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walkitoutRecently, YT recommended a Space Maker video to me that was in the Netherlands. The idea of an American helping a Dutch family declutter was so astonishing, that I gave it a try, and then the woman helping out was so shockingly kindle and gentle and deliberate and collaborative — not necessarily things one associates with the decluttering industry — that I watched it a lot longer than I usually watch videos.
I figured I’d see if she had a book out, because books are much more my thing than videos and indeed she does. It is exactly like the video I watched most of. This isn’t really a tips and tricks book. It has a number of familiar features to it (clear containers and labeling things, and doing maintenance once the system is in place). There are lots of organizer books out there that offer decluttering advice and lots of decluttering books out there that offer organizing advice; this one is unusually seamless. I particularly like how she advocates for saving all the organizers you find along the decluttering journey, and all the home decor and treasures as well to use for decorating at the end. It’s very much my process, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it described in a way so similar to mine.
The multiple passes feels exactly like me as well, and again, it’s not what I’m used to seeing. It also helps that she is very specifically not a minimalist and not advocating for minimalism.
Her short set of rules starts (inevitably) with “don’t Buy Anything … Yet” and then moves to one I particularly love, “Don’t Make Decisions Based on Guilt (No Shoulding!)”. She expands on what Shoulding is, and I love every bit of her exposition. She has a gentle sense of humor throughout the book, and gently encourages being more light hearted about all of this as well. An example: in the oath she offers at the beginning, she includes, “Finally, I promise to take back all the mean things I will say about April in the During.” That’s solidly light-hearted.
In addition to the “multiple passes”, she clearly states: “It’s Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better”. The reality of moving things out the door is that there will be staging areas and piles of things. So, so, so true. Throughout the book, she develops “Declutter Therapy”, quite a lot of which involves the feelings and thoughts triggered by the objects being sorted. The “multiple passes” are crucial to this, by first prompting those thoughts and feelings and allowing however much time is needed to process that (by keeping things until ready to let them go, or by choosing to display them as a beloved and treasured object that connects us to those thoughts and feelings). Tandy has a clear program of curation of self through curation of what one owns.
The “Compass Question” is a really nice construct. Our latest round of decluttering had a weirdly specific question that may count as a “Compass Question”: do I really want to move this again? We’re planning a move in a couple years, and also there’s a certain amount of movement going on within the house (away from basement walls and then in a couple months back to the basement walls, for an insulation project, and out of the third floor for renovation and then back). Anything we don’t care enough to move all those times in the coming months / years is something I can get rid of now, especially since FB Marketplace is working so well for me currently.
I kinda love her idea of a “Coffee and Clutter” date. For me, more likely to be a phone chat, but in person sounds fabulous.
She has a nice list of How to Get Started Options, and good descriptions of them. It’s a clever way to organize a broad range of strategies that appear (some, most or all) in other decluttering / tidying books. I’m less impressed with her “Easy Eight”, not because it’s wrong, but because it’s an 8 item list. Yeesh. I do like her idea of putting all duplicates in one place, and essentially building a “store”, at least for the “During”.
A bunch of the usual tips and tricks do make appearances in this book (speed decluttering = pomodoro) but mostly packaged up as part of something that is designed to deal with particular problems that tend to bog one down. It’s nice to see the context. The context of Declutter Therapy also helps provide context for why she is very okay with Maybes.
As is common in decluttering books, the question of Sell vs. Donate arises, and she very gently pushes hard towards donation, and then follows that up with, only donate what is “free of stains, holes, rust, tears and general damage”, urging checking donation center guidelines and noting that shelters will sometimes take more than donation centers. She also mentions checking local recycling options. No mention is made of Buy Nothing groups or FB Marketplace, which is a little surprising, as the publication date is 2024.
It’s a short book, and extremely enjoyable to read. I highly recommend it to people who like to read decluttering books, to anyone who feels in need of a little decluttering motivation, and also to people who are curious about the intersection of people and stuff. This is an unusually good window, written in a very appealing way.
I figured I’d see if she had a book out, because books are much more my thing than videos and indeed she does. It is exactly like the video I watched most of. This isn’t really a tips and tricks book. It has a number of familiar features to it (clear containers and labeling things, and doing maintenance once the system is in place). There are lots of organizer books out there that offer decluttering advice and lots of decluttering books out there that offer organizing advice; this one is unusually seamless. I particularly like how she advocates for saving all the organizers you find along the decluttering journey, and all the home decor and treasures as well to use for decorating at the end. It’s very much my process, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it described in a way so similar to mine.
The multiple passes feels exactly like me as well, and again, it’s not what I’m used to seeing. It also helps that she is very specifically not a minimalist and not advocating for minimalism.
Her short set of rules starts (inevitably) with “don’t Buy Anything … Yet” and then moves to one I particularly love, “Don’t Make Decisions Based on Guilt (No Shoulding!)”. She expands on what Shoulding is, and I love every bit of her exposition. She has a gentle sense of humor throughout the book, and gently encourages being more light hearted about all of this as well. An example: in the oath she offers at the beginning, she includes, “Finally, I promise to take back all the mean things I will say about April in the During.” That’s solidly light-hearted.
In addition to the “multiple passes”, she clearly states: “It’s Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better”. The reality of moving things out the door is that there will be staging areas and piles of things. So, so, so true. Throughout the book, she develops “Declutter Therapy”, quite a lot of which involves the feelings and thoughts triggered by the objects being sorted. The “multiple passes” are crucial to this, by first prompting those thoughts and feelings and allowing however much time is needed to process that (by keeping things until ready to let them go, or by choosing to display them as a beloved and treasured object that connects us to those thoughts and feelings). Tandy has a clear program of curation of self through curation of what one owns.
The “Compass Question” is a really nice construct. Our latest round of decluttering had a weirdly specific question that may count as a “Compass Question”: do I really want to move this again? We’re planning a move in a couple years, and also there’s a certain amount of movement going on within the house (away from basement walls and then in a couple months back to the basement walls, for an insulation project, and out of the third floor for renovation and then back). Anything we don’t care enough to move all those times in the coming months / years is something I can get rid of now, especially since FB Marketplace is working so well for me currently.
I kinda love her idea of a “Coffee and Clutter” date. For me, more likely to be a phone chat, but in person sounds fabulous.
She has a nice list of How to Get Started Options, and good descriptions of them. It’s a clever way to organize a broad range of strategies that appear (some, most or all) in other decluttering / tidying books. I’m less impressed with her “Easy Eight”, not because it’s wrong, but because it’s an 8 item list. Yeesh. I do like her idea of putting all duplicates in one place, and essentially building a “store”, at least for the “During”.
A bunch of the usual tips and tricks do make appearances in this book (speed decluttering = pomodoro) but mostly packaged up as part of something that is designed to deal with particular problems that tend to bog one down. It’s nice to see the context. The context of Declutter Therapy also helps provide context for why she is very okay with Maybes.
As is common in decluttering books, the question of Sell vs. Donate arises, and she very gently pushes hard towards donation, and then follows that up with, only donate what is “free of stains, holes, rust, tears and general damage”, urging checking donation center guidelines and noting that shelters will sometimes take more than donation centers. She also mentions checking local recycling options. No mention is made of Buy Nothing groups or FB Marketplace, which is a little surprising, as the publication date is 2024.
It’s a short book, and extremely enjoyable to read. I highly recommend it to people who like to read decluttering books, to anyone who feels in need of a little decluttering motivation, and also to people who are curious about the intersection of people and stuff. This is an unusually good window, written in a very appealing way.