how they make us pull together and forget our separateness and sadness; this was the second great gift of the moonfish.

Personally, this next benefit is even more of a reason to become a minimalist than being able to save money. Stress can cause physical ailments in the sense that it contributes to premature aging, those pesky grey hairs on your head, and even memory loss. What’s more, clutter in the home is known to shift our attention away from what we are truly trying to focus on. We have enough stressors in our life; we don’t need our stuff to create more reasons to worry.

For Wendy and Sam, the best rule was "everything has a home.” We made a list of their main household items and where they went - for example, pill bottles in the bathroom medicine cabinet, laundry in the hamper, and food in the kitchen cabinets. This may seem like a fundamental rule that everyone learns as a child, but many hoarders didn’t pick that up either because they grew up in hoarding houses themselves, or they grew up in traumatic households where finding a meal and avoiding a beating was a daily reality. Cleaning was the least of their worries.

DSM-5 pathologized those who hold on to their stuff for too long, who clutter their homes too much, who do not clean that often, and who harbor too many things. The manual labeled these activities “hoarding disorder” (HD, as it is sometimes called) and gave them an International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9-CM, to be precise) code of 300.3. Legitimized as a psychiatric disease and categorized under Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, this diagnosis rendered unsound certain relations to certain personal property. Hoarding, it seems, had arrived.

What is causing you to put things down "for now"? Are you feeling too rushed in your everyday life? Is there never a chance to reset? As you go through the process of clearing out your clutter, you will see that things become easier to put away when there is a home for them and that home is easier to access. When you are tempted to put something down, ask yourself, "Will I really have more time to deal with this later? Will I know where to find this later when I'm looking for it?" Be kind to your future self and put it away now. Next week you will thank me.

Looking into each other's eyes and speaking together in low tones, it becomes apparent that she hopes you will walk her through her troubles and show her that male-female relations can be lovely even in loveless union. She is looking for lust fulfilled but she searches also for respect, and in this she is out of luck because you do not know her or like her very much and you do not respect yourself and so the most you can offer this girl is time out of her life and an unsatisfactory meeting of bodies and, if the fates are generous, a couple of laughs and good feelings. At any rate there will unquestionably be a divot in your hearts before dawn and Peg seems to pick up on this after thirty minutes of groping and pawing (the car interior is damp with dew) she breaks away and with great exasperation says, "What do you think you're doing?" You are smiling, because it is an utterly stupid and boring question, and you say to her, "I am sitting in an American car, trying to make out in America," a piece of poetry that arouses something in her, and you both climb into the back seat for a meeting even less satisfactory than you feared it might be. Now she is crying and you are shivering and it is time to go home and if you had a watch you would snap your wrist to look meaningfully at it but she dabs at her face and says she wants you to come upstairs and share a special-occasion bottle of very old and expensive wine and as there is no way not to do this you follow her through the dusty lobby and into the lurching, diamond-gated elevator and into her cluttered apartment to scrutinize her furnishings and unread or improperly read paperbacks, and you wonder if there is anything more depressing than the habitats of young people, young and rudderless women in particular.

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. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

DECIDE HOW YOU CLEAN ONCE I loathe cleaning, and regardless of whether you share my hatred, deciding once can help the entire process feel manageable. Streamline Your Products When you buy a cleaner that’s on sale, a fancy microfiber cloth, or a magic mop you saw on Shark Tank, you’re making a fixed decision to use that item. If you use it and it adds value to your life, high five. If you don’t use it, it becomes clutter. Stuff is the enemy of clean, and the more stuff you have, the harder it is to clean your house. Ironically, when I’m discontented with my home, I buy things to make it prettier or cleaner, which only makes the problem worse by adding to the noise.

To be a pioneer of your own life, living an existence that has purpose and meaning you must first remove the past baggage that takes up space in all of your body, home and surroundings. Clean out the core soul clutter of built up three dimensional pathways to allow yourself the energy to overcome, heal and outgrow what no longer is. We are taught that our realities are a reflection of our thoughts and emotions and that we can alter anything with the law of attraction and i couldn't disagree more. Its so much deeper than that, it'd be insanity if it were that simple. Thoughts are powerful, i believe that much but without practical steps, vision and risks towards something that sets your soul on fire; changes and adverse situations to try distract you from your truth; words are just words and the meaning we give them can vary from person to person. We attract what we give focus to, we collide with the energy we hold within ourselves, we are constant mirrors of a bio product of the enviroment in which we have not only created but accepted or tolerated, regardless of what we percieve our circumstances to be. When you can sit with that truth and hold yourself accountable for your part in the unfolding of your journey you will come to a realization of self that will guide you all the way home. Becoming a pioneer is mastering self in few aspects within the human conciousness, be the change, let the way you live be your story.

