I finished Gretchen Rubin’s book, Outer Order Inner Calm, a few months ago and while there’s not much new under the sun about organising, I do love her approach that not one size will fit all.
A concept that has stayed with me for a while now is the one about deep clutter.
In the book, she mentions that it’s easy to see messy people’s clutter. That’s called surface clutter.
However, many of us (I include myself here) have deep clutter and we don’t even realise it because it’s tucked away in a cupboard, sometimes even neatly organised.
Just because something is organised beautifully in your cupboard doesn’t mean it’s not clutter; it could be deep clutter. I immediately thought of all the pantries on Instagram that are gorgeous, yes. But I often wonder if people really eat all that food on a regular basis?
Or the beautifully organised rooms full of clothes… if those 17 pairs of jeans are not being used, that’s deep clutter.
She also mentioned that your things should move around your house. Example – if your dishes are in the sink, and then on the table, and then packed away, they’re all clearly being used, so are not clutter.
The dishes at the back of the cupboard that never move? Those dishes are probably deep clutter.
I was immediately inspired to use the stuff I love and the next time I gave my kids a snack, I used my fancy tapas bowls so they’d get an outing 🙂 And last night I dug out some dishes I used to use regularly a few years ago. I still love them so I fed the kids on them and they loved feeling special.
Here’s your organising challenge:
- Check the back of your cupboards to unearth all the deep clutter.
- Either start using those things (yes, your fancy things may break – it’s okay) or donate them.
- Take a pic and post on Instagram; tag me so I’ll come see them
PS if you’re interested, my life admin list still has 9 items on it. I remain hopeful that I’ll be able to cross off 5 in the next week or so!
