I had no plans for this to be a multi-part series, but as often happens, it turns out I have more to say. This next saga could be recounted as a story about home inspections and fireplace insert fuel options. But it was tedious enough to live through the first time, so I’ll spare you the details.

I’ll just say: soon after we bought our home, it became clear we needed to put a new insert (the thing that makes the fire) into our fireplace, and also repair the top of our crumbling chimney. So you have a visual reference:

The quote to repair the chimney wasn’t too bad, so we scheduled both pieces of work for earlier this month. But there was an HGTV-style plot twist. When the guys arrived onsite and power washed the mossy chimney, it became clear that the damage was more severe than anticipated, doubling the cost estimate (and no, this was a reputable company unlikely to be scamming us).

The months of tedium leading up to this point flashed before my eyes, and I shuddered at the thought of going back to square one, getting a round of new bids, and continuing to muddle through a subject I have little natural interest in.

Then it hit me: do we even need a chimney??

We had just installed an electric fireplace insert. Electric inserts are basically fancy space heaters with a light show, and they require no venting. (They also occasion postmodern musing about the essential nature of fire whenever you turn them on.)

Sure enough, the bid to remove the chimney above the roof line was half the cost of repairing it. And as added bonuses, we’d both reduce our chance of roof leaks and improve the insulation of our drafty living room.

Done deal! Away the chimney went.

And here we are today:

While we were at it, we removed the now-defunct furnace chimney on the back of our house.

Before:

After:

As this all was going on, I watched the bricks come down, and dopamine started flooding my body. I was confused. What was this feeling?

Oh!

It’s the joy I get when I complete a satisfying decluttering project. I just went from two unnecessary chimneys to zero. I decluttered my roof. And it felt unexpectedly good. My joys may be a little eccentric, but I take them as they come.

I hope this story serves as a reminder that in a world organized around accumulation, it’s worth exercising our subtraction muscle.

Now You

What weird thing has given you unexpected declutter dopamine?

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Incidentally, there’s nothing more sobering for a supposed minimalist than seeing every item you own in one huge pile. I got through the trauma, and you’ll hear all about it in future (further) meditations along the surfeit of STUFF in our lives.

But first!

Charging cables. The rat’s nest that every home seems to spawn. Readers may recall the last time I tackled the rat’s nest. These things are never one and done, are they?

As context, our new house is a 1920s Craftsman with lots of built-ins. (The built-ins have been a double-edged sword, but that’s a topic for another time.) A cabinet in our dining room has an outlet inside, which seemed like the perfect tucked-away spot for a phone/laptop/etc charging area:

The goal, as I originally saw it, was t…

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Why is it that no matter the size of our home—be it tiny studio apartment, single family home, or mansion—we seem to invariably use up all available storage space?

It brought to mind my middle school science class where I learned that gas will always expand to fill whatever container it’s in. This is kinetic molecular theory. The molecules aren’t bound up with each other so they’ll wander off to fill the space that’s available.

This is what happens with our stuff. When you notice there’s space for X item, you put it there. Then Y item joins it, and so on, until you end up with a chaotic cabinet/closet/whatever. This absolutely happens to even me.

Let us call this natural phenomenon kinetic storage theory.

Kinetic storage theory is why it’s important to containerize things and approach your storage spaces very carefully. At the outset, know that every…

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Let’s kick things off with a reader question.

Q: I moved into my house with great systems five years ago, and it’s time to review and tweak and declutter the inevitable slide. My question is about this question “yes but IF I do this thing again, this stuff will be vital”. I have a beautifully complete box of cake decorating supplies, and very occasionally make a spectacular layer cake, but definitely not often enough to warrant keeping the stuff. I have a CPAP machine I no longer need, but what if I need it again in the future? Those things are $5000! And on and on. I feel happy and relieved to move stuff on from the category “stuff from a chapter that is no longer current”, but what about the stuff where the chapter could return? And it would be expensive if it did? Or the stuff would make life way easier if it did? - Katie

Read on for my response...