...it was a funny idea, writing in a language not your own. It almost makes you feel guilty, she said, the way people feel forced to use English, how much of themselves must get left behind in that transition, like people being told to leave their homes and take only a few essential items with them. Yet there was also a purity to that image that attracted her, filled as it was with possibilities for self-reinvention. To be freed from clutter, both mental and verbal, was in some ways an appealing prospect; until you remembered something you needed that you had had to leave behind. She, for instance, found herself unable to make jokes when she spoke in another language...So it was not, she imagined, a question of translation so much as one of adaptation. The personality was forced to adapt to its new linguistic circumstances, to create itself anew...

In your process of removing the unneeded excess, you’ll want to develop your own working definition of clutter. Early in our minimizing journey, my wife and I began to define clutter as (a) too much stuff in too small a space, (b) anything that we no longer used or loved, and (c) anything that led to a feeling of disorganization. Feel free to rip off that definition if you want. But there are other definitions you might find resonate better with your ideals. For example, Joshua Fields Millburn defines clutter as anything that does not “add value” to his life.1 Marie Kondo describes clutter as those things in her home that do not “spark joy.” 2 Peter Walsh goes even further, saying that clutter is anything that “interferes with the life you could be living.” 3 And William Morris says it this way: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” 4

HEALTHY BOUNDARIES Minimalism helps you set healthy boundaries by giving you the clarity to see all the things you’re spinning your wheels on. Resetting boundaries to align with priorities is an ongoing process in a minimalist lifestyle, but it’s not an unwelcome chore. The rewards of more being and less striving encourage me to keep going on this journey. If I don’t prioritize my life, someone or something else will. MORE TIME Keeping more than we need, whether it’s possessions or activities, brings a fog into our daily lives that makes it harder to think clearly. Under the influence of clutter, we may underestimate how much time we’re giving to the less important stuff. When we say, “If I could find the time . . .” we’re really talking about how we choose to use our time. Minimalism helps you see how you’re spending your time and to think more clearly about how you would really like to spend it.

tuff. Almost all of us have it in abundance. What can we do with it? One of my favorite hideaways is an old faithful: the cardboard box. Cover it with festive Contact paper and stuff away. Or hang a shelf about a foot from the ceiling, and use it to store items you don't want sitting around. It's also great in a child's room for toys that aren't played with often. Get old school lockers or trunks, paint them, and use them for storage. Clutter around your house can cause clutter in your emotional and spiritual life too, so clean up and spend your best time enjoying life. re you reluctant to share your home with others? Maybe it's not your dream house or you don't have the money right now to decorate the way you'd like to. But you know what? It's not about having a perfect home. It's about your spirit of hospitality, your willingness to share your home and your life with others. Don't wait until everything is perfect because that will never happen. Focus on making your home cozy and comfortable. Your place will always be at its most beautiful when you use it to warm hearts. aking time for your husband doesn't have to be difficult or a hassle. With a little imagination and the desire to make him happy, you can make him feel loved. Are you thinking, Oh great, now Emilie 's telling me what I'm doing wrong with my husband. Not at all! I just want to give you a few ideas to help you let your

At a time when moguls vied to impress people with their possessions, Rockefeller preferred comfort to refinement. His house was bare of hunting trophies, shelves of richly bound but unread books, or other signs of conspicuous consumption. Rockefeller molded his house for his own use, not to awe strangers. As he wrote of the Forest Hill fireplaces in 1877: “I have seen a good many fireplaces here [and] don’t think the character of our rooms will warrant going into the expenditures for fancy tiling and all that sort of thing that we find in some of the extravagant houses here. What we want is a sensible, plain arrangement in keeping with our rooms.”3 It took time for the family to adjust to Forest Hill. The house had been built as a hotel, and it showed: It had an office to the left of the front door, a dining room with small tables straight ahead, upstairs corridors lined with cubicle-sized rooms, and porches wrapped around each floor. The verandas, also decorated in resort style, were cluttered with bamboo furniture. It was perhaps this arrangement that tempted John and Cettie to run Forest Hill as a paying club for friends, and they got a dozen to come and stay during the summer of 1877. This venture proved no less of a debacle than the proposed sanatorium. As “club guests,” many visitors expected Cettie to function as their unlikely hostess. Some didn’t know they were in a commercial establishment and were shocked upon returning home to receive bills for their stay.

