Clutter is Emotional and Real

This week we’re celebrating what is awesome about Real Simple with a personality type break down of their January 2012 article dealing with clutter and grief. So often when we’re hired to help someone deal with the crazy cluttered mess their home has become, something catastrophic or life changing has usually happened to precipitate the clutter. The number one life changer, of course, is when someone dies.

The first thing Real Simple advocates is boxing it up and stashing it away somewhere, “put things in ‘question boxes,’ label them, and stash them somewhere safe and dry.” When our grandparents moved into assisted living, my mom and her brothers did a similar thing. They divvied up all the furniture and then whatever they had questions about and weren’t sure what to do with they put into what they called “Later Boxes.” And so every time the family would get together we would all go through later boxes together and divvy up the goods or agree about what to let go.

Real Simple suggests waiting at least six months to deal with the later boxes. And this is a great suggestion for Classic Structures (STJs). They like to have structure and timelines and it’s good to give yourself at least six months to grieve properly before you start dealing with their stuff. It’s also a good rule for the other logical types — Smarts (NTs) and Fun Structures (STPs) — because often in the tornado of immediate grief they can make split decisions based on logic that they might later regret. Types who make value based decisions — Classic Freedoms (SFJs), Fun Freedoms (SFPs), and Organics (NFs) — might want to wait longer depending on how close they were to the person. Grief is a long process and it takes what it takes.

The types who need to be careful about giving themselves TOO much time, are the ones who have the easiest time postponing decisions of any kind, but even more so when something is overwhelming or emotional. That would be Organic Freedoms (NFP), Smart Freedoms (NTP) and Funs (SPs). Because they can live “in process” for a lot longer than other types and don’t have the drive to cross things off their list, those later boxes can end up being forever boxes!