Understand Your Clutter

Clutter builds up over time. We use the acronym S.T.U.F.F. to help deal with that clutter. Today I’ll discus the ‘U’ in S.T.U.F.F., which is UNDERSTAND.

One definition I like for our acronym in STUFFology 101: Get Your Mind out of the Clutter is “to know how (something) works or happens.” In other words, how did I accumulate all this clutter?

Using myself as an example, I have generational clutter in my garage. Sometimes temporarily, sometimes not. Small amounts of my deceased parents’ stuff, small amounts of my kids’ stuff, and variable amounts of my own stuff are in my garage.

While I have made progress, there remain setbacks. The Holiday Season in the United States causes our family to rearrange portions of the house for Thanksgiving guests, Christmas decorations, and so on. Random stuff invariably ends up in my garage until after the New Year.

Since I understand this process, I am not frustrated. I know when we pack away the Holiday Season, we will declutter garage items before returning them inside the house. I am thankful for the clutter in this case. Why?
Because it reminds me of a poem I read by Mary Stuber:

Thank God For Dirty Dishes

Thank God for dirty dishes;
They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry,
We’re eating very well
With home, health, and happiness,
I shouldn’t want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence,
God’s been very good to us.

I understand the clutter because it reminds me that we have home, health, and happiness to share with family and friends. That is, I know how the Holiday Season works for our family.

Clearing the clutter in the New Year is a process not an event.