Diana mentioned that we needed a clutter topic. Here it is.

Are you a clutter hound? Do you require clean, open space in order to be productive, or do you do your best work when everything is a mess?

Who cleans up the clutter in your house, or do you just leave it where it is? Does it make you insane the way it does to me, and do you continue to accumulate clutter anyway? Are you too embarrassed to hire a housekeeper because there's just so much crap all over the place?

Do you dream of a clutter-free existence? Hop on board, baby.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Answers

Hi, my name is Diana and I am a clutterer.

My problem is so bad that I once went to a Clutter Support Group (at the Learning Annex in New York, hi Stee). It was full of people with overstuffed bags and backpacks, exclaiming at the joy of meeting other people who needed, really needed the last six months of the New York Times next to their bedsides. People who had filing cabinets full of articles on, say, Iceland and The Magic Flute and ways to make cheesecake (which they didn't even like). People who understood the sentence, "I haven't used it in years, but I don't want to throw it out, because I might not be able to / have time to / afford to get it again."

Very supportive - and I'm sure we all still clutter. Is it genetic? Occupational? Did we not get enough Feng Shui as babies? Is there a designer drug you can take? Do you have a system that works? Because I don't. I think the reason I read so much on the Web these days is because it's the one thing I can always find on my desk. Please help.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Definately the best thing about online journals is there is always someone out there who has the same weird trait or bad habit as you. I think it's great.

Yes I collect stuff, and collect it, and collect it, and collect it. Even though I live in a small house with n o where to put most of it. I have co-ordinating boxes in most rooms for 'quick cleans' aka out of sight, out of mind.

It bothers me at times but not enough to tidy every single day. I don't see the point in wasting the time. So I tend to leave it until I absolutely have to do something - usually recognised when I'm stepping over things to get to the doors.

I think my downfall is the 'I migh need this someday' approach to what to keep.

I'd love to be tidy and clutter free but it's just not me. My desk in work is the same and everytime I get organised and put stuff away something goes missing.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

I hate clutter! It is the bane of my existence, 'specially since my hubby is the exact opposite and never throws anything away. I have become more minimalist the last few years, and knickknacks, junk mail and paper, clothes not worn for a few months, etc., are getting trashed. I guess it helps that we are moving in a couple of months, the more I throw away, the less I have to pack. The only two "non-essential" items I can tolerate lying around are candles and plants, and since plants add oxygen to the air, well there you go. Seriously, I am OCD when it comes to clutter. Ask my kids.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

I'm a clutter hound, and I LIKE it that way, dammit! I will never put anything "in its place"- then again, I'll never put it BACK in its place, there is a severe lack of "places" to put anything out of sight, and what if I need to use it anyway?

I come from a line of them- my grandmother's house was so cluttered it took months for them to clean out after she died. My mother has stashed so many things in the guest bedroom that you cannot walk in it, and I have to climb and hop around. Yet both of them were/are under the delusion of being neat freaks.

If/when I get my way, I leave the clutter where it is. I honestly don't care about what other people think about the cleanliness of the house. Come on, they know I do art, why would they expect neatness from me? To quote my teacher yesterday, the neatest student usually turns out the most boring stuff.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

I'm not a clutterer; I'm a piler. I have these piles of things near the bed: magazines, textbooks, literature, coupons clipped from the paper, shoes, my backpack, purse and whatever else will be guaranteed to make me stumble when I get out of bed in the middle of the night.

I have great intentions of putting things away, but then get distracted and pretty soon, I feel like I'm living in a rat's nest. Then I go on this tidying frenzy, throwing out things that haven't been read, shipping stuff off to the library, selling old books....it's like a binge and purge thing. It's sick; I rejoice in cleaning up the house and "taking control" over my pack rat tendencies...and then it sloooowly starts again ("Oh, I'll put my shoes away later...and I'm going to read these papers/articles/texts tonight...") and pretty soon, the house looks like a tornado hit it.

