You are missed! Someone just asked today where you are.

southmess,
I am reading in Brooks Palmer's book for help with my situation right now. pp 51-53 might be useful to you.

I see santa has been down your way. Merry Christmas.

Hey Southmess,
I think I'm supposed to see snow tomorrow. ( I don't much care for snow. ) How's Spring down in your end of the world?

Dave,
Lay out the coats & hoodies in order of "I like this best" to "I like this the least".
Then get rid of all those that that didn't make the top three of "you like it the best".

When I am confronted with an item I think
I can clean, repair or repurpose this item and make it good again...
But then after I have evaluated the item
I think "but I have better things to do than waste my time on this thing".
So I toss it. ;D

Diane,
Possible reframing idea(s) for you. (And I have no defense against the arguement, "If these are such good ideas, how come you haven't done them?)

Step One. Just for grins, toss the keyboard in the trash right now. Subjecting the creative muse to the discipline of your brain and the places you want your living space and life to go. This is work you do not have to go outside to do! Realize you are going to catch hell from yourself for doing this, but stick to your guns. (Guns are another story - re relaxing on the roof. You provide some great visuals. I have this vision of a trailer house with two machine guns on it coming up behind Snoopy to help the famous Ace take on the Flying Circus. Two Gun D. Anyway...)

Step Two. Imagine some spot that is not now cleaned out, cleaned to some level at least. Then take that same creative imagination that can imagine a treehouse and a windchime made from keyboard keys (No, No, No, do NOT go get the keyboard) (unless you will do it in the next week and it will qualify as "fun") and use it to create a plan/ideas for how to do keep or go with what will pop up in the pile and how to deal with the objections that you will come up with to getting rid of anything at all. You are already doing this in a slightly different way, confronting the need for physical repairs with action. Now you have a psychological need for space conflicting with a psychological need for stuff. Psychological repair is in order. I'm sort of thinking that controlled and directed imagination can help with that repair.

I think that must be one of the things I am trying with my garage horde. Two things I am trying along those lines with limited success is first to get like with like so I can see a "universe" and then make reduction decisions. Second, given my age, what is the reality I can/will/wish to do ...?... in the time I might have left to do ...?'s... ?

Maybe the trouble is that I don't have them in physical piles at the moment, but I'm having trouble with the 5 coats and 6 hoodies; I WANT to keep them all.

why is it so hard for us to get rid of stuff that might have value? I found an old keyboard in bedroom, that no one will ever use, then tried to figure out some craft project to use it in, waste time thinking of potential uses of my junk.

At my last opportunity to get rid of old computer equipment, I chose to wait, since I thought I'd have a chance to have a friend evaluate it first. Unfortunately, that meant that it was still in the garage on move-out day, and I had to haul it somewhere. Now I don't have a garage, and it's taking up space on the porch instead. And it probably has zero value, still.

Put a price on the clear useable space.
How much do you pay monthly divided by square footage.
Don't forget to add in the cost of utilities and insurance.
The money spent on the stuff is already gone, sunk costs.
Keeping the stuff around while trying to recoop the money already spent on them is costing you money, space and peace of mind.

Clothes, books, wood, computer parts.

Ah, yes. I am a 15 year veteran of "Osolete Computer Parts Bulemia". Employers, Thrift Shops, eBay, a local computer store and a manufacturers obsolete/unusable stuff store.

Buy (x4), Barf (x3).
Why does one hoard. reason (x) because of how much the stuff cost.
Barf 4 is overdue, I need the space, but it is on hold because of eBay costs and emotional attachment. I have not yet been able to break those cycles. Anybody wants to offer advice or kick me in the b..., feel free.

Brooks Palmer's adage that expensive clutter is still clutter has not yet made it from my head to my heart.

Hi everyone,

I share the comments on Dave's insights.

Yes I suffer from depression. I have a long story with it.

I've been living with this difficulty tidying things up since I was a child. My parents argued about my mess, and they interpreted it as some kind of rebellion against their authority.

I moved to my own apartment when I was 30 and lived alone for some months. Everything was OK. I could keep it nice and clean.

Then who would become my wife for the next 6 years moved to my apartment. It's a small apartment for two people but during our marriage it was OK.

My ex wife left me in the middle of one of the worst moments of my entire life. Soon after my father died I started to suffer this annoying thing in my legs. Doctors said I should stop working and put me on medications that did not work. They labeled me as bipolar (I don't know why) and those meds kept me kind of zombie. I lost my job. I was abandoned. She took the dog.

