“Does it spark joy?”
“Have you used it in the last three months?”
“Would you buy this item again today?”
All great questions to guide you as you declutter. But one sunny afternoon in 2008, I discovered THE ULTIMATE question that will help you make immediate decisions on keeping or tossing.
The question that makes decluttering easy.
2008 was the first year that I really buckled down on minimalism. I wanted to get rid of stuff until my house was easy to maintain. But as I sorted through things that were perfectly good, I would think, “Well, maybe I should keep this, just in case I need it.”
This was good stuff. This was useful stuff.
I bought it for a purpose, and I knew that purpose would eventually appear.
We had a 700-square-foot unfinished basement at the time. It was non-livable space, so I was able to store all of that Just In Case stuff.
It was out of the way, out of sight, out of mind.
And I’m telling you, I had some STUFF. It was probably three or four feet deep. I had somewhat organized pathways to make my way through it, but you basically needed a map if you wanted to find the daylight again.
Meanwhile, the main floor of the house was looking gorgeous, and I was still hauling a lot of stuff off to the donation centers. But I did keep a lot of it. Maybe too much.
But I had five kids at the time, so didn’t it just make sense? It would be wasteful to get rid of so much just to buy it again two years later.
We were seven people living in a house that was built in 1882. With one bathroom. Indoor plumbing was added years later. While the house had a few surface remodels over the years, the main guts of the house really hadn’t been touched since they were installed.
One of my children struggles with digestive issues. He was enduring said struggle, obviously in the bathroom. Then I heard a scream.
“Mom, we have a problem!”
The leak was so fast that I had to splash my way through toe-deep water to turn it off. But it wasn’t just water I was splashing through… š¤¢
We frantically threw towels at the floor, but it didn’t matter. It was far too late.
There were holes in the floor, beneath the sink where the pipes connect. The murky water swirled around it like a whirlpool. And if it’s disappearing into the floor of upstairs…
The basement was getting a full storm down there. All over my Just In Case hoard.
The plumbing repair was extensive. Ceramic pipes had broken from roots growing all the way through them. We had to dig up a large section of our sewage line and replace it.
In the following days, my battle was in the basement. I had all of this stuff. Covered in brown.
The only question to ask as I sorted was: Do I love this item enough to clean poop off of it?
And I’m going to tell you right now, no. There wasn’t anything that I liked enough to clean poop off of. It was all going right into the dumpster.
And from that point on, I’ve been a decluttering machine.
Before, I would open the cupboard and think: Which ones do I want to declutter? Which should I get rid of? Which ones can I live without?
Those questions are based in a scarcity mindset. The fewer items we have, the more streamlined our home is. We don’t have to manage our stuff with our time. We don’t have to manage our stuff in our mental inventory. We only have the essentials.
As you’re sorting through your stuff, try asking: Do I love this enough to clean poop off of it?
Think about those things that you want to be a priority in your life. Think about the person you want to be, think about the things that you want to spend your time on, the relationships, the activities.
And ask yourself if all this stuff in your home helps you get there. Does it serve that purpose in your life? Does it make that easier for you? If it’s not making it easier, then it’s getting in the way.
Our clutter is not laying around benign–it affects us.
And yes, I had shoved all those Just In Case items into the basement, but they were still there. I still had to keep track of it and work around it. The main floor of the house looked nicer, but the chaos wasn’t gone–it was hiding just behind the basement door. And when I got rid of all those things that weren’t serving me, that’s where I found freedom. The more that was going out, the more relief I felt.
And after I finished the basement, I approached the whole house differently. I pulled everything out, and I looked at it, and I asked which ones really serve me? And I kept only those. I got rid of the rest. And life has been better ever since.