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I’m a fan of categorization. Of classification. Of anything that helps the world feel more organized. Clearly. Don’t even get me started on Myers-Briggs.

As we go back to school and/or ponder the remainder of the year, I’m here with a gentle reminder that there are distinct ways to care for your home, and it’s vital to understand which one you’re doing.

Often when facing a disordered space, the lines get blurry and you just go in bushwhack style. There is a time and place for this chaos method, FOR SURE.

But when you have a little time and space, it’s helpful to know your objective so that you can, you know, achieve it. This is also an excuse for me to heavily link to some juicy posts, so let’s get to it!

Tidying

This is picking this up and putting them back in their homes. It is NOT figuring out new homes for items (that’s organizing). I include resetting your space and running your daily processes in this category.

Remember that the goal isn’t “tidy” at all times;…

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I can fit so many things here!

I’ll totally remember what I have in the back, no problemo.

Who wouldn’t want a luxuriously deep cabinet? But the reality slowly creeps in, and before you know it the back of that extra-deep cabinet is a dreaded black hole. Items go in, but never come out. Your knees quake at the thought of traversing its depths to discover what lies within.

I know this cycle well because I just recovered from 5 years with a black hole tool cabinet in our basement.

(And before you roll your eyes, I see you small space dwellers thinking you’d give anything for an extra-deep cabinet. I know, I KNOW. I’m spoiled.)

The tool cabinet started innocently enough. When we moved in, I dutifully sorted all our tools into bespoke containers, favoring old yogurt tubs and recycled cardboard boxes due to my anti-bin beliefs. Ever the good girl, I labeled everything as though a label could resist the force of a black hole.

Look, a black hole exerts 1.6 trillion times the gravitational pull we experience on Earth. My Sharpie didn’t stand a chance.

So before I knew it, my husband and I stopped looking more than 6 inches into the cabinet. If we needed something, it better be within that first 6 inches. Otherwise, we’d head to the hardware store.

The black hole just kept swallowing things until I finally couldn’t take it anymore. Most people feel calm if a quick visual scan shows a tidy home. But not me. I feel best when storage areas that no one ever sees are in order. The inside of the cabinet under the bathroom sink needs to be tidy. Ditto the basement storage areas. To me, clutter in these hidden spaces feels like an invisible cancer I know is growing and metastasizing. (Yes, I’m in therapy.)

I finally tackled it a couple weeks ago. It took several short sessions over two days because the decision fatigue was intense. So many little decisions about random screws and scraps from projects. It is very true that clutter represents delayed decisions.

I brought out a folding table and laid everything out for sorting and tossing.

Disturbingly, I uncovered…

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If we were to treat our spaces like the containers they are and respect their limits at all times, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. (Shoutout to Dana White’s Container Concept)

However, we don’t do this. We fill our closets, drawers, and bins to their limit.

And then we add something new and our whole system breaks down because the new thing has nowhere to go. So begins a pile, or else we buy some organizing doo-dad to Tetris in more stuff.

I’ve spent a decent amount of time in other people’s pantries over the past couple years and it’s interesting to me how people store vastly different amounts of dry goods. Sometimes it’s barely enough to fill a drawer. Other times it’s huge closetfuls (lest we forget Khloe Kardashian’s tower of cookies).

There is no “correct”…

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Something that keeps coming up in our comment threads are questions and often frustrations about cohabiting with people who have differing ideas about how to take care of their things. A common refrain:

These systems sound great but what if it’s seemingly impossible to get my partner to follow any kind of system or pick up their things?

This is such a loaded topic. The struggles people face and the deep wounds they feel are palpable in the comments. It’s tempting to not address it at all because feelings run high, but I do think sharing can help people feel less alone at a minimum. And maybe some ideas will prove helpful.

