Webinar Recording: The Secret to Decluttering

By Leo Babauta

In this webinar, I talked about fear — the one thing that most stands in our way of decluttering and letting go — and a mediation on how to deal with that. (See notes below.)

I’ve broken this webinar recording into three parts, because it is a bit long:

1. Part I: My talk on fear, why it is the secret to decluttering, and a meditation to help deal with it. (See notes)
2. Part II: I answered questions on staying consistent with decluttering, finding the time, dealing with papers and books, and more.
3. Part II: I answered questions about the decluttering multiple areas vs. one area, and what happens if you develop an aversion to clutter, and more.

But if you want to watch or listen to the full webinar in one piece, you can download the full video here, or the full audio here.

Part I: Leo’s Talk (with notes)

You can download this video here, or download just the audio. Or watch below.

Here are the notes from my talk (video is below the notes):

• The first secret to decluttering is simply starting – if every day you start a decluttering session, you’ll eventually become less and less decluttered. It’s that simple – just start, and figure it out as you go.
• But what stops us from starting? If you’ve struggled to stay consistent and start each day, why? Fear – the fear of being overwhelmed, of letting go of sentimental items, of dealing with discomfort and uncertainty, of doing something difficult rather than checking email and Facebook again
• It turns out dealing with fear is the real secret to decluttering — not just the fears that come up when we start, but the fears of letting things go, the fears of uncertainty that we use our possessions to deal with.
• Every thing we buy that’s not an absolute necessity (food, minimal clothing, shelter, soap and toilet paper, anything our great-grandparents might have had) … any of these non-necessities are helping us to deal with some kind of difficulty we’re feeling
• We cope with difficulties by buying things … difficulties like: stress, feeling unprepared (fear), feeling down, feeling insecure, feeling like you need a reward or deserve a treat, and so on
• We give a lot of power to our stuff, using it as a solution for so many things … using it to show love when we buy nice things for loved ones … using it as stress relief and comfort and reward and a way to avoid our difficult problems.
• So the real secret to decluttering is to take the power away from our possessions. And instead, give it back to ourselves.
• How can we do that? Well, if we’re feeling stressed out, instead of using shopping to relieve the stress, we can stay with the feeling of stress and realize that we don’t need anything but ourselves to cope with the difficult feeling of stress.
• If we’re feeling unprepared for something, and fear is arising in us … instead of coping with it by buying a bunch of gear … we can deal with the fear by sitting still with it
• The same is true of any difficult feeling that arises … sitting still with it can be a way to deal with it, instead of using consumerism
• Practice sitting still with your fear right now … stay with it, explore it, be curious about it, don’t avoid it, get to know it.

Part II: First Questions

You can download this video here, or download just the audio. Or watch below.

Questions answered in this video:

• Becoming consistent with the decluttering habit
• Finding the time consistently
• Dealing with sentimental items
• Struggling with old work papers and books
• The best approach to decluttering if you don’t have much time
• My decluttering seems to be lot of sorting/organising but not so much really getting rid of stuff

Part III: Second Questions

You can download this video here, or download just the audio. Or watch below.

Questions answered in this video:

• Is OK to have multiple areas to declutter and choose a different one each day?
• I have an aversion to clutter! :-) How do you embrace/be when you find yourself in other cluttered environments without feeling overwhelm?
• How to get rid of clothes that are too small, though loved, but we think we’ll lose that last 10lbs for, so don’t want to get rid of.
• How to get rid of books that seem amazing, though I seemingly have ADD and haven’t read more than 2 chapters of… and I keep buying more!
• What do you think of the Kon Mari method in “The LIfe-changing Magic of Tidying Up.”?
• I would like to ask about ways of organizing what we really need (boxes, trays, tags)