Breaking the Shopping Habit While Isolating

Stuck at home with stores closed by a state of emergency, you might just forget to do any shopping. Or if the shopping bug keeps bugging you, now is an especially easy time to break that pattern.

During the coronavirus lockdown in effect as I write this, I know of many people who have stopped buying most of the things that they would ordinarily be shopping for. My own purchases in the last month have been limited to food, with a few exceptions in the category of entertainment. Most routine shopping, it seems, has simply been forgotten.

Gains From Clearing Clutter

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

One of the reasons clearing clutter can feel difficult, and why we may rely on March of Trash to focus our efforts, is that the emphasis is on taking things away. It can feel like a loss even though the physical thing you are losing is something you were never going to use. You get a more meaningful sense of what you accomplish when you can reframe clutter clearing in terms of what you have gained.

Family Time: The Ambiguous Clutter

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

There is a side of decluttering that is so problematic that I hardly ever mention it — but now is the time.

When you share a space with multiple other people — which usually means your family — ambiguous situations can arise around some of the stuff in the space. Whose stuff is it? You can’t always tell by looking at something who owns it or whose responsibility it is. When this happens, the easiest course of action is to leave the stuff generally where it is. Over time, this stuff can build up.

Decluttering While Self-Isolating at Home: Seek Balance

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

This post is especially for people who are home alone for a period of time and using the time to clear clutter.

Stuck at Home and Facing Clutter

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

This month, many people find themselves stuck in an unfamiliar place. They are at home, that is, and not just for a moment but for days at a time without the possibility of rushing out on a series of errands or to some other happier destination. People are almost forced to look around and see what their possessions are, and they may not be happy about what they see.

Human Impact and Clutter

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

It is a valid approach for most decisions to ask what the human impact will be, and decisions around clutter are no exception.

Consider the Energy

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

Some of the things you own just don’t feel good to have, even if you use them for something important. There is something off in their energy.

Clutter Clearing Reveals More Clutter

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

Clutter clearing is ultimately not very complicated but it can be a little tricky. One of the surprises in clutter clearing is that you can remove all the clutter from a specific place, such as a shelf or a drawer, only to return the next day or the next week and find more.

Two Starting Points

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

It is well known that clutter makes a bad first impression, but this effect is more important in specific places. In this post I focus on the two points of view that I think are most important when looking at your possessions:

• The things you see when you first open your eyes in the morning
• What you and your visitors see as you enter the front door

Not Photo Quality

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

Just looking around a room, you will see a few things that you want to remove, hide, or improve.

Once you’ve finished with those, you might think that the room is as good as you want it to be. But don’t stop there. Take a few photos of the room. In the photos, you will see more things to change — and especially, more clutter that you want to remove.

The Less Obvious Junk

March of Trash asks you to take action on clutter every day for a month.

Some things are legitimately useless. They are worn out, used up, unwanted, broken, or obsolete. If you are looking for clutter, certainly, start there. If you find the 11-year-old conference sweatshirt, shrunken with frayed collar and torn cuffs, and you have a better sweatshirt that you would rather wear, then toss out the sweatshirt, write “sweatshirt” somewhere on the March of Trash scorecard, and you’re done for the day.

Most clutter, though, is not so obvious, and finding it involves getting out of your usual way of looking at things. This year’s March of Trash features six ways to change your perspective on material things so that you can find more clutter. Look for a detailed post on each in the coming weeks.

March of Trash 2020

March is here, and it’s time for that first stage of spring cleaning that is really more clearing than cleaning — clearing out the clutter to make space and make the cleaning process easier. At my house, I like to call this part of spring cleaning March of Trash because I focus on it during the month of March. It’s a challenge I take on every year to clear out at least one item of clutter every day for the whole month.

You are welcome to join in on the challenge too. Read the description of the March of Trash challenge at the linked page, then download the official scorecard at http://www.fearofnothing.net/marchoftrash-scorecard.png. Return here to the blog throughout the month of March for frequent updates in which I show pictures and tell stories of clutter that people have thrown away. I’ll also explain in detail the six clutter-busting prompts in the 2020 scorecard. These prompts are ways of changing your point of view in order to find the clutter that may be hidden in plain sight in your home.

Clutter-busting is easier when you tap in to the collective energy of other people taking on the same challenge. Whether you call it peer pressure or emotional support, that energy is strongest in March when the time-honored tradition of spring cleaning is getting underway.