After church last Sunday, three of us were standing by the coffee pot in the fellowship hall. One friend said she was decluttering her kitchen. Another said she and her husband were downsizing.
Then they both looked at me. “I’ve been doing some Swedish death cleaning,” I said, and everyone laughed.
On the drive home, I thought about it. We were all talking about the same thing, which is having less stuff. But we each meant something a little different, and the difference matters when you’re trying to decide where to begin.
Three Words That Sound Alike
Decluttering, downsizing and Swedish death cleaning all start the same way. You open a drawer or a closet, and you decide what stays and what goes.
What’s different is the reason. Each one answers a different question about your life. (And the reason you start often decides how long you keep going.)
Once you know which question you’re really asking, it’s much easier to pick a first step. So let’s look at each one in plain words.
Decluttering: For the Life You Live Now
Decluttering is clearing out things you don’t use or love, so your home is easier to live in today. You don’t have to move. You don’t have to be thinking about the future at all.
This is where I started, in the fall of 2022. My first job was the cabinet under the bathroom sink, and it took me about twenty minutes.
Decluttering is the everyday kind. It’s tossing the dried-up pens, giving away the sweater that itches and putting the scissors back in the drawer. It never really ends, because things keep coming into the house.
You might need decluttering if your counters stay covered or you can’t find things you know you own. A closet door that won’t close all the way is another sign. It’s also the right