trending
Hughes didn’t need a statistic to know her stuff had become a
burden. Her solution was to reach out to professional organizer
Leigh Robertson, who studied the methods of Marie Kondo,
author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” and is one of
only 50 Kondo-certified consultants outside Japan.
Robertson became motivated to declutter her own life and
give more time back to her family after reading Kondo’s book
about a year ago. Despite being a very organized person, the
former teacher and now program director of the Lower Cape Fear
Branch of the Diaper Bank of North Carolina had collected a lot
of paperwork over the years — books from college, papers, and
old files from teaching. Her large home was filled with all kinds of
stuff and she felt it was having a negative effect on her family.
“The clutter was weighing on my mind and I was astonished at
the amount of items we owned that we didn’t use,” she says.
She started with clearing out her closet. After five months, her
husband said, “Wow! Your closet looks really nice,” and proceeded
to do his. They next talked to their children about letting go of
some of their belongings.
Robertson found this tough because she liked certain items,
yet the kids didn’t feel the same attachment. She was surprised
by how each child saw the value of creating space and finding
things more easily.
Hughes also had trouble when she went through her children’s
clothes. She found herself holding onto items, wanting to relive
moments from the kids’ younger days. Robertson suggested
she donate the items, sharing that by giving them away she was
helping others.
Donating items to a charity or giving them away is a win-win,
allowing others to benefit from your surplus. Plus, the value of
items donated to charitable shops like Vintage Values or the
Church of the Servant’s Bargain Box, with benefits going to the
Good Shepherd Center, are tax-deductible. And that’s not the
only way to dispose of excess possessions. Consignment stores
will sell select items for a percentage of the proceeds, (which can
be up to 50 percent). Posting items on an online resale group
and holding a yard sale are other ways.
While selling excess stuff can be a way to recoup some of the
Robertson helps her clients declutter by suggesting the 20 -20 RULE :
original cost, Robertson says people often get too hung up
on the financial value of things. Just because they paid a lot
of money for something doesn’t mean it is worth much in the
second-hand market.
A tendency to overvalue or an inability to let go of things
is all part of a consumer culture, says professional organizer
Melissa Capps.
“People now serve their stuff rather than their stuff serving
them,” she says.
Capps loves going into the chaos of too much stuff and cre-ating
a strategy to restore order; she says it’s very therapeutic.
The strategy can be something seemingly simple. For Cynthia
Boulay, mom of a 10-year-old boy and twin 5-year-old girls, it
was to start small and accomplish one little thing.
Boulay says life became chaotic after the twins’ arrival. But it
wasn’t until she moved the girls into their own room that she
became overwhelmed with their clothes. She felt instant relief
after Capps outlined the process.
“If I had to do it alone, it would have taken me hours,” she says.
Capps helped her implement a storage system to keep what
she needed and to overcome emotional attachments to things
WBM january 2018 32