I stayed for some months at my mother's. I found a bad job, but it was better than nothing. Changed doctors a few times until one said that the meds weren't right, that I just had depression.

With the new meds I improved a lot in a month. But there was some kind of ceiling that kept me from being at my best.

I don't want to make it too long. During all this time my apartment messiness went up and down. There was a time when the whole floor was covered by lots of paper. And there were times it was cluttered but clean.

The place I worked at had a big place full of electronic/computer garbage. I cluttered my apartment with some of those useless things that I thought could become useful in the future. Many of them were not broken things but obsolete stuff.

I didn't use most of those "precious" things.

*** TO BE CONTINUED

There is physical work and emotional work. You can have a tired body or a tired brain (or both).

This may not be the medically correct way to say it, but your emotions are probably pretty mad right now. You didn't let them be in charge all the time today. you probably had to focus pretty hard at times to do that. Of course you are tired. That will be one of the benefits of sleep for you tonight. It will give you a break from that cycle of "You MUst Do this" -- "Nope, I am doing this other thing to make changes in my life and I don't care if you like it or not"

As I've said, I think YOU CAN DO THIS.

Re: chat room

The program Cory purchased allows two or more people to communicate there at any time. However the only times people are regularly scheduled to be there are Sunday evenings and Tuesday evenings at the times given. If you want to talk to someone at another time, you will have to make arrangements in advance so you will both be there.

You will have to work out the difference between your time and our time. You can use New York as an example of Eastern Standard time. So for the Sunday night chatroom, in Santiago you would have to be in the chatroom around 10PM to match 8PM in New York and 5PM in California. If you choose to follow the chat room over a long period of time, please keep in mind we change to what we call daylight savings time in the spring, so this will change the difference you will have to allow for.

Some might disagree with the statement I'm going to make, I don't know.

For where you are right now and the stresses you are coping with, I don't think it matters too much how you were able to live as you did. I think focusing on that causes you to allow guilt to control your life.

When you are cleaning, one category of things you might discard is broken things. Let's think of the way you were living as a broken way of life. Let's not give it value judgements and emotional control over you by calling it good or bad. Let's just say it is broken and you are choosing to discard it as a broken thing and replace it with a whole thing, a different way of life that meets your needs better and will allow you to have your dog living with you too.

I AM GOING TO CHANGE THE WAY I USE MY SPACE. I am going to change from storing dirt and things to living in a space that helps me to enjoy life, take care of my body and enjoy the friendship of my dog.

I CAN DO THIS!!!!!!!!!
I CAN CHANGE THE WAY I USE MY SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It does hurt.

It's ok that you are crying. It's a cleaning. Grief for things you are giving up, changes you are making. Fear of the uncertainty of new things. Stress from reacting to constantly changing emotions. You may not even know some of why you are crying, but your body does. It is helping you to release a lot of stress and anxiety and uncertainty to getready for ideas your mind is working out on how to clean out and organize your things.

YOU CAN DO IT.

It will be little bits at a time, but you can do it.

Two things I have discovered about emotions, for me at least. Given time, they change. Not reacting to them while giving them time to change can be quite difficult. There is the old saying about count to ten when you are angry, before you say something. Some of us, when dealing with strong emotion, need to count to "overnight" or "a day from now". This can help prevent impetuous reactions or allow for more reasoned response to a situation.

Dave's wife,

Thank you for your words.

Many things come to my mind now. But I am really extenuated... And as I say this there is this little voice in me saying "you are a lying bastard, you did nothing today and you dare say you are tired?"

It alarms me that all I could do today was buying a few cardobard boxes. It alarms me it was so hard for me to come back home with the boxes.

The image of entering my cluttered apartment and being all alone hurted so much. And it still hurts. I can't understand how I have been able to live in this condition all this time.

Oh Dave, I forgot to mention I bought one of Brook Palmer's books (Amazon Kindle). I started reading it, but didn't get too much into it yet.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002361MK6 this one.

I am more calm now.

I joined the chatroom, but there is nobody in there.

Bursting in tears right now.

I just came back. Bought 6 boxes I was needing to store my useful things.

I came back walking. It was very hard.

As soon as I closed my apartment's door I started to cry and I can't stop.

