I gave a clutter busting talk at a bookstore in Seattle last Friday. I opened it up for the audience to tell me about their clutter situations.
One woman shared how she and her husband had collections of things, but it was a problem because the stuff was taking up too much of their living space. She wanted to let go of some of it, but her husband didn't want to. I could hear some tension in her voice. That's a pointer that something is clutter. For her, that was how she was handling that particular part of her relationship with her husband. I told her she couldn't do anything about that because he wanted to keep it. I asked about her stuff. She said she had too much yarn. She sounded peaceful about that. I said that's the best place to start. I suggested she could go through her yarn as if she were shopping in a yarn store. She could put all the yarn she liked into a bag. The rest of it she could donate to a local charity.
A man talked about how his house was filled to the brim with too many things. He told me about specific items. He was very attached to these things and said when he tried going through them, he felt overwhelmed and had to stop. I could tell he was feeling very stressed and needed relief in order to progress with the clutter busting. I asked if there was anything in his home that wasn't much of deal to him. He thought about it. He said he had a pile of spare lumber that he had no use for. He was pretty calm about this. I said that was the place to begin. Clutter busting is a natural part of our abilities, but it needs to be warmed up. Starting slow and easy allows some momentum to build up.