I've gotten the tzachka collecting under control, but I hate hate hate filing...Okay! I admit it! I am a clutterer! God, it feels so good to come out...

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

*ssshhhhh*!

If Clutter hears you, he'll form another pile somewhere...

Piling isn't cluttering, is it? We have lots of piles. Actually we can't put a lot of things in their place, because they have no place to go. That receipt for coffee and doughnuts in '96 may come in handy. I need to keep those magazines for reference. My grandma clips articles out of the newspaper and sends them to me, isn't that nice? She has piles too.

I'm in the ofice going thru piles right now. Seems we have six months of bank statements (with cancelled cheques) missing. I wonder where they are?

Problem? What problem? If I pile things in a different way than Ron, that won't conflict will it? When things are in the file cabinet, we have a hell of a time placing our hands on them.

I've considred getting a housekeeper, but it would take to long to clean the house.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

There is nothing like baby clutter, baby.

As I look around my formerly "adult" looking living room, I want to cry. Toys. Lot's and lot's of toys. Books, baby's books and how to do "X" with baby books. Pillows, why do we need 7 pillows in the living room? To keep little Emma from bumping her little head when we try to get little Emma sitting up, oh yeah fun, fun, fun. What else.......... The big toys, Supersaucer (plastic, ugly walker type thingy) the highchair, which we move into this room so I can watch the news in the morning and feed her, and there is the usuall bullshit that my husband saves. Cat toys, cat beds and the cats (hey cats can be clutter) And my crap too.

I always clean up this crap, my husband is allergic to cleaning. Usually every other day or so. If someone is coming over we scramble and throw it all into the back bedroom. I love a clean house, but I'm getting used to the clutter, my child won't remember if the coffee table is cleaned off, she will remember if I got down on the floor with her and played to her heart's content.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Whew, I just got off the phone with my spouse where we were fighting about this. We were talking about going to the flea market tomorrow and he was bemoaning the fact that stuff I got from previous fleas was still in the living room, and said "I want you to think about putting stuff away, and before you buy stuff, think about where you're going to put it!" I told him that second part was unacceptable - I'll try to put stuff away, but I'm not going to start limiting stuff I buy just because I don't instantly know where I'll store it.

We have a friend who doesn't buy a book until he gets rid of a book. I refuse to be like that.

I'm not crazy about clutter - I'd like to have a place for everything and everything in its place - but I'm having a hard time getting organized. I still have drawers that are empty because I can't decide what I should put in them. On the other hand, one of the reasons I wanted to move to a larger place with a garage was to have more room to put stuff.

It's a problem.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

I decided my problem is not having appropriate places to put things. (or at least that's my self-diagnosis)

Like, for instance tape -- Scotch tape, Duct tape, electrical tape, mailing tape all need a single compartment or container. (and so does everything else)

Maybe one day I'll have enough of those K-Mart/Wal-Mart/Target plastic stackable (all shapes & sized) containers.

I could easily live in a house with a couple hundred of these various stackable things right next to museum quality artwork and probably think it all just fine.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Well, let's put it this way. On my desk, here, to my left, I have not one but two small piles of CDs sitting in front of the computer mother station. In the printer tray, a couple of bits of paper plus another CD and a book. On top of the printer, a few other bits of paper plus a paper bag. Directly in front of me, below the monitor shelf, some more books, even more CDs, a pile of floppy disks and a roll of sticky tape. On the floor to my right, two piles of magazines, stacked in different degrees of neatness; to my left, another pile of magazines barely stacked at all. To my right is a chest of four drawers; the second one from the top lies permanently open at elbow height, and when I need to refer to books for something I'm writing, I usually pop the book in there instead of putting it back on the shelf. Theoretically that drawer should only contain socks and underpants, instead it also houses various books and magazines. I won't even talk about what the rest of the room looks like, never mind the other rooms in the house. You decide for yourselves whether this makes me a clutter hound or not.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

If it's not sloppy, and it's *pretty*, it doesn't count as clutter, right? Every horizontal surface in my apartment is covered with stuff - vases of flowers, bowls of potpourri, candles, books (lots and lots of books...). I have two china cabinets and two etageres filled with all the stuff I collect (Russian lacquer boxes, old china, Depression glass, old sewing tools).