I feel so alone.

I wish there were someone that could be here with me now.

It hurts

southmess, it looks to me like you are doing a fabulous job, one step at a time. Some days it feels like we have to take one minute at a time. I, too, suffer from depression and anxiety. I have learned to stop, take a deep breath, relax, and take a minute to figure out what is bothering me. Usually it is "stinking thinking" like "I can't do this. This project will never get done." When I figure out what the problem is, I talk to myself about whether or not I have control over my problem. If not, I have to literally say out loud "It's not my problem." If it is my problem to solve, I have to tell myself that it's okay to be a 7, not a 10. (I struggle with perfectionism, too.)

Hugs to you, friend, and please know that Dave and I are happy to listen and help if you want it.

Re perfectionism
Please read the first post by M in thread "Small Success" in Success stories section.

Re: Depression
I am not qualified to make any comments about depression and medications - except maybe some brief observations about my personal experience.
I think my wife would say that if you are concerned about the effectiveness of your medication to discuss it again with your psychiatrist. If your prescription came from a doctor, you might consider discussing the problem with a psychiatrist to see if he/she would recommend something different.

Re: Clutter
I believe you can ultimately accomplish a big improvement in that area.

The things you just posted suggest that it may be harder than I was thinking it might be for you. A thought I have from Brooks Palmer's book or blog also suggest to me that you might be focusing on the wrong thing to start with, but I am very hesitant to post about that because I don't claim to have psychological knowledge and because I am afraid it could be very hurtful to you personally.

Even with all that, just because of the fact that you have chosen to look for help and say things you have said here, I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO SUCCESSFULLY MAKE POSITIVE CHANGES in regard to the clutter in your life.

I'm very mad... I was writing a long answer here and I do not know what I did but it blew away.

I don't feel like writing everything again. So I'll be short.

- I'm on medication for depression.
- Every day I'm feeling worse
- I'm very anxious and alarmed about it because my experience with this is painful.
- Have no friends /family to ask for help
- must control anxiety before it controls me
- Clutter/dirt is one of the problems I'm dealing with
- Need someone to talk more dynamically (chat?) Think it can help a lot.
- Dave's situation with garage reminds me of something I've been through not so far ago.

Well, I think it's a good synthesis. I know I shouldn't type these messages in my tablet. But I am not at home...

You do not need to be smarter than the objects around you. The "things" filling your living space are tools which you have chosen to bring into your life ( or maybe have chosen to keep in your life ) for some reason. Beauty, utility, past memories, possible future use and so on.

Two thoughts I have gathered from things I have read in Brooks Palmer's blog and book (The orange one.)

When you are thinking about the "things" in your life, space is a "thing" too. When I fill my garage with boxes of stuff, I no longer have the space for my car. I have exchanged that space for other things, which since they are in boxes outside my living space, quite likely are not serving any purpose for my current life. Instead they are possibly trapping me in a past life which I can no longer live or trapping me in a future life which I may never live. When I fill my kitchen counters with cans, packages of pizza cheese and boxes of stale crackers, I no longer have the space to make the cup of coffee I need/want in the morning. ( I call that living on the frontier, when I have my table/desk/counter space filled so I can't use anything except the very edge. I don't like it but have not mustered the focus to make much change.) Your apartment space has a bunch of subspaces, each with a purpose for supporting your life now. When those spaces get filled with stuff, space is no longer able to fill it's function. Dealing with that requires recognition that those things and your emotions are not in charge. No question of dumber or smarter, just recognition that I am in charge.

The other thing is the constant question he asks people about "the thing in their hand now". Does that item serve the life you want to be living today?

In regard to flipping thoughts, my comment on your last post, see if you can think something like: I feel frustrated, but I did something today. I see a small space that was not there before. An object that was dragging me down emotionally is gone. or.... I have made another step towards developing the habit of evaluating objects and getting rid of ones that are not serving me now. Instead of seeing your emotion (which is transitory) as the result of your day, see your action as the result of the day.

Now I have to go deal with my situation, which is an impossible one that I can't do. For two years I have been needing to clean a 2 car garage packed wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Need for repairs emerged. If the repairs were not dealt with, serious structural damage to the garage would have happened in the next year.

