De-Cluttering in Lock-Down
As a small business owner of a Lifestyle Home & Office Concierge Service, I have relished the time lock-down has allowed me to get to grips with all my own mini projects. These are the jobs I have put off whilst devoting my time to others. Amazing Girl Friday provides personal services to over 32 clients. One of my personal favourite services that I provide is the de-cluttering service. The joy I feel when someone tasks me to sort a wardrobe, kitchen or an office, knows no bounds. I cannot be the only person out there who feels like this?
Having run my business for a number of years, one of the popular misconceptions about storage is that people do not have enough for their stuff. This is not true. They have tonnes of storage but it’s usually full of stuff, they may never use. They are clinging on to it with some misguided notion that they will one day need it. I rarely turn up to client’s homes with a plethora of storage. I simply re-purpose the storage they already have.
I have taken these past few weeks of lock-down to really look at my own home and understand the function of my storage. I must have spent a small fortune in The Holding Company or IKEA over the years, and if I take a peek inside those beautiful boxes, what are they full of? Yes, you have guessed it – almost nothing that is worth keeping. When am I going to re-read the notes from my gardening course? Do I really need to keep all the laminated passes from attending London Fashion Week? And when did I start collecting rubber bands and safety pins?
I have a confession to make, my mother is a hoarder, and I believe it’s her hoarding that’s made me squirrel my own belongings and memories away into small, neat designer boxes. I have come to realise that my ‘storage solutions’ are simply another form of hoarding. My mother’s hoarding was haphazard and messy, and mine is more obsessive and is driven by a desire for perfection, but they are fundamentally the same.
We all have deep emotional attachments to our stuff and releasing ourselves of some of our personal possessions can be incredibly liberating. We hold on to our stuff, “just in case” or to remind ourselves of an event or time in our lives.
This unwillingness to ‘let go’ can prevent us from moving on with our lives. Let me give you an example. Recently, my 89-year-old Mother-in-Law had to downsize from a large house to a small flat. The thought of ‘sorting her possessions’ overwhelmed her and it was left to her children (and me) to cherry-pick her belongings for her. I still have pangs of guilt about the things we let go. However, she is now in her flat, she is living her ‘new life’ and she has everything that she needs. Imagine your children having to wade through your possessions, to decipher what is important to you. Do it now. Collect them together, curate and enjoy the process.