Hasta La Ideas

Reader Oh My (I’m thinking that’s not a real name) submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I believe that the biggest obstacle to decluttering my life is the fear of regret. I have so much junk that I’m afraid to get rid of because I think it will be useful or valuable, and I am sure that once it’s gone I will immediately think of a use for it, or — in the case of collectible items that can be resold — discover I could have gotten more money out of it if I’d sold it someplace else. (As I’m between jobs right now, any loss of potential income really bothers me.)

My question is, how do I deal with regret? Most people seem able to accept that what’s done is done and move on with their lives, but mistakes I’ve made in the past haunt me for years and I don’t know how to get over them. Do you have any advice?

The best advice I’ve been given about regret is to ask myself the following questions before getting rid of an item:

• What is the worst that can happen?
• How would I behave if I were not afraid?
• Would I buy it again if my home burned down?

The first question allows you to play through every possible horrible scenario. Nine times out of 10, the worst that can happen isn’t actually horrible. A common response is that you might have to borrow a similar item from a friend, which is a little inconvenient but not horrible. Obviously, if your life might be at risk if you got rid of something (like heart medication or a cane that helps you walk), don’t get rid of that item.

The second question gets you thinking about how you will respond to even the horrible scenarios. You can figure out how you would deal with these events if you weren’t afraid of regret or making a mistake. Once you know how Fearless You would behave, Fearful You can feel comfortable behaving in the same way.

The third question keeps your perspective in check. If you wouldn’t pay money for the item now, you likely wouldn’t regret getting rid of something. However, if you would spend money to repurchase the handmade quilt your grandmother made you, it’s probably best not to get rid of that quilt. I’d certainly pay money to repurchase my laptop, so it’s not something I would purge. However, I wouldn’t buy an empty yogurt tub if it didn’t have yogurt in it, so into the recycling bin that yogurt tub will go when I’m finished eating the yogurt in it.

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can feel comfortable getting rid of an item if that is the right course of action for that item.

A good rule of thumb is to take care of the things that matter to you (the possessions that you’re using and/or that you treasure, like that handmade quilt) and to get rid of the things that don’t matter to you. Owning things require space for storage, as well as money and time to maintain and manage those items. The fewer things you own, the fewer things you have to clean and store and keep track of and worry about protecting.

If these three questions aren’t helpful for you and fear continues to paralyze you from taking action, I recommend talking with a licensed medical professional about your anxiety. Getting rid of clutter should feel liberating, not debilitating, and a psychologist can help you if there is more going on than just dealing with your stuff.

Thank you, Oh My, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. Be sure to check the comments for even more advice from our readers.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

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As much as I dislike going to see my dentist and doctors, I go for all of my preventative care appointments (every six months or once a year or whenever is recommended) to keep my medical costs low. I know from experience that regular checkups are less expensive than emergency care, which sincerely plays the largest part in all of it. These regular appointments are also there for early detection, so small problems don’t become large ones (also saving me money).

The easiest way to stay on top of these appointments is to schedule your next visit before you leave your dentist or doctor’s office. The same is true for hair appointments, car maintenance, and your pet’s veterinarian visits. Along similar lines, appointments for annual servicing of your heater, chimney, and other house work can be scheduled for the next year before the technician leaves your home (assuming you liked the work that was done). If your family enjoys going skiing every winter and you have a favorite place to stay, make your reservation for next year when you settle up your account for this year’s trip. Even though you have no idea what you’ll be doing 12 months in the future, it’s better to get an appointment on both of your schedules early. You may have to move the appointment, but you at least have one to move if you need to.

Regularly scheduling appointments will free up your time (you don’t have to call multiple times to try to get squeezed into someone’s schedule or call multiple providers hunting for someone who can help), alleviate stress (you don’t have to worry about your heater not turning on the first cold day of fall), and likely save you money over the long-term.

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Does this ever happen to you: Your home is functioning at its best and chores are getting done when they need to be done. Then, the light bulb burns out in the laundry room (or something similar which is seemingly minor, like you run out of dish detergent or you throw your coat over the back of a chair instead of hanging it up in the closet). Less than a week later, you have dishes piled up on your kitchen counter, clothes spilling out of the hamper, and old newspapers piling up in your driveway. All it took was one itty bitty cog in the machine to break for your entire system to fall apart.

I refer to this breakdown as the Keystone Demise. In architecture, the keystone is the center stone of an arch. It is the piece that is vital to the arch’s success because it makes it possible for the arch to hold its shape and to bear the weight of the ceiling, wall, bridge, and/or doorway. If you remove the keystone, the arch fails, usually bringing down the entire surrounding structure with it.

The Keystone Demise is almost always the cause of an organizing system failure. One small piece is disrupted/broken/compromised and in a matter of days it is as if the organizing system didn’t exist at all. One day’s mail being thrown on the dining table can be all it takes for full-house chaos to erupt.

When you or others who occupy the same space notice the keystone isn’t working properly, its as if the keystone gives license for you and others to abandon your efforts to keep everything organized. In a sense, the Keystone Demise plays a part in the Broken Window theory. The tiny, out-of-place keystone sends a signal that it’s okay for disorder to rule the home or office.