The repairs are done, the garage is now useable for some storage and (with some rearrangement) one vehicle. What's the problem? There is an 8x8x12 portable storage locker in the driveway containing the former contents of the garage. I want to keep it all. I have 9 days to empty the locker. I have 10 days to have the "fuctional" parking spot for one vehicle. I have no place to put all the "things" I want to retain. I have a task which is emotionally "above my pay grade" which I have to do anyway--if I choose to maintain relationships and responsibilities which are currently a part of my life. I am not able to reduce stress by doing it 15 minutes a day.

Regards.
Dave

Hi Dave,

>Would you consider a change in the way you are
>thinking about your situation and the "stuff"
>you are dealing with?

Sure, I am open to all kind of new things in order to get out of this trap.

> Along the lines of: feelings are ok? (...)

I don't know if feelings are ok or not. I am a very emotional man, highly sensitive to what happens around me. Sometimes I wish I had a knob to turn off my sensitivity (being more rational?), but I think it doesn't work that way.

> you are not your feelings unless you choose to be.

Well, I don't think I am my feelings, but they undoubtely play a key role in my life along with my thinking.

I have a feeling (ha!) that most of the time my feelings determine my thinking and not the other way around.

But of course, it's just a feeling. I believe (think) that feeling/thinking are intertwined and interact all the time.

> The objects on my library shelf are (or were)
> not "stupid",

On the stupidity of objects, well, I think you are right. Calling them stupid is the way I found to position myself in some kind of smart place. As if decluttering had something to do with being intelligent.

Yes, I think I've been carrying on this internal and never ending war between smart me and dumb me for long years now.

What a complicated way of saying that I am a perfectionist. Yes, I am complicated :)

Today was another hard day... I did very little, feel deeply frustrated.

Hi Karl,

No, not Brazil. A little bit South and another little bit West.

Hi back to you.

Would you consider a change in the way you are thinking about your situation and the "stuff" you are dealing with?

Along the lines of: feelings are ok? Everybody has feelings, you can't make them go away or stop coming to you. But, you are not your feelings unless you choose to be. You are not guilty because you did not do more-flip the attitude and say something like: I practiced doing the things I need to learn to do. I used the physical, emotional and mental strength I had that day to make a change in my life that gets me closer to living the way I would like to live.

The objects on my library shelf are (or were) not "stupid", there are (or were) just many of them that no longer have utility in my life. They once met a need in my life, but they do not currently have any value or utility to me. I was able to practice thinking that way about those things on the shelf and clear out the items that are not useful to me for the way I want to use my living space and live my life now. Having had that practice, I can now carry that idea forward to another area of my house/apartment that has been emotionally harder for me to deal with.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your answer!

It's funny I actually have some of those velcro things. I tried them, but there was a time when I connected and disconnected things all the time and I ended up removing them. Besides the fact that they somehow remind me of my ex-marriage (I can even remember when I bought them) I think it will be a good idea to start using them again. I'm not pluging/unpluging things any longer now.

I think I've seen some kind of flexible tubes to pass the cables trough that seemed "cleaning friendly".

We used to have Home Depot here around 2000, then they went away and now we have some stores called "Easy" that are more or less alike Home Depot (more less than more).

Velcro cable ties.
My son gave me a few ties that were like these.

http://www.amazon.com/Velcro-One-Wrap-Cable-Ties/dp/B002CT8GIK

In the States we have a building supply chain called Home Depot. He got his there. I have used mine for something a little different than what you are doing, but I think these might help in making nice bundles of cable.

Hi Everyone,

New day here. I've been reading a few messages here.

Where I live (southern hemisphere) it's spring now. Summer is coming, and temperatures are still nice.

Yesterday I got to empty some shelves in my library of zillions of small stupid objetcs. All that is gone now, and a thick layer of dust is what remains along with a few, really useful, objects.

My compact and cluttered computer desk comes next. This is a tough one, specially for the myriad of cabling involved. Since I am a computer guy I have wired too many things. I have removed a few devices that I was not using and that I will sell/auction/giveaway.

I'm not only planing to unclutter and clean it, but moving it a couple of meters from where it is placed now.

Moving the computer freaks me out. I really hate the dirt that accumulates in the messy cabling, and I have this stupid fear that I won't be able to connect everything back and get it working or that something will break and I've better not touch a thing.

I have to go to the bank now, have lunch, and when I am back home this is what's waiting for me.

So I will appreciate any suggestions regarding how to nicely organize cables so they not entangle and they don't prevent cleaning the area without getting electrified...