Dear Spider web, Why won’t you let me go? I will not accept your silky web as my resting place. Your web might be soft, but there is nothing comfortable about you. You have my mind entangled with doubts. You have me feeling helpless as you tie down my hands and feet. Let me go! I am not your prey! Spider web, you captured me, and then you abandoned me in your web. You are just like my mother; she left Kace and me in her old and damaged cobweb. She selfishly left us to figure out life. Furthermore, just like you, she will not let us go. You covered me in your web to the point you made me invisible and empty inside. Partly because of you, people used a broom to swat me here and there because they see the webs all over me. They look at me as a nobody, an invasion, a pest, or a rodent who is trying to destroy their home. You confuse me because I know that I am not damaged and used, but there are many days I feel like I am no good for myself or anyone. Your web has cluttered my mind; I am disturbed mentally because I have never felt complete or good enough. I’ve been fighting so long to get out of your web—I am tired. However, I have come this far, and I am going to hold on a little while longer. When I hold on to your thin web tightly, something or someone uses the sharpest knife to cut it down. While it is swinging left and right, I try to jump and break free, but you catch me and wrap me back in your web again. I’ve been fighting for so long, and I will continue to fight because you cannot keep me here forever. I am creating thicker skin.

[What to do with] Unwanted Gifts This can be a very sensitive issue for many people. However, here’s my very best advice on what to do with unwanted presents: get rid of them. Here’s why. Things you really love have a strong, vibrant energy field around them, whereas unwanted presents have uneasy, conflicting energies attached to them that drain you rather than energize you. They actually create an energetic gloom in your home. The very thought of giving them the elbow is horrifying to some people. “But what about when Aunt Jane comes to visit and that expensive decoration she gave us isn’t on the mantelpiece?“ Whose mantlepiece is it anyway? If you love the item, fine, but if you keep it in your home out of fear and obligation, you were giving your power away. Every time you walk into the room and see that object, your energy levels drop. And don’t think that out of sight, out of mind will work. You can’t keep that gift in the cupboard and just bring it out when Aunt Jane is due to visit. Your subconscious mind still knows you have it on the premises. If you have enough of these unwanted presents around you, your energy network looks like a sieve, with vitality running out all over the place. Remember, it’s the thought that counts. You can appreciate being given the gift without necessarily having to keep it. Try adopting a whole different philosophy about presents. When you give something to someone, give it with love and let it go. Allow the recipient complete freedom to do whatever he wants with it. If the thing he can most useful he do is put it straight in the trash or give it to someone else, fine (you wouldn’t want him to clutter up his space with unwanted presents would you?). Give others this freedom and you will begin to experience more freedom in your own life too.

I don’t know what it was about menopause, specifically, that caused me all of a sudden to become a gatherer of “found objects.” But now, wherever I went in this bleakly untamed and often inhospitable landscape in the wild western extremes of Ireland, I seemed to hear things calling out to me. I was rooting for something — I didn’t know what. For fragments of myself, perhaps; my life, my loves. For fragments which reflected something of myself back at me — whatever I might be becoming now, at this turbulent, shapeshifting time of my life. And all the fragments I seemed to need came from this new place, from the ancient, uncompromising earth around me: that land which I walked compulsively, day after day after day. I would come home from the woods reverently carrying strangely shaped sticks, from the lough with pebbles and water-bird feathers, from the beach with seashells and mermaid’s purses — as if I were reassembling myself from elements of the land itself. After the deep dissolutions of menopause, I was refashioning myself from those calcinated ashes; I was growing new bones. It’s something we all have to do at this time in our lives; somehow, with whatever tools are available to us, we have to begin to curate the vision of the elder we will become. It’s an act of bricolage. And so now I had become like the bright-eyed, cackling magpies which regularly ransacked our garden: a collector — though not of trinkets, but of clues. I was gathering them together in the safety of my new nest. The clues were there in the pieces; those clues are threaded through this book. Scattered in shadowy corners and brightly lit windows, these objects I’ve selected are so much more than random gatherings of whatever it was that I happened to come across in my wanderings. They’re so much more than mere clutter. They are active choices, carefully selected objects that mirror my sense of myself as a shapeshifting, storied creature. Because the clues to our re-memberings are in the stories, and the stories are always born from the land.