I don’t have the cure-all (AT ALL), but I can share ho…

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My mom visited recently. She is a next-level expert on cleanliness and WILL find that bit of dust behind your dresser, no matter how thoroughly you think you’ve cleaned. She’s truly gifted at cleaning and commits to it with her whole heart. One of my strongest childhood memories is of her cleaning the kitchen floor on hands and knees (“the only way to really see all the dirt!”). Somehow I did not inherit her gift for cleaning. I guess with the next generation it genetically morphs into a love of organizing.

However, sometimes my commitment to organizing is hard to see. For instanc…

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• Solo parenting

• Two kids home sick

• Several overdue projects you urgently need to address

• One kid clogs the toilet

• Then you realize your packed-full dishwasher didn’t run last night because it’s broken

Life is challenging enough when all our systems are up and running, but when one fails, you start to see how vital each piece of the house machine really is.

A dishwasher is just one small part of the house, but when you rely on it working, you don’t have the space for it to stop working. Now there are no dishes for breakfast because you don’t keep a ton of extra dishes. You don’t have time to wash the dishes by hand because two sick, cranky kids need to be fed NOW. And the pileup compounds throughout the day.

After a brief (or not so brief) moment of panic, I took some deep breaths, grabbed some quick snacks for the kids, emptied the dishwasher, washed everything and put it back into the dishwasher to dry. I talked myself down by r…

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@torilanaeeshe’s full now but i give it 2 days😅🥑🍓 #asmr #fridgerestock #fridgeorganization #groceryhaul #organizedhome #restockasmr

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Since when did every good we own need to get put into an acrylic plastic bin? An Atlantic article referenced in the podcast bears an all-star headline: Home Influencers Will Not Rest Until Everything Has Been Put in a Clear Plastic Storage Bin

How did we get here, and WHY? Here are some lenses through which we can examine this behavior.

1. Extreme individualism and self-reliance

Stocking up has become something of a religion. We schlep out to Costco with our double-wide shopping carts and stock up on well-priced goods we will use for months. I know because I do the schlep.

Then you need to store all these supplies. And as long as you’re storing everything, might as well make it beautiful so it sparks joy every time you open the door. And before long we are all running little stores inside our houses.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having a well-supplied home. On the other hand, we used to let STORES store our things. When we needed stuff, we’d go to the store to get what we needed. While there we’d interact with other humans, maybe say hi to a neighbor, chat with the cashier, and feel connected to our community. Now we buy bigger homes so we have room to store all the stuff we buy.

A little aside: When I first met my husband, when he was out of toilet paper, he’d walk a couple blocks to the store and buy…2 rolls. One to use, and one (!!) extra. My brain nearly exploded the first time I witnessed this, but I also appreciated his dramatically simplified approach to living. I had—and have—a lot to learn from him.

As someone who both stocks up and spends way too much time running out to the store realquick, I see the loss of interconnectedness in action. I’m starting to rethink my Costco runs already.

2. Displays of abundance as luxury

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Let’s talk about expensive jewelry.

I’ve always prided myself on my “non-materialism.” I love a deal. I used a ziplock bag as a wallet for years. Why put money into a fancy wedding when you could be saving for something practical like a house down payment? When it comes to symbolic jewelry, why buy a $4,000 ring (for example) when a $40 ring can do the same job?

But then I discovered Mociun, a Brooklyn jeweler with delightfully unconventional designs. I started following them on Instagram (BIG MISTAKE) and fell in love with a custom ring they made for someone.

When I got engaged I knew I wanted a ring just like that. I downgraded it from a diamond to a sapphire (see, I’m reasonable), but it still would be my most expensive single possession after my house and car. There are so many reasons why I disagree with the concept of engagement and wedding rings (feminism, capitalism, etc etc), but I’m not made of stone. They’re pretty and I wanted one damnit.

So we had the ring made. I loved it and continue to love it.

