How and why I got rid of my hidden clutter

I recently wrote about the importance of being tidy – even if you have some disorganization in your home.  As I wrote it, I was reminded of the areas where I have pockets of disorder in my house – where hidden clutter lives.  They are easy for me to forget about because the house tends to be so tidy. I don’t feel weighed down daily by the accumulation of this hidden clutter. It isn’t a visual eye sore and it doesn’t stop me from moving around my space or functioning efficiently, which is key.

Unlike disorganization and clutter that spills into your living and working spaces, this hidden clutter feels invisible. And that can be the most dangerous kind of clutter. The more we allow the hidden and the seemingly invisible clutter to accumulate, the more weighed down we feel – even if we don’t see it in our day-to-day.  When your psyche is weighed down, a different kind of overwhelm ensues.

And it isn’t pretty.  Or necessary.

For me, those pockets of disorder are in the form of media — magazines, books, and even DVDs.  These items have a “home”, like on a shelf or in a media cabinet.  But for me, the angst comes from knowing that much of this media belongs in the recycle bin, a school or church, a donation center — or in some cases, the trash.  Bottom line, too many of these items don’t pass my 3-question test:

Do I like it?  Do I need it?  Will I use it?

But they’ve been allowed to hang around because they aren’t in my physical way. They are…hidden clutter! Of course, like many of my clients, the task of purging them and the thought of sorting through them is overwhelming.

Like others, I am overwhelmed by having to make the decisions.  You’d think since I have been doing this for 20+ years decisions would come easy. On some things, perhaps. But when it is your stuff, it isn’t always easy to decide.

And that uneasiness leads to inaction.

So I decided to take my advice and eat the elephant one bite at a time by tackling only one part of the media clutter:  the magazines.  Truthfully, they are easier to deal with and I wanted instant gratification so that is where I started.

When I thought of the whole category of magazines I realized that I wasn’t just talking about the hidden ones I deemed important enough to save – in the basement no less – in case we needed to refer to them again (As if!).  I had to address the ones in the family room, and the ones in my office.

I ended up recycling everything from the family room coffee table. And because magazines are things I do not often read, I unsubscribed to them, too.

The basement purge was easier. I applied my questions and couldn’t get past the first one. How can I justify liking, needing, or using something that was more than four years old that I had stored on a shelf in the basement?

The answer is I can’t.

It was the easiest purge ever.

My office purge was another story.

I had to think more about what I was saving, why, and where everything should be housed. The reality with magazines is that they are filled with fleeting information.  They aren’t necessarily timeless entities, meaning we don’t tend to read them over and over. And because information changes so often, we only need to wait for the next issue of People to understand more about why Jennifer Lopez kicked Ben out.

In my case, some of the magazines I had stored on my bookshelf in the office I intended to refer to for work.  I started collecting specific magazines related to food, and health, and well-being. And stored them in my arm’s reach, with all of the other dietary research I had from school at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

The problem was that with the internet and information changing so much I wasn’t referring to them.

I almost forgot they were there. They were organized all snugly, like a bug in a rug on my shelf, not jumping out at me in any way.  That is what hidden clutter is.

The health magazines I subscribed to I deemed timeless. They had specific teachings about the Paleo lifestyle and I thought that would be easier to have them at my fingertips. So I put them in a basket next to one of my reading chairs in my office. Which as it turns out did not mean I would read them as they came in.

I broke all my own organizing rules with this one!

Baskets can serve a nice, decorative purpose but they also can be a detriment.  In this case, the basket just made it much easier to keep more without regard to why. The bigger the pile, the less I grabbed to read.  When I looked through them I found that many did not have timeless information. And a small handful more I never even read.

I recycled more than half of what was in that basket and on my shelf. Any recipes I liked got torn out and stored above my stove.  Truthfully, most of my recipes come from my Pinterest page and I have little need for any paper recipes.

In the end, I gained more shelf space!  It is always a bonus. I decided to do away with the basket to prevent hidden clutter from finding space in my place.

And importantly I cleared the almost unconscious burden from my brain: the hidden clutter lurking in my home.

By the way – this part of the Media-Clearing task took me a total of about 40 minutes.  Sometimes, we overestimate how long something will take and it deters us from starting.  The goal is to just start.

Are you up for the challenge to do the same with your media? Start with whatever area feels right for you. Let me know how you do!  Comment below or feel free to post before and after pictures and any questions you have on my Facebook page!