What’s your decluttering personality?
When it comes to decluttering, there’s no one-size-fits-all method. Heck, finding time to declutter at all can be a feat in itself! Even the seasoned minimalist can attest that some methods are more effective than others towards achieving a clutter-free lifestyle. The X-factor is YOU (believe it or not)! How we individually process sorting our possessions has a lot to do with how effectively we minimize.
After my recent escapade in what I call “Rage Purging”, (you can watch my video here), I’ve created a fun little list of other decluttering personality types.
So what’s your decluttering personality? Read on and let me know in the comments which one you’re most like!
The KonMari Acolyte
You’ve read the book (maybe more than once), and jump at any opportunity to share Marie Kondo’s wisdom with others. And while you MAY not follow her strict decluttering methods to a T, you stay true to her one basic guideline: “If it brings you joy, keep it. If not, get rid of it.”
Does. It. Bring. You. Joy. These words become your lullaby as you lay down to sleep, thinking eagerly about your next decluttering session.
The Rage Purger
When you’re so fed up with your surroundings that you go into a decluttering frenzy, often throwing out somewhat useful items that could otherwise be donated. You think to yourself, “I need them out of my life NOW!”
If you have a higher tolerance for clutter, you’re more likely to rage purge at some point in your decluttering journey. It’s an unfortunate eventuality. You get busy, and things start to clutter up, until you wake up one day and realize your house imploded on itself. So you rage purge… throwing away items left and right as if you have a personal vendetta against them. (As you should… how dare those things clutter up your house like they own the place!).
The Delayed Decisioner
Do you ever go through your stuff and set something aside while thinking, “I’ll get to that later,” or “I have to think about this.” This is what we call a ‘delayed decision’. You’ll eventually have to confront these items again, and you’ll EVENTUALLY have to make a decision on whether or not to keep them.
The Delayed Decisioner is probably the slowest type of decluttering method, because it often results in shuffling items around your house (also see: The Tote Shuffler), rediscovering the same stuff over and over without truly confronting the items. Delayed Decisioners tend to be highly sentimental people, seeing potential in broken items, and/or unable to let go of childhood keepsakes.
The Tote Shuffler
Unlike the Delayed Decisioner, The Tote Shuffler is either A) resolute in keeping a set of items, or B) resolute in PURGING a set of items, but feels the need to categorize them first, resulting in setting them aside. Then, it happens…. The item (or tote of items) gets moved around the house over and over again during decluttering sessions. Why does this happen? Because they don’t have a home. Eventually, many of these items DO get decluttered, it just takes a while.
The Tote Shuffler is notorious for cleaning one area in their home at the expense of another area. Is someone coming over for dinner? NO PROBLEM! The kitchen, dining room, and living room become spotless… but the once clean spare bedroom now looks like a bomb went off.
The Planned Purger
The Planned Purger is a person of high orderliness, perhaps leaning minimalist without much effort. Everything is calculated for them, including what to keep or not keep. Unlike a The KonMari Acolyte, they value practicality over ‘joy’ in their possessions. And if it makes you happy AND is useful? BONUS!
So when it comes to getting rid of stuff, The Planned Purger doesn’t act with haste. Instead, they may contemplate an item over several hours or days, eventually making a decision and promptly following through.
This straightforward approach has the highest chance for long-term decluttering success. One might even consider them synonymous with a true minimalist!
So what’s your decluttering personality?
I’d love to hear from you! I’m a mix of a Tote Shuffler and Rage Purger. (Depends on the day!).
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The decluttering personality list is copyrighted material created by MessyMinimalist.com and should not be used without permission or linking back to this blog. Thank you!
25 comments
Tote shuffler and delayed decision maker here. Trying to avoid being either while clearing paper clutter today.
A tough combo! 😉 Good luck on the paper clutter! I always feel accomplished when I tackle a pile of papers too. 🙂
I’m so excited to see your new video and blog posts. I discovered you just before your “maternity leave”. I am a little of a planned purger (usually a full house purge in late March early April) with year round bouts of tote shuffling resulting in rage purging.
Thanks for sticking around while I’ve been on leave! 🙂 I love your self-assessment! haha, I think a lot of us end up rage purging after other attempts too!
I’m a Planned Purger, but not because it comes naturally to me. We’ve been doing a major purge in stages.
Started dabbling around the edges for a few years. Moved on to serious, methodical purging using several different methods over about three years, culminating in selling our three bedroom house (with full, full basement and two car garage) and moving into a two bed apartment a year ago. In another half year, we’ll move across the country into a one bedroom apartment. And then a year or two after that, we’ll purge almost everything else and live out of our suitcases overseas for a few years.
So it’s a long-term, gradual purging in stages. It’s made it easier, because we know what the plan is for each stage. And it’s harder, because sometimes we want to get going faster, and other times we need to get rid of stuff that we’re not emotionally ready for, but we know it’s necessary for this stage. Blogs and vlogs like yours help me keep momentum when I’m in one of those harder places. Thank you!
Wow, this sounds amazing! What an exciting goal you have! 😀 I can understand how you’d want to ‘rush it’ at times (something I’d surely do), but good on you for pacing yourself and breaking it into stages. Do you have children, or are they out of the house? And where overseas are you thinking?
I’m a complete oxymoron- Delayed Decisioner and Planned Purger. Takes a bit, but once it’s on it’s on.
Love your blog and videos,
Fangirl in Florida
lol, love it. 🙂 Hey, whatever works!!
Procrastinator/delayed decisioner here. I found this video really helpful, with lots of specific examples. She says there are only two things that cause all clutter: Incomplete Action or Deferred Decision. I have problems with both of these clutter-proliferating thought processes. https://youtu.be/G14xkf3jKaE
Thanks for sharing, I’ll check it out!