Around the same time, I was purchasing homeowner insurance, and the agent asked if there were any high-value items I wanted to list on the policy (you have to separately identify high replacement value items, turns out). So of course I had to add my most expensive possession.

This added about $100 to my annual insurance cost. Ok, whatever. I paid it for a couple years before it struck me:

What am I doing paying an annual TAX on my engagement ring? The ring was already expensive, so why I am I incurring more costs in perpetuity just for owning it?

If my ring were lost or stolen, I don’t actually require another equally expensive ring to replace it. Any replacement would be less special than the original ring, so I could just get something affordable and pretty. And if I don’t lose the ring, then over the course of my life I’ll be paying way more than the cost of the thing to insure it.

I’m a big believer in good insurance generally. I totally understand spending extra to insure things that are essential to your life, like a fancy camera if you’re a professional photographer. But a random bauble? Talk about expendable!*

I called my agent and asked them to remove the ring from the policy immediately. I’m so glad I came to my senses.

There’s More

This is a very explicit example of how owning expensive things continues to exact a (literal) cost. But there are other subtle ways expensive items cost us even beyond the initial purchase:

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Professional organizers as therapists of capitalism.

Put another way, yes, professional organizers are here to help people manage their belongings but also to “work through their feelings around their stuff and the labor it demands of them.” This is a quote from the anthropologist author Carrie M. Lane.

I think of it like this: good organizers help you face the consequences of capitalism and help you chart a new path forward.

It’s true that we roll up our sleeves and help you dig yourself out if you’ve ended up under a literal pile. But to really effectively organize, it’s generally necessary to change your relationship with Stuff. To do this, some people need to excavate painful memories, face difficult truths about relationships, question the amount of time they dedicate to stuff management, evaluate closely held values, revisit climate change fears, and more. It’s not a simple job.

(And frank…

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Let’s get down to business. It’s time to address an important topic: I’m struggling……with a cabinet in my dining room.

I’ll paint the picture. We only have two pieces of furniture in that room: the dining room table/chairs, plus this large buffet cabinet.

The cabinet does a lot of jobs, and is a persistent agent of chaos. It is our device charging control center, supporter of school backpacks, foundation for the lamp, and home of library-books-and-papers-in-waiting. And that’s just what you see from the outside.

Since we often eat in the kitchen, the dining room frequently acts an art room. And so this cabinet houses a…

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Here it is: Most organizing advice assumes (and even requires) you have a high level of executive functioning.

If this is a new term for you, executive function is the set of mental processes that help people plan, focus, and exert self-control. I’ve heard it described as the “little boss” inside our heads that tells us what to do in a given moment, prioritizes, and helps us organize our thoughts. Or an air traffic controller that filters out the signal from the noise.1 I’m not an expert on this, just very interested in it since lots of people in my life—and I’ve discovered, readers of this newsletter—struggle with executive function.

Here’s an example of organizing advice that relies on executive function:

Create an inbox for your household where bills, forms for the kids’ school, and other action items live. Be sure to sort your mail and empty the kids’ backpacks each day and put the relevant items into the inbox. Then once a week sit down and process everything.

It’s sound advice and makes intuitive sense. But without strong executive function, it will be really hard to remember to put all the relevant papers in the correct spot each day, and following through with processing once a week will be challenging.

Relying on your brain for reminders about what to do and when taxes executive function. I don’t explicitly struggle with executive function, but I do know I am more effective if I can offload administrative cognitive processes to leave my mind clear for deeper thinking. That’s why I love systems so much. I detail a bunch of strategies I use in my Declutter Your Brain Series to reduce reliance on executive function:

• Rely less on your working memory

• Create systems to organize your home without having to think

• Detox from social media and the news

• Turn your smart phone into a dumb(er) phone

But what if the little tips aren’t enough to keep your home and life organized?