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. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man.

SCENE 24 “Tiens, Ti Jean, donne ce plat la a Shammy,” my father is saying to me, turning from the open storage room door with a white tin pan. “Here, Ti Jean, give this pan to Shammy.” My father is standing with a peculiar French Canadian bowleggedness half up from a crouch with the pan outheld, waiting for me to take it, anxious till I do so, almost saying with his big frowning amazed face “Well my little son what are we doing in the penigillar, this strange abode, this house of life without roof be-hung on a Friday evening with a tin pan in my hand in the gloom and you in your raincoats—” “II commence a tombez de la neige” someone is shouting in the background, coming in from the door (“Snow’s startin to fall”)—my father and I stand in that immobile instant communicating telepathic thought-paralysis, suspended in the void together, understanding something that’s always already happened, wondering where we were now, joint reveries in a dumb stun in the cellar of men and smoke … as profound as Hell … as red as Hell.—I take the pan; behind him, the clutter and tragedy of old cellars and storage with its dank message of despair–mops, dolorous mops, clattering tear-stricken pails, fancy sprawfs to suck soap suds from a glass, garden drip cans–rakes leaning on meaty rock–and piles of paper and official Club equipments– It now occurs to me my father spent most of his time when I was 13 the winter of 1936, thinking about a hundred details to be done in the Club alone not to mention home and business shop–the energy of our fathers, they raised us to sit on nails– While I sat around all the time with my little diary, my Turf, my hockey games, Sunday afternoon tragic football games on the toy pooltable white chalkmarked … father and son on separate toys, the toys get less friendly when you grow up–my football games occupied me with the same seriousness of the angels–we had little time to talk to each other. In the fall of 1934 we took a grim voyage south in the rain to Rhode Island to see Time Supply win the Narragansett Special–with Old Daslin we was … a grim voyage, through exciting cities of great neons, Providence, the mist at the dim walls of great hotels, no Turkeys in the raw fog, no Roger Williams, just a trolley track gleaming in the gray rain– We drove, auguring solemnly over past performance charts, past deserted shell-like Ice Cream Dutchland Farms stands in the dank of rainy Nov.—bloop, it was the time on the road, black tar glisten-road of thirties, over foggy trees and distances, suddenly a crossroads, or just a side-in road, a house, or bam, a vista gray tearful mists over some half-in cornfield with distances of Rhode Island in the marshy ways across and the secret scent of oysters from the sea–but something dark and rog-like.— J had seen it before … Ah weary flesh, burdened with a light … that gray dark Inn on the Narragansett Road … this is the vision in my brain as I take the pan from my father and take it to Shammy, moving out of the way for LeNoire and Leo Martin to pass on the way to the office to see the book my father had (a health book with syphilitic backs)— SCENE 25 Someone ripped the pooltable cloth that night, tore it with a cue, I ran back and got my mother and she lay on it half-on-floor like a great poolshark about to take a shot under a hundred eyes only she’s got a thread in her mouth and’s sewing with the same sweet grave face you first saw in the window over my shoulder in that rain of a late Lowell afternoon. God bless the children of this picture, this bookmovie. I’m going on into the Shade.

