3 tips to declutter your personal baggage

This post is brought to you by the sparkle emoji✨, strawberry green tea, and Junk Queen TX.

A year has passed since I posted about decluttering from who I was to make room for who I am now. I’m not the same person I was then, especially having embraced my dissociative identity disorder. I didn’t declutter much, but am definitely doing it more now that I’ve the space to do so.

I’ve read Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t and The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up. I own both! My method ✨borrows✨ from techniques in those books, but doesn’t entirely abide by it.

1. Consider what your ✨ideal life✨ is like.

This is two-fold:

1. How do you want to spend each day? (routine)
2. What do you want to be surrounded by? (things and non-material objects)

a. Routine

I made a list of what I needed to do each day as an adult, how I wanted to spend my days, and what would be on my personal rider.

The end result looked like this:

• wake up
• refresh (teeth, face)
• eat/snack
• work
• mail (every two days)
• minuscule dinner prep
• dance/hobbies/digital creation/etc. ✨
• eat
• shower
• tea & TV
• read (in bed)
• bed

b. Material + non-material belongings

I grew up on mostly hand-me-downs. There’s ✨nothing✨ wrong with that, of course — I simply want ✨new✨ furniture that is mine, and not passed down through generations and nearly falling apart. 🥺

For me, the primary material objects are new furniture and hobby-related materials. I’m definitely not a minimalist, but a ✨maximalist✨ — it’s kinda part of being a DID system.~

Non-material belongings equate to experiences, some of which will require material items — I want to make my own candy, for instance, and start a cottage food business! They also include people, and the way certain people make me feel.

2. Brainstorm the steps you’ll need to take to make everything in the first step happen. 🔥

I essentially tore everything in my life down so I could build it back up. I don’t recommend this, for legal purposes, but it’s what I did. ✨ I’m lucky to have come out on top without completely flopping out of my lease like a fish out of water.

My 20s consisted of that awkwardness that is the realizing you’re no longer in high school, were never prepared for life outside of high school, and have to figure out how to survive on your own without high school. Much of it feels like high school, regardless, because you’re just winging it all. 😩 The 20s are messy, and that’s okay. 😌

3. Actually put everything into motion.

The job I have now is temporary. I don’t intend to be working where I do forever, because I don’t want to work for someone else my whole life. 😤 I want to be the boss, not a boss under someone else — but that takes time, money, patience and skills I don’t have right now. 😳😅

I still need it, though, to accomplish what I want out of life and ultimately reach the point wherein I’m living the life I want to live.

All the cardboard boxes I have? Pointless clutter. 😑 The goal now is to buy and put my things into plastic bins, because it will deter dust mites and spiders. Disposing of those greatly diminishes a lot of clutter, leaving just the things. (Though I do have a LOT of boxes. 😬)

Stuff I don’t want anymore

I have two figurative piles.

1. Keeping
2. Not keeping

It’s much easier to not worry about what I’m donating versus what I’m tossing, because I have to consider the condition before donating it if I decide to donate it. That’s a later problem.

Furniture

The furniture is another story/problem. My grandmother doesn’t want it back. She literally told me to donate it if I didn’t want to keep it. 😬

I’ve already brainstormed and priced my future bedroom — it doesn’t include my current furniture.

It’s going to be difficult to let it go when the time comes, but it’s the best way for me to move forward with my life as the person I am today and growing into.

Places like Junk Queen TX can help with furniture and junk removals, or if you need a Plano dumpster rental. Junk Queen TX caters to Collin County and neighboring cities. They don’t have a national 1-800 number, so there’s no overpricing involved.

Stuff I’m keeping

Anything I’m keeping gets categorized and then packed away until my next apartment. This one’s just a placeholder until I move in a few months. I don’t want to move with all my baggage, and clutter is a part of that. I want to actually be organized this time.

Kimono

Marie Kondo calls kimono the “everything else”. Mine isn’t in reference to stuff. 😅

I’ve some online projects in the works, one of which I’m tweaking, that I’m hoping will be a catalyst to working for myself. The gist:

• blog prompt randomizer (exists; tweaking)
• press/media/whatever bio generator
• WordPress themes

I don’t want to work for another company forever. I want to do my own thing, set my own salary/wage and promote myself. I want to work smarter, work less, not have to worry about meeting my basic needs, have money left over, and have the means necessary to raise a kid before I even have one in my life. 😌 I find it a responsible way of looking at things, as I was the byproduct of teen pregnancy. 🤷‍♀️

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Both sides of my family have hoarding tendencies. I think a lot of people before my parents’ generation developed hoarding tendencies because of the way that things were back then. As a result, we ended up with a bunch more stuff that future generations didn’t even know what to do with. To call it a burden sounds harsh, but that’s what it is when things are all said and done. Everyone wants to keep it all in the family, unaware or unwilling to admit that that adds to the personal baggage. We develop emotional attachments to things and find getting rid of them insufferable.

This isn’t propaganda for minimalism, so don’t misunderstand.

Rather, it’s to share that even things such as furniture can be associated with someone’s trauma.

Photos © Junk Queen TX.