This article and discussion is focused on those whose executive function struggles with maintaining their homes, despite trying every trick in the book. But really, this is advice can apply to everyone since reducing demands on executive function is helpful for all of us. The crux of my recommendation is this:

less stuff = less to think about = more brain resources available

What if you focus whatever mental resources are available on decluttering and simplifying, full stop? When you have fewer things to deal with, the mental load of daily life goes down, by a lot. You could even make simplifying the ONLY system you implement, and that might be all you need to do.

Let’s look at the home environment.

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Some context I should disclose: I’ve been blessed with incredible travel opportunities in my 4+ decades on this planet. I have, at very different periods in life, backpacked solo in South America, visited 5-star European hotels, stayed with locals in exotic destinations, traveled to multiple foreign countries for work and leisure, lived a year as an ex-pat in Poland, and worked for a thoughtful travel company for over a decade. I’ve traveled a lot.

These have been enriching experiences, but also have helped me recognize the value of non-traveling, which is a lifestyle I’ve now come to embrace. I do still travel a tiny bit, mostly to visit loved ones, but my default mode is to not travel.

During my time traveling, immersed in the dynamics of travel and its impacts on local communities, I became convinced we need to reframe how we think about travel on the individual level, and (while harder) on the societal level as well. I’m starting to see burgeoning conversation about this, but these ideas are in their infancy, especially in the US (Europe is further along). People who otherwise are conscientious consumers often think nothing of jetting off on faraway adventures every chance they get, to the praise and envy of peers.

The core problem, as I see it, is this:

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To illustrate the concept of stocks and flows, consider a bathtub:

The stock is measured as the quantity of water in the tub at a given time. Water coming in from the faucet grows that stock and outflow through the drain decreases it at whatever rate. Importantly, flows are the only thing that can change a stock — that’s key! Stuff doesn’t just materialize. It has to come from somewhere.

You can apply stocks and flows to better anything that accumulates (has a stock) in your home:

• Mail (inflow = mail delivery, outflow = recycle or otherwise deal with your mail)

• Packages (inflow = online shopping/delivery to your house, outflow = breaking down cardboard and finding homes for the items)

• Clo…

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Ouch! But also: yeah, kinda...

Ok, here’s the story: Everyone struggles with clutter. Literally everyone. To wit:

• I’m the most uptight, clutter-aware person I know and yet I regularly open a drawer or cabinet and realize it’s a total rat’s nest of clutter. Here’s the proof.

• My friends with big fancy homes often have an even larger collection of stuff hiding under the fancy surfaces.

• The guy living in his truck down the street struggles to maintain his mountain of belongings precariously stacked high into the sky.

• Every mom I know bemoans the disastrous state of the house after kids spend the weekend at home.

The fact of the $11 billion professional organizing industry—not to mention the Container Store—gives us a hint that we collectively have a hard time managing our stuff.

I’m not saying the above are equivalent situations, just making the point that no matter your situation, dealing with Stuff is a fact of life. The second humans are able, they will accrue belongings, which they then have to figure out how to live with.

Why do we have this drive to acquire?

A Little Human History

In the early 2000s a detailed study of family living in the L.A. area was published in the book Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century. As the authors summarize in the chapter called Material Saturation:

This is the most materially rich society in global history, with light-years more possessions per average family than any preceding society….These decades of sustained consumer frenzy…play out in measurable and interesting ways within people’s homes, since the home is the storehouse for nearly everything families possess.

Turns out accruing stuff is in our DNA, and it makes perfect sense why. Humans have evolved to be Stuff collectors, and when you consider how difficult life was historically, it makes sense why.

I recently read the rapturous four-book series The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg, which details the emigration of a Swedish family in the 1850s to America. It bought to life how hard it was just 225 years ago to simply survive. Children were in danger of starving to death if there was a bad harvest year, leading many families to risk everything and undertake a harrowing months-long journey to start a new life in America.

