Article on Taming Clutter

I had a chance to participate in today's "Taming Clutter" Webinar, that Kelly facilitated...it was a real eye opener for me! Kelly did a great job of integrating so much of the GTD philosophy, with the concept of "Clutter" and the reality of dealing with it in our homes and work spaces.
 
On the "clutter" topic:
Polish blogger created "Home Clutter Storage Cost Calculator": http://jakoszczedzacpieniadze.pl/ile-kosztuje-chomikowanie-koszt-przechowywania-zbednych-rzeczy (in Polish).
Example of calculation (translated):
Cost of a clutter storage area purchase: PLN 85 000
Monthly cost of a clutter storage area maintenance: PLN 60
Time horizon: 10 years
Cost of a clutter storage area maintenance in time horizon: PLN 7 200
Total cost in the time horizon: PLN 92 200
Your monthly income: PLN 7 500
You have to work (92 200 / 7 500) 12 months just to keep your clutter... ;-)
 
I was able to attend the clutter webinar too and really enjoyed it.

Several things came out of reflection I did later.

Whether you feel it's ok to sell or move on stuff seems directly related to whether it's easy or hard to replace stuff if you find you really need it. Lack of money, or lack of access to stores or even the fact that many things are not made now or not made as well now is one reason to hang on to lots of things even when they are used only infrequently.

I did some informal polling of friends that live in other parts of the country and other countries and another factor emerged. Those who are most likely to not have much also have the most access to friends that have things they can borrow (often for a fee) or a variety of places that rent everything from hand mixers to lawn tractors to hand tools. They are also typically much younger compared to the groups of people who tend to keep a lot of stuff. People who have access to many ways to replace missing items tend to let go of more things more frequently compared to people for whom replacement is difficult.

There appears to be a direct correlation (remembering of course that correlation is not causation <G>) between population of the nearest town and likelihood of tending to keep and store more things. Low population in your local town means you probably have more stuff you keep while if you live in a high population area you tend to have less stuff.

Most of the cost of storage calculators never take into account the cost of replacement in lost time or money if you find you need the item you just got rid of. You never hear of any organizer book author saying "I decluttered X and found out later that I really needed/wanted it and it cost me Y hours and Z dollars to replace it" I am sure that happens but they never mention it. I'd take their ideas on decluttering more seriously if they'd admit they made a few mistakes in the process. Of course that probably says more about me than about decluttering authors in general. :-)
 
@Oogiem : Another angle. In Eastern Europe before 1989 you were going to a store to buy what was available, not what you needed. So you could buy three TV sets but no refrigerator. But you could find somebody with three refrigerators and no washing machine and somebody with two washing machines and no TV set... The main challenge was to find closed circle of redundant goods. Or... to have a store manager in your family... ;-)
 
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