SCENE 24 “Tiens, Ti Jean, donne ce plat la a Shammy,” my father is saying to me, turning from the open storage room door with a white tin pan. “Here, Ti Jean, give this pan to Shammy.” My father is standing with a peculiar French Canadian bowleggedness half up from a crouch with the pan outheld, waiting for me to take it, anxious till I do so, almost saying with his big frowning amazed face “Well my little son what are we doing in the penigillar, this strange abode, this house of life without roof be-hung on a Friday evening with a tin pan in my hand in the gloom and you in your raincoats—” “II commence a tombez de la neige” someone is shouting in the background, coming in from the door (“Snow’s startin to fall”)—my father and I stand in that immobile instant communicating telepathic thought-paralysis, suspended in the void together, understanding something that’s always already happened, wondering where we were now, joint reveries in a dumb stun in the cellar of men and smoke … as profound as Hell … as red as Hell.—I take the pan; behind him, the clutter and tragedy of old cellars and storage with its dank message of despair–mops, dolorous mops, clattering tear-stricken pails, fancy sprawfs to suck soap suds from a glass, garden drip cans–rakes leaning on meaty rock–and piles of paper and official Club equipments– It now occurs to me my father spent most of his time when I was 13 the winter of 1936, thinking about a hundred details to be done in the Club alone not to mention home and business shop–the energy of our fathers, they raised us to sit on nails– While I sat around all the time with my little diary, my Turf, my hockey games, Sunday afternoon tragic football games on the toy pooltable white chalkmarked … father and son on separate toys, the toys get less friendly when you grow up–my football games occupied me with the same seriousness of the angels–we had little time to talk to each other. In the fall of 1934 we took a grim voyage south in the rain to Rhode Island to see Time Supply win the Narragansett Special–with Old Daslin we was … a grim voyage, through exciting cities of great neons, Providence, the mist at the dim walls of great hotels, no Turkeys in the raw fog, no Roger Williams, just a trolley track gleaming in the gray rain– We drove, auguring solemnly over past performance charts, past deserted shell-like Ice Cream Dutchland Farms stands in the dank of rainy Nov.—bloop, it was the time on the road, black tar glisten-road of thirties, over foggy trees and distances, suddenly a crossroads, or just a side-in road, a house, or bam, a vista gray tearful mists over some half-in cornfield with distances of Rhode Island in the marshy ways across and the secret scent of oysters from the sea–but something dark and rog-like.— J had seen it before … Ah weary flesh, burdened with a light … that gray dark Inn on the Narragansett Road … this is the vision in my brain as I take the pan from my father and take it to Shammy, moving out of the way for LeNoire and Leo Martin to pass on the way to the office to see the book my father had (a health book with syphilitic backs)— SCENE 25 Someone ripped the pooltable cloth that night, tore it with a cue, I ran back and got my mother and she lay on it half-on-floor like a great poolshark about to take a shot under a hundred eyes only she’s got a thread in her mouth and’s sewing with the same sweet grave face you first saw in the window over my shoulder in that rain of a late Lowell afternoon. God bless the children of this picture, this bookmovie. I’m going on into the Shade.

Somehow Messies have a hard time coming to the realization that some jobs we must do are unpleasant and tiring. It is difficult for us to accept that giving away "stuff" will hurt us, but that it is okay to be hurt. Optimistically, like children, we feel that if a job is hard, we really can't be expected to do it.

He found himself thinking of the smoke of Parwana’s cooking, the kitchen shelf cluttered with her jars and mismatched plates and smudged pots. He missed the mattress he shared with Pari, though it was dirty, and the jumbles of springs forever threatened to poke through. He missed all of it. He had never before ached so badly for home.

As homeschooling moms we want the best for our children. We want to give them all that is offered out there. But when we fill up our homes with so much stuff, we are doing just that. Filling up. Then we need to constantly organize, and we find we are just moving piles around. Make a list of the things that are absolutely essential. For example core curriculum books, supplies, etc. Then look around and see what is just fluff-those extra maps, flashcards, games, puzzles {with missing pieces}, etc. Decide what is necessary. Then look around and see what is just taking up space.

shalt clean up your act. Customers want a clean, organized, fresh environment. No garbage lying around; no leftover lunches or personal crap littering the space. This is the first impression people get of your business, and if it’s dirty, tired, or cluttered, it’s a bad one that’s difficult to erase.

Clutter causes confusion and provides unnecessary stressors for children.  Research notes that physical environments affect a child’s overall competency.  Rearranging or redesigning your child’s space can enhance positive behavior as well. 

Although it’s easy to maintain your home once you have an organizational system in place, you still need to be sure to set aside time to maintain the system.

eliminating clutter would cut down the amount of housework in the average home by 40 percent.

Whereas controlling acquisition is pretty straightforward, changing the meaning of one's possessions and ridding one's home of hoarded clutter is far more difficult

If we establish good habits—such as keeping lists, returning items to their proper place, and reducing clutter in our homes—we can relieve the clutter in our minds.

Focus on one thing at a time whenever possible. You might think of an organized person as juggling many things at once, but actually it’s been proven more efficient to handle things one at a time. A recent Wall Street Journal article discussed how managing two important mental tasks at once reduces the brainpower available for either task. So, while people think they are saving time by multitasking, they are actually doing both tasks ineffectively.

Immediately sell or donate unwanted items.

Three rules of work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

This is what I term a reduction lifestyle—reduce excessive consumption, unnecessary obligations, and overbearing clutter. When

In reality, a minimalist is simply someone who tries to live simply. A minimalist is someone who doesn't want clutter in their homes or their lives, someone who makes an effort to keep their home simple, and someone who realizes that there is more to life than accumulating "stuff.