I would like to believe I’m a KonMari acolyte because I love her books, but sadly I’m a delayed decisioner. What is the cure for people like me? I’ve been decluttering for over two years and I’m only one person! I’m currently sitting with piles of paper from high school (twenty years ago…gulp), sleepaway camp… I’m supposed to be working on it now but it’s more fun to read your blog post 🙂
Don’t get down on yourself! I’m not sure I have the best advice, because I too always seem to be drowning in unnecessary stuff… BUT, it really helped me to go through old paperwork/school things when I’d remind myself that these things aren’t DOING anything for me now. (And before rediscovering them in a box, I didn’t even know they were there!). If I came across a paper/art/award/etc that made me particularly proud from my past, I took a photo of it, and tossed the original. Easier said than done – I know. But once you do it a few times you’ll gain momentum and actually get a high off seeing your pile deplete! 🙂 You got this!!
I’m a planned purger / Kon Mari accolade. However, I used to be the
Tote Shuffler. It’s definitely been a journey for me!
Nice! I aspire to become more of a planned purger one day too 🙂
100% tote shuffler. Stunning kitchen scrubbed to within an inch of its life, taps clean, towels folded and job polished the rest of the house will have suffered massively because everything else will have been dumped out of the kitchen.
lol, I hear this!!
I’m a tote shuffler and and decision delayer. No wonder it’s taking me a very long time! That’s probably what led to my rage Purge this summer!
Yep! I think rage purging is often the end result of a tote shuffler (or some combo of it). You shuffle totes too long… rage is soon to follow! 😉 lol
I am a work in progress!! Previously, I was more like the Tote/Delayed types but once the Rage Purger took over (during a few moves), I tend to be settling into the Delayed type. I have paperwork that I struggle to figure out whether to keep or shred/burn them. I also keep a lot of sentimental things… thinking my kids will want them some day… hmmm! My daughter is trying to get me to think more like KonMari way. She did this recently and loves that technique. Love this explanation as well as your rage purge video! ♥
I am commenting again because I don’t know how to (or if I can even) edit my comment above. Regarding the paper mess, I have always wanted to get a system but lack the funds to buy it. It sounds like a great system so I thought I would share the website for anyone who struggles with paper clutter…just so you can see that there may be a way to tame it. 🙂
http://thepapertiger.com/
Planned purger here, married to a delayed decisioner. It’s a constant battle and I so appreciate you letting us in on your journey and sharing what works for you.
All of the above, because I find that depending on how I feel, is how I declutter & minimise. The KonMari method is great, but several years down the track I have become MUCH better at working out what gives me joy. Those amazing bought-in-London designer boots, that don’t fit. Well they gave me heaps of joy to look at, but finally today I was able to stop delaying the decision, and realise I’m NOT actually going to wear them, because they hurt. Its taken 3 years. I think I move through stages, and then skip back & forth (almost like a grief process, nothing is linear, there is no step by step). You/I think I’m on track, doing so well, then in a fit of stress/rage purging I find ALL this EXTRA stuff. And similar to you, we run a business from home (Farm), so we have & accumulate SO MUCH EXTRA stuff. And, like you, I’m a recovering garage sale-er, thrift-shopper (in Aus Op-Shop), Hard Rubbish pickeup-er, & nightmare of all nightmares (in Aus its called) ‘Clearing Sale’-er, where you go to someone elses farm and buy all their CRAP! Because “It might be useful”. I am proud to say that after starting the journey, WE have not been to a Clearing Sale in 2 years. I now avoid them like the plague. And I’m now able to say NO, when people offer us stuff. Which I realised I just take to recycle/tip anyway, and I have to pay for it, I have become much more prudent in knowing; what we have, what we need and what we desire, but it has taken 3 years, and I’m still learning. I think crap from other people is definitely where the rage purging comes in, it’s almost like a subconscious frustration at yourself, for accepting it the first place, being NICE and saying yes. When really your brain was screaming NO!
Keep bringing us Rachel-and-family-and-Inn joy (& like everyone else is saying, please have loads of family time, we will all wait, Family First, good times first, cherish first) your fans get it. x
I’m so glad to find you! Thank you for the encouragement.
I am a mix between KonMari, Rage Purger, and Delayed Decisioner. If I can’t decide whether or not to et something go, I put it in a box, write a date on it, and tuck it away for 6-12 months. If I haven’t opened the box in that length of time, I never open it. I just put it in my car and take it to Salvation Army. It took me a while to understand “Does it give you joy” because nothing I had gave me joy. As I have decluttered, and can actually see them, I am able to realize that certain things do give me joy. I know those very few things I will keep. I feel guilty about throwing out so much stuff, but I know that the dump is really the only place they belong. One good thing about all this is that I am becoming very thoughtful about buying things that I know will someday end up in a landfill.
Oh so much one who is full of Delayed Decision Making!!! To a T! Is there a course out there somewhere that teaches better decision making? So I’ve read is that the more we do it, the easier it will become. Hhhhmmmm…let me consider that for awhile!! 😀
I’m definitely a planned purger and a delayed decisioner. My approach is to decide I’m going to declutter a cabinet. Open the cabinet. Take a photo. Make a written inventory of each item. Then go away and decide about each item. Then take the actions. The delayed decisioner in me will have 2nd thoughts and rescue something from my donation bag or rationalize keeping something. I like the planned approach because it’s faster for me to separate the decision making part from the action part. It works best when I get the discards into a bag, tie closed the bag and into my car trunk pronto. Then dropped off on my Thursday errand run. I also do the Kondo approach of gathering all items of one sub-category and deciding what to keep or discard. Vases. Candles. Lotions. Etc.