Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that when you are decluttering, it is fine
Speaker 1: on the first pass to keep items that you find useful, beautiful, inherited,
Speaker 1: or hopeful. Allowing for all of these categories may keep
Speaker 1: you from getting derailed. Today's tip, like another this week,
Speaker 1: comes from Emily Grovenor's book Find Yourself at Home, a
Speaker 1: conscious approach to shaping your space and your life. Grovenor
Speaker 1: says decluttering is all about making room for change and
Speaker 1: new energies, while also simplifying and making life less stressful.
Speaker 1: She proposes you beautiful, inherited, and hopeful as the categories
Speaker 1: of objects you might want to keep. You can let
Speaker 1: go of objects that don't fit in any of these categories.
Speaker 1: Useful and beautiful are familiar screens. You are not going
Speaker 1: to get rid of a blender if you use it
Speaker 1: every morning to make your smoothie, and you won't give
Speaker 1: away a painting hanging in your living room that you
Speaker 1: find aesthetically pleasing. Unless your space is tight, items that
Speaker 1: are useful or beautiful have a reason to be there.
Speaker 1: I am reminded of the frequently quoted guidance of William Morris,
Speaker 1: a designer from the Arts and Crafts movement. Have nothing
Speaker 1: in your houses that you do not know to be
Speaker 1: useful or believed to be beautiful. If you know something
Speaker 1: is usefuler believe it's beautiful, then keep it. The additional categories, however,
Speaker 1: are less talked about, but I think that if you
Speaker 1: want to make progress decluttering, they are quite helpful For starters.
Speaker 1: It just seems practical to let inherited be a category
Speaker 1: of item you'll be slower to get rid of. You
Speaker 1: are a lot less likely to get rid of something
Speaker 1: with memories that are attached to it. It seems worth
Speaker 1: acknowledging that to speed up the decluttering process. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: if you live in a tiny apartment and you just
Speaker 1: inherited a whole houseful of furniture, you'll need to rethink this.
Speaker 1: But lots of people stop decluttering because they get to
Speaker 1: Grandma's china. Everything gets emotional, and then their energy for
Speaker 1: cleaning things just dissipates. What's left is piles of stuff,
Speaker 1: including things that really could go, but they happen to
Speaker 1: surface after the china, and so there they sit as
Speaker 1: for hopeful. This isn't just about being over prepared. Plenty
Speaker 1: of people keep you can openers even though they just
Speaker 1: use the first one maybe once a week. If you
Speaker 1: don't own any king sized beds, there isn't a whole
Speaker 1: lot of use for king sized bedding. It's unlikely to
Speaker 1: come up in a situation where you can't just figure
Speaker 1: something else out. But hopeful is different. This is about
Speaker 1: visions you have of your life that you hope will
Speaker 1: come true, even if that is not your life right now.
Speaker 1: Maybe you bought knitting needles and beautiful yarn the last
Speaker 1: time you got together with a friend who is an
Speaker 1: enthusiastic knitter, even if you are not knitting now but
Speaker 1: would like to learn how keeping the knitting supplies could
Speaker 1: be an act of hope. It might spark an effort
Speaker 1: to find online videos or a local class where you
Speaker 1: can learn a hobby that gives your friend so much joy.
Speaker 1: Or you might call your friend whenever you see those
Speaker 1: knitting needles and frankly, I think that would be a
Speaker 1: win too. Or maybe you have a set of toy
Speaker 1: blocks that you played with as a kid and you
Speaker 1: would love to have your own kids play with Even
Speaker 1: if you don't have kids now but want to in
Speaker 1: the future, it can be okay to keep the blocks.
Speaker 1: Hope matters, just like being useful or beautiful. The upside
Speaker 1: of expanding the keep category to include the inherited and
Speaker 1: the hopeful is that it removes a lot of the
Speaker 1: emotional pressure from decluttering. Most people are fine with getting
Speaker 1: rid of trash or broken things, or even everyday stuff
Speaker 1: that doesn't get worn. It's the stuff with the memories
Speaker 1: or the stuff that's a story you are trying to
Speaker 1: tell about your life that is complicated, So take that
Speaker 1: out of the equation for now. Maybe eventually you will
Speaker 1: just that Grandma's china needs another home, but keeping it
Speaker 1: for now means you can get rid of all the
Speaker 1: other knickknacks you don't like in your dining room. And
Speaker 1: if that is the case, then keeping it serves a
Speaker 1: very useful, beautiful purpose. In the meantime, This is Laura,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
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