Don’t give yourself a declutter burnout
Last weekend I got a text message from a friend that read as follows; Doing the biggest declutter known to humankind, you’ll be proud me. I wasn’t really proud. I was concerned, as I could foresee the future; also known as declutter burnout. Not wanting to dampen the enthusiasm, I suggested she better chill the wine, for when she would call it a day. And although her determination and enthusiasm were to be admired, I did warn against declutter burnout. Then there was a reply 5 minutes later; okay I think it just hit me.
Does this sound familiar? Declutter burnout is a very common problem with beginner organisers. We want to change the world in one day and then are left exhausted, demoralised and with more mess than what we started.
How do you prevent declutter burnout?
In order to prevent declutter burnout, the basic advice is to always have a plan consisting of either a specific space or a specific time frame. This week I have something new; you can use your mind to prevent declutter burnout. I have been doing some research about sense-making and this theorist Weick mentions a concept of future tense.
Get organised with a list
How does this work? It is a lot easier than it sounds. Do start your project by listing what you want to do this Saturday? With sense making you can change the order of your thinking. You can literally talk to yourself in the future tense.
This would work as follows, it is now Saturday evening, I have finished one afternoon of decluttering. Then fill in the blanks:
How do you feel?
How does the space look?
How did you achieve this?
I hope you can see that this way of thinking prevents the frazzled exhausted ‘declutterer’ who suffers from declutter burnout. Why? Well, I assume you do not want to see yourself exhausted on the lounge with a room full of dislodged items. When you work in the future tense you will make it a beautiful scenario, and learn from yourself, how you got there.
Give it a try and let me know how you went with this technique.
Pace yourself
If you are someone that goes all in, do so but also make sure you pace yourself. Read through some information, let new ideas and behaviour take hold in slowly.
Note: part of this article was originally an Illawarra mercury article updated and refreshed in 2023
