After multiple years of merely surviving, I am faced with the problem of how to start living again. I’m really struggling with the dimensionality of the problem, and I am wondering how y’all would approach this. My aim with this question is not just to receive advice relevant to my situation, but to discuss more generally different approaches to this problem.
I only realised how bad things had become when I moved home. I know that I have more stuff than I need, but because I feel like I’ve been living mostly on autopilot, regular decluttering heuristics haven’t been helpful; if I get rid of everything I haven’t used in X time, then I’d get rid of most things I own. Even before I moved, there was a feedback loop where when I needed to use an item, it was never where I expected it to be, so I never used it. Then the more that this happened, the more that stuff would be boxed away, out of sight out of mind. In the past, I’ve found it useful to put away items in the first place I looked for them, but that doesn’t work for items that I don’t know how to begin searching for them; I don’t have much in the way of categories, so I often end up rummaging in boxes of assorted objects.
Part of this problem is that I definitely need to buy some more storage furniture, like shelves or drawers, but it’s hard to do that if I don’t know how many different categories there are, or how large they are. Sometimes it’s possible to come at the organisation from the opposite direction and say “given the storage available to me, what items do I need and how should I arrange them?”, but I have so much of a blank slate that I don’t know where to start. It’s like trying to solve the equation “a + b + c = 20”: there are too many unknowns and I get swamped by all the possibilities. I’m good at solving problems when I’m given a set of constraints and a goal, but I’m overwhelmed by having to devise the constraints and goals from scratch. I tried to start with building a baseline and carving out spaces or categories for the things I currently use, but my current baseline is so low that I complete that task quite quickly, and it only emphasises that my life, as it is now, is not enough for me.
I know that I need to ground my approach in the life that I want to lead, so that I can start making progress towards it. However, if I build systems intended to be used by the ideal version of me, I will end up with something that is incompatible with the current, emotionally broken version of me. These two versions of me are in tension with each other, and the overarching challenge is finding a route from one to the other. I don’t know where to start though. I feel like I should be interrogating myself about what I actually want, but I feel ill-equipped to answer that question after many months of deprioritising my hopes or wants because of struggling to survive. I feel scared to want anything, because there are so many unknowns that I don’t have a sense of what’s possible. An added complexity is that I am autistic, and thus really struggle without a routine. With so much uncertainty, I am feeling unanchored, and the basics of survival are taking up so much of my executive function and burning me out. Structure begets structure for people like me, but it’s hard to crystallise some certainty if you don’t have anything to build around.
So please tell me if you have experienced this kind of unanchored-ness, and what helped you to move past it? If you’ve ever had to build your life and your space from scratch, how did you tackle the problem of carving out categories? I imagine that if you have faced this problem, that it may be something you grapple with on an ongoing basis rather than solving outright. If so, how did you manage to continue living a life that was in construction (I find that partly built systems can fall apart due to regular life demands pulling your attention and effort away before you’ve routinized the new thing). What advice have you found helpful in the past?
The biggest one is that it is ok to make mistakes! If you must reduce the volume of things you have, it is important to remember that they are things. They might trigger memories, but they are still just things that you assign value based on usefulness or the ability to trigger a memory. But if you lost all of your things in a fire or other unexpected event, you don’t lose a part of yourself, just things. This was explained to me by a relative who lost their home in a fire, and while it sounds cliche being able to see them recover was a great learning experience about the importance, or lack thereof, of ‘stuff’.
So with that in mind, some things will be more important than others for various reasons. I personally use the business concept of space having value. Storing things costs money. Something taking up space costs money. From a personal perspective, things take up money, space that could be used for other things including easily moving around, and the time and effort to organize/clean/move when you move/etc. Then I determine how much space I want to use for things, knowing it is a goal and not a destination.
Since having things involves multiple rooms and locations, I do the spaces by location. I have a max amount of space in the bedroom, in the kitchen, workshop, etc. The goal is to get the stuff to not overflow from that space into storage. No, I don’t generally hit the target but I do massively reduce the overall amount by thinking through how important they really are.
An example of me making a ‘mistake’ was getting rid of a bunch of RPG books, where I kept two out of the batch for the memories. Later on, I thought about playing again and kicked myself for ditching them. But to be honest, it is very possible to reacquire them and I didn’t have to mess around with them for the 20 years between selling them and thinking about playing again. Looked up a pirates PDF and decided it wasn’t that much of a loss anyway! Also ditched some furniture when there wasn’t enough space, and replacements aren’t as nice, but it wouldn’t have been worth paying for storage either.
This may not be as helpful if you are having trouble figuring out how much something is worth it to you, so here is a suggested plan that might work as practice.
For things you rarely use anything large, cheap, and easily replaced go first. They are not worth your time and effort to maintain their existence. That may make a big dent in the overall stuff problem.
If you have multiples of the same thing, do you really need that many? Like 5 sets of bed coverings is too many if you don’t have plenty of space. Extra blankets can almost always be replaced, and both take up a lot of space and effort to keep clean and organized.
Be honest about clothes. If you haven’t worn it for a few years, it doesn’t have a specific purpose that is likely in the future and a high cost like good winter gear, try to sort out the easier to replace stuff and keep the most valuable. For me I will never ditch my winter boots even if I moved to a warmer location because a good fitting high quality pair is expensive, but gloves come and go.
If you want memories, try to hold on to small reminders. Maybe a single tub or two. Then focus on what you use regularly, keep that stuff. If you use it rarely, but it is small and expensive and not out of date, keep it but set a maximum size.
I did a massive downsizing when I moved a few years ago and it was liberating. Yeah, some stuff that was kept and some that were gotten rid of were probably the opposite in hindsight, but just having less stuff is a goal unto itself and worth it overall.