One of my friends convinced me to be a clutter buster ten years ago. It happened because of a particular visit to his apartment. I came over to his place and there was no place to sit down. There was a mountain of stuff on his couch. I really wanted to sit down and relax, so I offered to help him with this hill. Because I was friendly about it and not angry, he accepted. He got out a big plastic trash bag. I asked him about each item. Mostly it was fast food containers and papers. Pizza boxes, and bags and wrappers from burger places. There was some junk mail mixed in with it. He agreed to toss each item. It only took about ten minutes. He was amazed it could be done. I think clutter often happens because people are overwhelmed, and then the presence of the clutter becomes intimidating because they are already stressed and tired.
The funny thing was I still couldn't sit on the couch. The springs had busted. There was a big indentation where the couch had worn out. I asked him if it could be fixed. He said no. I asked if we could toss it out. He asked if it would be okay to do that. I said, "It's your place, you can do whatever you'd like." He was amazed that he could give himself permission to do that. The hypnosis of the clutter was busted! He said yes to tossing it. We carried it out to the sidewalk. I felt someone would come by and get it.
We went back in his place and he wanted to continue the letting go process. I think he was feeling a lot of extra energy. I later found out after I officially became a clutter buster, that this is how it usually is. People start to feel better and get inspired to take care of their lives again. He tossed out bags and bags of busted, worn out and old things.
He wanted to get new furniture to replace the old stuff he got rid of. We went outside to his car and saw that someone had come and taken the couch. That was pretty exciting. We went to Ikea and he got new things that he really liked. The whole thing only took about three hours.
He was feeling so good that he said, "You have to do this for a living." I said "I don't think there's people out there that are looking for this." He said, "You'll be surprised. So I put up flyers and got calls right away. He was right.
So I sort of was placed in this position of being a clutter buster and it turned out to be better than any job I ever had. The great thing is it never gets boring. Every time I show up to a client's home, I'm excited to see how I can help that person. It feels like a puzzle. "Where's the clutter?" I look for the clues.
I encourage you to find your own excitement in uncovering your living space, and basically your life. Clutter shows up in all kinds of amazing and strange ways. And you always know what's best and what's no longer good for you. It's an intuitive process. It tells you what to do as you go along.