I find it often interesting to have a look at history. A historical perspective gives us clues as to why and how we arrived where we are today. Recently I was pondering the history of organising. Why is it that decluttering and organising is so very hard, satisfying and popular for us today? There are several explanations for this, in this article I’ll talk about two; the scarcity mentality and the current focus on the environment.

It might come in handy and we need to be environmentally friendly

As a cohort of people living in this day and age, we have different challenges than the people who raised or influenced us. If we follow the scarcity advice about keeping everything because it might come in handy. Or we don’t want to throw anything out as we need to be environmentally friendly. We will most likely live in clutter.

Decluttering is so popular because we now live in abundance.

Truth to be told, we don’t really know how to deal with it.

Combine an abundance of items without placing them on a particular spot and very quickly our living spaces become messy and overwhelming and we feel guilt either way. Guilt if we throw items out because it goes against some of the fundamental ideas that our relatives lived by, guilt if we throw things out as we need to be environmentally friendly, and both ways we live in a house with too much stuff.

So what is the solution?

This is really something that we are all working out.

I think decluttering is a good solution because:

You’ll remove items you no longer need and want to passing them onto someone else.
If you declutter and organise, you’ll buy less and better quality reducing your environmental impact.
You’ll become a discerning shopper - asking yourself do I really need this?
Where possible you can buy compostable and natural materials

I hope that future generations will look at us and potentially say; “these people invented the internet, electronic gadgets and lived in change unprecedented by any generation until then. They, however, also invested in the environment and sustainability of both their homes and our planet which means we can enjoy the fruits of their work now, so many hundreds of years later”.