It's organized clutter. It's pretty clutter. But it's clutter, and it's my life. Love me, love my clutter.

It's a bitch to dust it all, though.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

Clutter is the bane of my existence. All through my childhood, my parents piled stacks of things in our house, and it drove me CRAZY! Piles of magazines, student papers to correct, mail, newspapers, clothes to mend, they were everywhere. In the basement we had rows of coffee cans and mason jars filled with useful bits of metal -- clips and screws and springs and hinges. My mother was a child of the shortages in Europe that followed the Second World War, and nothing ever got thrown away without being stripped of its usable parts and packed away for future use.

When I got out of there -- well! My dorm room in college could have made the grade in West Point. I kept it empty and clean. I kept my first apartment nearly empty, and all the corners of any book or paper on a surface were parallel to the edges of the table or desk. By the time I got to law school I was scrubbing the door wells of my car every Saturday so that the dust wouldn't build up in there.

I was scrubbing my bathroom from top to bottom every Saturday, too, and I had three pieces of furniture that all stood close (and parallel) to the walls. By the time I was graduated from law school, one of my friends had taken to putting my pictures askew when she came to visit because she said otherwise my place creeped her out: "It's like a mausoleum."

Then I married a clutterbug, and now we're basically back where I started, except that much of the clutter is baby-related (and no one's stockpiling spare refrigerator parts in the basement). Perhaps it's just as well. Y'know, I can see that maybe I was headed toward a bad place with all of that order. But the clutter still drives me nuts.

Um. I seem once again to have added an entry that was more appropriate for the old "I'm a freak" thread.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

I require clear space, but I never seem to have it. At work my desk is extremely clear and organised, or I can't think straight, but at home there just isn't enough storage spaces. We're about to buy a filing cabinet for the spare room, because there are so many piles of paper everywhere that I can't find anything any more.

The other thing that doesn't clutter our house up any more is clothing, mainly because I've started getting ruthless and sending stuff to Oxfam if I haven't worn it for six months. Last weekend I sent four rubbish sacks full of clothing away.

My ideal house would be full of built-in cupboards and bookshelves.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2000

I really find that the DeCluttr mailing list and alt.support.clutter newsgroup are very helpful for me. I get good ideas and strategies, and also find out that others are even worse off than I am!

here's the archive location for the list, so you can sample and see if it might help you:

http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/decluttr.html

Clutter can be related to OCD and ADD issues. I was relieved to find out that I'm not emotionally *attached* to the trash (but some people are); it's just a hassle to get it out the door, down a long hall, through a door, up a flight of stairs, through a metal gate, across the alley, inside a locked garage, then reverse the process. Some folks do experience emotional distress when they start to try to get rid of stuff.

Living alone tends to allow the situation to get worse, because one never minds one's *own* mess as much as other folks' mess.

the "one *small* thing every day" strategy is a good one. If you do cleaning and decluttering binges, you don't build up the new habits that can reduce the clutter long-term. Instead you go nuts and work- work-work for a short time, then collapse, then stuff gets bad again.

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2000

Thanks, there's some good stuff on that mailing list (specifically about dealing with junk other people unload on you), and on the usenet version (alt.support clutter or somesuch). I've also found Julie Morgenstern's commercial site (hard information is in Challenges => Past Challenges). In many cases she thinks the problem is that one space is being made to serve too many purposes.

There was a thread about filing vs. piling on the copy editors' listserv a while ago. Some people need to see all their current work, sorted along two or three dimensions. They will be unable to cope with systems that make them keep it out of sight in a one- dimensional filing system. Most offices just don't have enough shelves for us pilers.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2000