Many times I use free space as a dropping off point. I make the mistake of believeing that the clutter will occupy the free space only temporarily, that it will eventually find its way to its true and proper place. But time constraints and distractions creep into my schedule and the clutter keeps “nesting” in its new home. Eventually I get tired of it and spend time doing what I should have done in the first place - put it away in its proper place! Unfortunately, because some of the proper places aren’t organized, the cycle quickly repeats itself. I need to tackle the source - the disarray I have created and the purging that needs to be done. Some days I feel as if that is a metaphor for my life, clean, clear out and purge!

@Claire: :-)

Somehow, we must manage to see the free space as being *taken* by something.

My wife is practicing yoga, which takes some space. Playing with kids would, too.

Maybe you’ve got a similar need that could manifest itself in a clear “Don’t clutter this place!” message?

True - I need to respect the space of others. Why not respect the space of “stuff” as well.

It’s not just space that becomes an uncomfortable vacuum. You mentioned time itself - I would like to add money to the applications.

More often than not, when I worked as a financial adviser - the people with a budget were more in control of their money, and the people without a budget were wildly out of control.

However, it’s very interesting to note even those who had a budget didn’t adhere to it with any amount of orthodoxy. You could say the budget failed - in fact, this is why most people don’t make a budget beyond their first. It made them feel like an undisciplined failure.

In truth, it’s not the budget that is key, but the simple act of applying meaning to your money - “this belongs to rent,” “this belongs to electric,” etc. - prior to spending one thin dime which makes all the difference.

Very enlightening post ^.^ I’m committing your URL to memory and prepping myself to return soon (bookmarks and RSS and newsletters just don’t work for me these days…)

Trisha, this is an inspiring point of view! As we say in my country: at the end of the money, there is soooo much month left ;-)

Unfortunately for me, I have the precise opposite problem - and it is in fact a problem because this situation is very new to me.

All my life, up to this point, I’ve always just barely made ends meet. Now I am effectively blinded by abundance. I know it belongs somewhere, and I know it’s spoken for, I just need to sit down and figure that part out - because it’s not just bills anymore…

Then again - such is life. Always evolving just a hair faster than you can handle, forcing you to adapt to new tactics for survival just in time for a new evolution, and a new set of rules.

I hope someday you have my problems ;D

“Knowing neither what he must do nor what he should do, he seems to become insecure about what he really wants.”

What he calls insecurity, I call it freedom. And I’m definitely looking for freedom because it makes my world complete. Call it paradox. I call it balance.

To keep a place alive and functional a part of emptiness is necessary.

Very interesting ideas. I guess I think that the reason we clutter is that we’re not thinking about the time that we will have to clean up the clutter, we’re attached to the goal in mind.

Basically, we’re so attracted to a goal stuck in our head that we forget about our future self that has to clean it up.

I love your suggestion about gathering physical items to take up space. I too think we should focus on learning rather than obtaining physical objects.

Hi am very clutter prone and that is because i am really busy. I find that people who have cluttered desks are either really busy in general or complete slobs.

I’m a bit of a clutter-er myself. But I am really busy. However it’s partially also because I’m focused on other tasked as well. When I was doing really well financially I find that I was also much more organized, for the most part. But I also had a lot more time.

My BF drives me insane with his clutter. He has pans all over the stove, dishes all over the counters, mail scattered everywhere all over his house. Discarded wrappers under the couches (you get the idea). Every surface is completely covered. When I try to make dinner I often have no place to prep food because there is stuff in the way. He constantly loses things and his place wears me down because it’s complete chaos.

And I’m not a neat freak. I’ve been known to have some cluttery areas where I dump stuff in my own apartment. The difference is that mine is contained and I know where those areas are and go through them occasionally.

He desperately wants me to move in with him, but his place honestly drives me crazy and makes me feel stressed. He’s talked about cleaning it up so I can move in, but has spent maybe 2 or 3 hours in the course of the last 4 months doing anything about it. I’ve attempted to help out and spent at least 20 hours cleaning up and organizing his kitchen, living room and pantry and moving things he never uses to storage and organizing it.

He was grateful, but within a week things were back to unusable levels of clutter again even with reduced amounts of stuff and easier places to put it.

His bathroom was redone after a burst pipe and now it’s very clutter free and he says he’s scared to death of it getting cluttered. He’s militant about anything going in the bathroom because he wants it to be pristine. The problem is that this means all his bathroom stuff is sitting in the kitchen instead since there isn’t room for things he really does need, with a small two drawers in the bathroom that won’t fit it all. Even his contractor commented about how little storage he has in there. It’s completely unrealistic, but he seems much more interested in something looking pristine than actually being useful and workable.

When he tries to do anything about it he becomes freakish, panicky, hostile and unpleasant to be around. I think he has an unrealistic picture of “perfect” cleanliness that no one will ever achieve, so he can’t settle for “good enough” and lets everything become a nightmare.

I’ve tried to involve him with the process, but he finds excuses not to, or becomes so unpleasant that I can’t be around him while doing clean up. The only way anything gets cleaned up is if I do it while he’s away.

This is beginning to feel like a deal-breaker to me, even though I love the guy.

Any suggestions about how to deal with this? Sometimes I think he requires some counseling or something and even then I’m not sure if it would change. I’ve about had it with his aspect of his personality. Even though many parts of him and our relationship are really great I just don’t know if I can put up with it any more.

Dear S: I felt stressed just by *reading* your comment, so I can almost feel your pain, too. IMHO, there is no use in trying to “involve him with the process”, since it either is *his* process or no process at all. You’re trying out a lot of things in an attempt to fix the situation, but better do not waste years in letting this become another sad sample case of co-dependency. Seek professional help and advice and gain a better understanding whether you really want to be part of *his* process. There is neither a silver bullet solution nor is there anything you can do on your own to amend the situation.

For these comments, no one mentioned what makes it unique.

For all the minimalist blogs and posts out there—it’s pretty much a new fad—I’ve never seen one that demonstrates this deepness of thought. It’s all “how”, not “why”—and the “why” is totally not obvious.
This post is original, and that makes it special.

Please keep up the great thinking.