As someone who wants to keep your home and office organized, it’s your job to immediately identify when a keystone is out of place or broken and fix the situation. There are a few easy ways to do this:

1. Printed closing duties or a chore chart. It seems elementary to write out chores and end-of-day assignments, but these lists can be very beneficial for helping you avoid Keystone Demise. Before leaving the office or heading to bed, review your printed list of closing duties or daily chores to make sure all tasks were completed properly. If they weren’t, quickly do the chore or re-do it. Don’t leave work or go to bed with an essential task undone.
2. Keep an easily accessible shopping list. Again, this is pretty basic, but having a grocery shopping and errand list can be a huge help in avoiding Keystone Demise. This list needs to be in a place where any of your housemates can effortlessly add to it (right when they notice something is running out or broken, don’t ever expect housemates to have to email you because they won’t), the writing implement needs to be in working order, and you can take the list with you when you go to the store or to run errands.
3. Having the right tools. This is mentioned constantly on this site, but it needs to be mentioned again in this context. If clothes end up on the floor of your bathroom, then you need to put a hamper in your bathroom. If clothes end up on the floor of your bedroom, you also need a hamper in your bedroom. If you want to shred junk mail by your front door and also shred sensitive documents in your home office, have a shredder by your front door and also a shredder in your office. Having multiples of something isn’t clutter if you actually need multiples of something to stay organized and keep from avoiding Keystone Demise.

In my house, receipts on the top of our bedroom dresser are our broken keystone. If we empty our pockets and just set the receipts down on the top of the dresser, within a week we have absolute chaos in the house. It’s amazing to me how something as small as receipts can cause complete disorder, but time and again they are the culprit. Rather, I should say receipts used to be the constant cause of our Keystone Demise. We now have all the tools necessary to keep this simple type of clutter from accumulating. Plus, getting ready for bed more than an hour before we plan to go to sleep also helps a great deal because we have enough energy to properly process these little slips of paper (and get our dirty clothes into the hamper and all our other end-of-the day chores).

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More than 2,000 years ago, famous Greek philosopher Socrates and a man named Isomachus were having a discussion about how Isomachus wished his wife would run their home (the conversation is recorded by Xenophon in chapter eight of his writing Oeconomicus). Isomachus told Socrates he had asked his wife to keep house by finding a place for everything and having everything in its place:

My dear, there is nothing so convenient or so good for human beings as order … An army in disorder is a confused mass … And so- my dear, if you do not want this confusion, and wish to know exactly how to manage our goods, and to find with ease whatever is wanted, and to satisfy me by giving me anything I ask for, let us choose the place that each portion should occupy; and, having put the things in their place, let us instruct the maid to take them from it and put them back again. Thus we shall know what is safe and sound and what is not; for the place itself will miss whatever is not in it, and a glance will reveal anything that wants attention, and the knowledge where each thing is will quickly bring it to hand, so that we can use it without trouble.

It’s delightful to read organizing advice that has been with us since Socrates’ day. There are a number of fun bits and pieces throughout the text that read like they could be straight out of an Unclutterer guest post: “even pots and pans may look fair and graceful when arranged in order.”

However, I should point out that the text was clearly written in a different time. The actual purpose of the text was to help men of Athens institute Socrates’ teachings in their homes, mostly by giving advice on what men should tell their wives and servants to do. The conversation above happened after Isomachus and his wife were just married, and Isomachus believed she would win his respect and esteem if she followed his instructions.

The irony in all of this is that Isomachus’ wife did not approve of his manner for keeping house (Isomachus references that she was messy), and Socrates exclaims: “Upon my word, Isomachus, your wife has a truly masculine mind by your showing.” I must admit, this made me laugh, and reminded me a great deal of our recent post addressing “Gender stereotypes and uncluttering.”

Apparently, nothing is new, not even stereotypes about men being messy or 5S Lean advice on a place for everything and everything in its place.

Thanks to reader MRussula for bringing this gem of Greek literature to our attention.

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I grew up in a part of the country where land is comparatively inexpensive and housing prices are tame. In my hometown of Topeka, Kansas, you can buy a decent single-family home on a nice lot in a low-crime neighborhood for around $100,000. This isn’t a new phenomenon resulting from the downturn in the U.S. economy; land and housing has always been reasonably priced there.

As a result, people in my hometown tend to buy their houses because mortgage payments are less than what they would pay in rent. This makes financial sense, especially if someone plans to be in a home for more than five years, has a 15 year mortgage (or smaller), is paying less than 5 percent interest on the loan, and property taxes and home owners’ association dues aren’t insanely high. However, not all of the country has housing prices and conditions similar to those in Topeka.

The part of the country where I live is a completely different monster. A comparable house you could buy in Topeka for $100,000 sells here for $650,000 or more based on its proximity to the Metro and downtown and its school district. Buying a house doesn’t always make financial sense, and it certainly doesn’t for my family right now. We have become renters, and are very comfortable with this decision for numerous reasons.

We’re not alone. Slate ran the article “The Rent Isn’t Too Damn High” on Tuesday explaining the economic trends that are turning many people in the country into renters. Simply stated, the American dream may no longer be the American dream. Since the “the national rate of return for homeownership was 1.3 percent” during 1975 and 2009, while “For stocks, it was 3.375 percent,” owning a house has been a far cry from a decent investment.

Additionally, many people don’t want the stress of worrying about a furnace, a roof, or a sewer line. Many jobs are no longer tied to a specific location, and moving every few years can be a very attractive possibility for renters. Sinking money into a house for upkeep and interest on a mortgage can be more than one would pay in rent over three or four years. And, with housing prices on a roller coaster ride, it can be easy to be under water on a mortgage and get trapped in a property that might not meet your needs.

Since I grew up in a community where owning a house is less of a financial risk than it is where I live currently, it took some time for me to see the benefits of renting. I get it now, though, and I’m loving our current situation. We don’t have plans to move across country in the immediate future, but we easily could if we wanted to. We don’t expect the air conditioner to go out on our rental house, but if it does it’s our landlord’s burden to fix, not ours.

Renting isn’t for everyone, and owning still makes sense for a lot of people, but it’s the right decision for us where we live and the point where we are in our lives. Owning a house is no longer a dream of mine, nor is it for many Americans.

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