The Clutter Game

Let’s play a game. Let’s pretend that over the course of the next month, you have to actually use everything that is currently in your house. You have to wear every piece of clothing, eat off of every dish, use every towel and sheet, and read or watch every single book or movie!

That’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it? But even if you stretched it out to a year, what percentage of your “stuff” do you think you would use? I would think 50% would be a pretty generous estimate. If the statistics folks are right, it’s probably closer to 20%. That means that 50% to 80% of the stuff in your house is living there absolutely rent free, all year long! Because when you think about it, that is how possessions earn their keep, by providing us with comfort and convenience and by serving some useful purpose. But if you’ve got a whole house full of “freeloaders” who aren’t pulling their weight, they are costing you money.

You have to own and maintain a larger house with more and more storage space to keep them in. Some people even rent additional storage spaces because they’ve outgrown their houses. You have to buy boxes and baskets and bins to store it all away and keep it out of sight. I’m hoping you do anyway. If not, then you have the emotional cost of having all this stuff lying around and taking away your peace of mind.

And how much time do you spend messing around with it? I just spent almost a whole weekend reorganizing all my pictures. That was OK with me because those pictures have a lot of meaning for me and now I won’t have to do that for probably another 5 years, but how often have you spent a whole Saturday or a whole weekend cleaning out the garage or doing the “stash and dash” for company? That’s a lot of time and effort this stuff is costing you.

Then there’s the energy drain. There are some things that really give you joy and bring back fond memories for you, but a lot of excess stuff just acts as a drain on your spirit and just makes you feel depressed and guilty for letting it pile up so much. And you feel so embarrassed when someone drops by and your house is all messy and disorganized with your” freeloaders” taking up every spare inch. Not to mention the conflicts with your children, spouse, or mother! More than one marriage has ended because of conflicts between over messy homes.

Wow, I’ll bet you’re really looking at your freeloaders with new eyes, aren’t you? Let’s do one more fun game. Mentally estimate what percentage of your house is filled with unused “treasures” – everything from old broken toys, clothes that don’t fit, stuff hiding out in the garage, books you aren’t ever going to read, etc. Be honest now. Now mentally pack it in boxes and stack it up in one (or two) rooms of your home. Estimate what percentage of your square footage that would represent. Let’s say it’s 10%. If your house payment is $1500, you are paying $150 a month to keep all that clutter! If you’re not getting $150 worth of joy out of it, I suggest you start sending that stuff out into the world to go freeload off of someone else!