Survey #251—Full Response from JM
| Pronouns | She/her |
|---|---|
| Describe a category of stuff, an area of your home, or an organizing or decluttering project or task that you’ve found particularly challenging. | Three generations of Inherited photos, documents, ancestry logs, personal and financial paperwork, antiques, and memorabilia. It is filling half of my garage plus a storage unit I can no longer afford. |
| What advice might you give your younger self to help reduce or avoid the challenge you described in the previous question? | Maybe ask more questions of the people whose stuff I now have to better help them sort and purge. However, I helped clean out and move three households from two of those generations while they were living (as well as their homes after deaths) and it was a beyond-herculean effort each time--so I really don't know what more I could have done. |
| Describe a category of stuff, an area of your home, or an organizing or decluttering project or task that you’ve found satisfying or enjoyable to work on. | A guest room for our grandchild, our family/TV room, and a number of small projects (garage pantry shelves, costume closet, some files, my nightstand, and some holiday decor). That one time I tried Project 333 with my clothes (before the seasons changed and I inadvertently piled it all up again!). |
| What feelings or emotions do you associate with your answer to the first question (The Challenge)? What feelings or emotions do you associate with your answer to the third question (The Good Stuff)? | Challenge: Overwhelm, exhaustion, hopelessness, loneliness, panic from fear of dying before it's finished. Good Stuff: Sense of accomplishment, deep enjoyment how easy it is to use and put items away after it's done, LOVE not having to search for stuff all the time. |
| Here’s your chance to ask Gayle and Ed any question you’re curious about. It need not be related to this survey’s topic(s). If we think that your question—and our answer—might be useful or instructive to The Clutter Fairy Weekly audience, we’ll share them in an upcoming episode. | I know it gets easier to declutter over time because I've experienced that. However, I'm still not very efficient at hard decision-making and it takes me far too long to decide to let something go, then to rehome it, particularly when it comes to inherited objects. Gayle, you said something recently about some people who feel they have been charged with the stewardship of inherited family objects and that resonated with me to the bones. I have this deep feeling of being accountable to my ancestors and was surprised to hear this isn't how normal people think ;-). I would love to hear more on how to reframe this sense of responsibility or alternate ways of thinking about it that might help. You are such a master of reframing thinking. You've already completely cured me of "but I spent good money on this!"  |
| Future topics | Loved the book club. Looking forward to more! |
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