What Your Cluttered Closet (or Handbag) Says About You

I'm home for a few days between business trips. I was on a 10-day media tour and then I went to New York City for a few days of media training. I'm home now and am cramming all kinds of life maintenance stuff into 48 hours. Eye doctor, chiropractor, auto mechanic, hair salon, and nail salon so far... while in the nail salon I was paging through Allure Magazine (because you know, I want to be more alluring!) and ran across this little blurb that says, "People with cluttered handbags, closets, or desks may have difficulty categorizing.". Well duh. It goes on to say...

that in a Harvard study, self-identified pack rats and people who did NOT have trouble throwing things away were asked to sort twenty items into any categories they deemed appropriate. The pack rats took twice as long, created more categories, and felt more stressed.

Co-author of the study, Sara Luchian, said "Getting rid of clutter requires one to discriminate between valuable and discardable items, but hoarders may see each object as unique." What does this mean? It means that the clutter problem you may be facing has more to do with the way you perceive your stuff than the stuff itself. It means that even if you tend to have LESS stuff overall, if your ability to discriminate between valuable and discardable stuff is weak, you'll tend to have a hard time freeing yourself from items that no longer serve you. Food for thought, eh?

Comments

[Terry Lessig]

More alluring????
There's nothing more alluring than an organized blogger chick with tight patterns who can consume biers larger than her head.

[Monica Ricci]

Yeah well, what can I say? Mere mortals cannot resist me. :) (I crack myself up)
~Monica

[Terry Lessig]

We have to crack ourselves up, Monica. The professional writers are still on strike.

Being irresistable is a good thing. It keeps people forking over the loot so you can spread your organizational seeds everywhere.

[Tanya Zingleman]

Monica, I was just making this very comment about myself to my husband last week!! I have a tendency to see every individual item as "unique" and therefore I have a zillion "categories" when I observe my "stuff" -- definitely NOT conducive to sorting & de-cluttering. None of the categories typically defined in organizing handbooks, de-cluttering guides, Oprah, etc. seem to work for me. AND I never seem to have enough time to apply to the effort. Thanks for the valuable observation! However you would be proud of me this holiday season - scaled waaaaay back!! I'm looking forward to a minimalist holiday! Tanya Z.

[Monica Ricci]

Tanya, good for you for scaling back and simplifying! You'll love it! Happy Holidays to you and Ernie and a prosperous year ahead!
~Monica