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More decluttering rereading
Apr. 20th, 2023 09:46 amFrom _Decluttering at the Speed of Life_:
[There are 2 decluttering questions. If I needed this, where would I look for it. If you can’t answer it, then you ask the second one: would it even occur to me that I already had one.]
“In the kitchen, question #2 isn’t always a matter of whether I would go out and buy the item; it’s a matter of whether my natural inclination would be to make do with another kitchen tool that has lots of different uses and works perfectly fine for this job too.”
Her example is a garlic press, and her observation is that she would never use it, she’s smash the garlic with the side of a knife. I obviously agree with part a of this, and don’t do part b of this — I’d mince it _with_ the knife.
More importantly, however, I _really_ objected to “make do with another kitchen tool that has lots of different uses and works perfectly fine for this job too” comment, when I read this book previously (I have no idea if I blogged about that at the time or not, and I’m not going to look right now). I am inclined to believe that my kitchen project of Find All the Things and Try Them Out and Decide What They Are Good For and Whether I Like Them derives almost directly from Not Liking This Particular Observation.
In clothing, in the kitchen, and in a variety of other areas, I have _rebought_ things that I got rid of and then _re-got rid of them again_, because I didn’t keep them around and use them enough to understand what exactly it was I hated about them enough to Want Them Gone. I never did this with people — which in retrospect is hilariously weird and strange. I’ve never been the person to break up with someone, get back together with them, re-break up with them. But I will do it with Stuff. And understanding in enough detail what I object to about a thing is crucial to disrupting that cycle.
The book continues to be really great, even tho I am, as always, not the target audience. This book, like the previous reread, comes from the pivot year(s) when decluttering books stopped being All About Decluttering, and became weird hybrids of Self-Help and Decluttering (now we have fully evolved to being all about the self-help part).
ETA:
There’s this absolutely amazing section about “Repurposing”. “Or are you a wanna-be repurposer? … I collected stuff like I was the world’s greatest reuser of all things that looked like trash to the untrained eye. … I love the side of me that see the world differently … but I have to reconcile her with the other side of me … Trash with possibilities, but still trash. And then I despise Creative Me. The number one way I’ve found to keep this precarious balance in check is to declutter.”
I read this, and I _don’t_ relate to this. Because while she at least claims that both of these are her (I’m inclined to believe her), I’m stuck with the fact that the would-be repurposer is NOT me. And so the stuff builds up because somebody else thinks it Could Be Useful. On the one hand, I’m prepared to let other people I live with be themselves and make their own decisions. On the other hand, we also have to share all the space in the kitchen.
But again, maybe we _don’t_ have to share all the space in the kitchen. Maybe I could do something like, sure, you can keep that … just not in the kitchen. You can keep that in a bin on the shelving, all of which was also purchased by him. Hmmmm.
I say all this like I have some agency, but really it’s driven by being completely intolerant of watching someone else root around in the trash to take stuff out of the trash and store it in the kitchen because It Could Be Useful. _That_ I find unbearable. But there is a basement.
ETAYA:
In the closet chapter, she talks about using hate to declutter clothing. Yay! I may well have gotten my strategy (wear things I normally do not wear in order to find out _why_ I do not wear them, and then when I know _why_ I don’t wear them, I won’t make that mistake ever again) from thinking about the implications of You Get Rid of What You Hate.
[There are 2 decluttering questions. If I needed this, where would I look for it. If you can’t answer it, then you ask the second one: would it even occur to me that I already had one.]
“In the kitchen, question #2 isn’t always a matter of whether I would go out and buy the item; it’s a matter of whether my natural inclination would be to make do with another kitchen tool that has lots of different uses and works perfectly fine for this job too.”
Her example is a garlic press, and her observation is that she would never use it, she’s smash the garlic with the side of a knife. I obviously agree with part a of this, and don’t do part b of this — I’d mince it _with_ the knife.
More importantly, however, I _really_ objected to “make do with another kitchen tool that has lots of different uses and works perfectly fine for this job too” comment, when I read this book previously (I have no idea if I blogged about that at the time or not, and I’m not going to look right now). I am inclined to believe that my kitchen project of Find All the Things and Try Them Out and Decide What They Are Good For and Whether I Like Them derives almost directly from Not Liking This Particular Observation.
In clothing, in the kitchen, and in a variety of other areas, I have _rebought_ things that I got rid of and then _re-got rid of them again_, because I didn’t keep them around and use them enough to understand what exactly it was I hated about them enough to Want Them Gone. I never did this with people — which in retrospect is hilariously weird and strange. I’ve never been the person to break up with someone, get back together with them, re-break up with them. But I will do it with Stuff. And understanding in enough detail what I object to about a thing is crucial to disrupting that cycle.
The book continues to be really great, even tho I am, as always, not the target audience. This book, like the previous reread, comes from the pivot year(s) when decluttering books stopped being All About Decluttering, and became weird hybrids of Self-Help and Decluttering (now we have fully evolved to being all about the self-help part).
ETA:
There’s this absolutely amazing section about “Repurposing”. “Or are you a wanna-be repurposer? … I collected stuff like I was the world’s greatest reuser of all things that looked like trash to the untrained eye. … I love the side of me that see the world differently … but I have to reconcile her with the other side of me … Trash with possibilities, but still trash. And then I despise Creative Me. The number one way I’ve found to keep this precarious balance in check is to declutter.”
I read this, and I _don’t_ relate to this. Because while she at least claims that both of these are her (I’m inclined to believe her), I’m stuck with the fact that the would-be repurposer is NOT me. And so the stuff builds up because somebody else thinks it Could Be Useful. On the one hand, I’m prepared to let other people I live with be themselves and make their own decisions. On the other hand, we also have to share all the space in the kitchen.
But again, maybe we _don’t_ have to share all the space in the kitchen. Maybe I could do something like, sure, you can keep that … just not in the kitchen. You can keep that in a bin on the shelving, all of which was also purchased by him. Hmmmm.
I say all this like I have some agency, but really it’s driven by being completely intolerant of watching someone else root around in the trash to take stuff out of the trash and store it in the kitchen because It Could Be Useful. _That_ I find unbearable. But there is a basement.
ETAYA:
In the closet chapter, she talks about using hate to declutter clothing. Yay! I may well have gotten my strategy (wear things I normally do not wear in order to find out _why_ I do not wear them, and then when I know _why_ I don’t wear them, I won’t make that mistake ever again) from thinking about the implications of You Get Rid of What You Hate.