At their destination, settlers needed to carve out a life in the wilderness. Materials were scarce so people had to figure out ways to build shelter using as few nails as possible. This is how I learned that log cabins don't require nails to build. If the immigrants were lucky enough to scrape together a few cents they’d journey all day to a store selling seeds for wheat. Which then they’d plant, care for, harvest, mill and eventually turn into bread. (Makes me feel exceptionally lazy for grousing that my favorite bakery won’t pre-slice their bread loaves for me.)

Most of human history was like this, rather than the Amazon-enabled plenty we live with today. Taking a broader perspective of human history, it makes sense that we are programmed to always be scanning our environment to find objects that might be useful, and that acquiring new objects makes us feel momentarily good.

I could’ve used any number of examples — early human history, modern tribes like the Marubo in the Amazon rainforest (a very different kind of Amazon-centric life), and so on — Swedish settlers just happen to be on my mind right now.

So why the history lesson?

Releasing the Shame Spiral

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This is a flywheel. Flywheels are incredible creations. In short: once they start spinning, they store energy and continue rotating on their own, without additional input, and can even later tap into the stored energy like a battery.

Flywheels make great metaphors. The business world LOVES the flywheel concept, which is how I initially came across it. Flywheels require a lot of work to get going, but once they start running, growth/success accelerates seemingly on its own. What’s not to love?

Ok so WTH does this have to do with organizing your house?

You can create flywheels in your home!

Here’s an example using our favorite nemesis: laundry.

I notice many of my 1:1 clients struggle with an abundance of clothing, often paired with a feeling of overwhelm when it comes to laundry. Unsurprisingly, these things are related. It’s not uncommon for laundry and clothes to permeate every single room of the house. Every single one. Do not stress if this is you — you’re not alone!

When I see this, I like to focus our efforts exclusively on clothes and laundry because once we get this system working, the whole house can start feeling much more manageable.

Here’s the secret to taming both problems at once.

The mountains-of-laundry challenge is the fault of what’s called a negative feedback loop. You don’t do your laundry and run out of clean clothes, so you buy more clothes, which then creates more laundry to do, which makes laundry feel unsurmountable, which leads to more clothing accumulation, etc. The system grinds to a halt.

To solve this, we need to get a positive feedback loop, aka a flywheel, going. Remember, flywheels require a lot of effort to begin, but once they’re running they self-perpetuate. Here’s what you do:

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I’ve talked about this topic before here and there, but I haven’t really tackled it head-on yet. I love digging into fancy systems and optimizations in home organizing, but how do you even get to “order” as a starting point?

Answer: You declutter first.

It’s the essential first step of any organizing undertaking. The hard truth is there is no way around this. The only way out is through. You just have to do it.

My systems and optimizations will be useless until you first declutter your home down to only the items you need, love, and use.

First, a disclaimer. Everyone’s personal threshold for clutter is different. What feels cluttered to one person might feel cozy and wonderful to another. Stuff only becomes clutter if it bothers you or impedes your ability to function. So if you’re loving how your house works and don’t see an issue, rock on. This advice is for those who seek a change.

Here’s Why Decluttering Comes First

I’m a fan of the 5S method for conceptualizing holistically what it takes to keep a home orderly and peaceful. This is borrowed from the automotive manufacturing industry (yes), but it applies perfectly to the home:

1. Sort - Get rid of what’s extraneous (declutter)

2. Set - Make sure everything has a place (organize)

3. Shine - Keep the space tidy and clean (clean)

4. Standardize - Create a system to keep things orderly (this is my jam!)

5. Sustain - Develop a routine of running your systems (me again!)

I included some links at the end of this post diving into this framework and how it applies at home. If you’re an engineer familiar with this concept please chime in with how you use it — I love learning more about it in different contexts.

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How to Tackle Clutter

Once again I want to say, I’m not here to judge anyone’s clutter. We ALL deal with clutter to some degree. I recently lost (and have yet to find) a library book called “Organize Your Life” somewhere in my home. OH THE IRONY.

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