It's All Too Much

by Peter Walsh

  Also by Peter Walsh

  How to Organize (Just About) Everything:

  More Than 500 Step-by-Step Instructions

  for Everything from Organizing Your Closets

  to Planning a Wedding to Creating

  a Flawless Filing System

  To KRG—for the basic premise

  FREE PRESS

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 2007 by Peter Walsh

  All rights reserved,

  including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks

  of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Katy Riegel

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Walsh, Peter.

  It’s all too much : an easy plan for living a richer life with less stuff / Peter Walsh.

  p. cm.

  1. Storage in the home. 2. Orderliness. 3. House cleaning. I. Title.

  TX309 . W34 2007

  640—dc22 2006049195

  ISBN: 1-4165-4827-0

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  Contents

  Introduction

  Part One: The Clutter Problem

  1. This Is Not My Beautiful House

  2. Excuses, Excuses

  3. Imagine the Life You Want to Live

  Part Two: Putting Clutter in Its Place

  Step 1: Kick Start–Tackling the Surface Clutter

  Step 2: Hash It Out!

  Step 3: Conquer Your Home

  Room 1: Master Bedroom

  Room 2: Kids’ Rooms

  Room 3: Family and Living Rooms

  Room 4: Home Office

  Room 5: Kitchen

  Room 6: Dining Room

  Room 7: Bathroom

  Room 8: Garage, Basement, and Other Storerooms

  Step 4: Maintenance

  Step 5: Cleanup Checkup

  Step 6: New Rituals

  Afterword: Take What You’ve Learned into the World

  Acknowledgments

  The things you own end up owning you.

  —FIGHT CLUB

  Introduction

  SOMETHING IS A FOOT. Something that until recently I could not have imagined or predicted. Something that is changing the basic fabric of people’s lives and is impacting how all of us relate to the things we have and the things we own. Something that affects us all. We are, as a nation, overwhelmed with too much stuff.

  Did the title of this book catch your eye? Maybe you are at a stage in your life where something in your life is too much—your career, your relationship, or “just everything” is suddenly overwhelming. If so, you are part of a harsh awakening in this country, and across much of the developed world, as we come to realize that happiness and success might not be measured by more material things. That having more possessions may be more suffocating than liberating. That a larger house, better car, and more “stuff” come with no guarantee of greater happiness. That for many of us, the stuff we own ends up owning us. Suddenly you look around at the life you’ve built and all you’ve acquired and realize that it’s all too much!

  I have an unusual job. I help people dig themselves out from under the overwhelming crush of their own possessions. I’m not talking about a messy closet or one too many boxes of holiday decorations in the garage. I work with people who have filled their homes, their offices, sometimes their cars, and always their lives with too much stuff. These are people who have lost the ability to deal reasonably and rationally with what they own. They fill every corner of their homes with clothes, papers, their kids’ school projects, wrapping paper, collectibles, scrapbooking materials, garden tools, kitchen products, sporting gear, antiques, dolls, toys, books, car parts, and every imaginable (and unimaginable!) item you could list.

  Surprisingly, as I’ve traveled across the United States helping people declutter and get organized, I have come to see that the problem is one that affects far more families than I could have imagined. Every single person I have met tells me not only about their own clutter problem, but the clutter problems of a family member, or those of a friend. Nobody seems immune. The stories are not dissimilar—papers and magazines run amok, garages overflow with unopened boxes, kids’ toys fill rooms, and closets are so stuffed that it looks like the clothing department of a major retailer is having a fire sale. The epidemic of clutter, the seeming inability to get organized, and the sense that “the stuff” is taking over affects us all.

  We are at the center of an orgy of consumption, and many are now seeing that this need to own so much comes with a heavy price: Kids so overstimulated by the sheer volume of stuff in their home that they lose the ability to concentrate and focus. Financial strain caused by misplaced bills or overpurchasing. Constant fighting because neither partner is prepared to let go of their possessions. The embarrassment of living in a house that long ago became more of a storage facility than a home.

  This clutter doesn’t just come in the form of the physical items that crowd our homes. We are bombarded every day with dire predictions of disaster and face many uncertainties—some real and many manufactured. Think about the perils that we’ve been warned about in the last decade alone—killer bees, Y2K, SARS, anthrax, mad cow disease, avian flu, flesh-eating bacteria…the list goes on and on. We are also faced daily with reports of war, an unstable economy, and global terrorism coming very close to home. Surprisingly, this endless barrage (its own kind of clutter) inspires many of the families with whom I work to finally take control of their own clutter. In an unpredictable, dangerous world that is out of their control, they look to their homes for stability—to get some degree of organization back into their closets, their garages, their home offices, their lives. This quest for organization is a deeply personal response to the feeling that the rest of the world is out of control.

  Among the clutter, the frustration, and the yearning for organization, I constantly hear the same refrain: It is all overwhelming. The stuff has taken on a life of its own and families have no idea where to even begin. They are paralyzed by their own stuff. Often the people I work with lament, “It’s all too much—help me!”

  If you find yourself at the point of being overwhelmed by your possessions, you have a clear choice: Decide here and now that you no longer want your stuff to overrun your life. Work with me to get balance and harmony back into your family and relationships. It can be done and I know how. None of this frightens me or overwhelms me because I have seen it all. I have never walked away from a cluttered home because it was too much. However, I have walked away from those who value their stuff over their relationships, their things over their dreams, or their possessions over their vision for the life they really want.

  If you are one of those for whom it’s suddenly all too much and want to let go, come on an exciting journey with me to reclaim your life. Living a richer, fuller, more exciting, and rewarding life is not that far away. Trust me, I’ve led many there already and you can be next. I promise you, if you do this, there is nothing you can’t do!

  It’s All Too Much

  Let me tell you about one of my average workdays. One sunny June day, Jared and Lisa invited me into their modest house in the suburbs of Maryland. From the tree-lined street their home looked welcoming. The grass was neatly trimmed, the garden in full bloom. A gray sedan was parked in the driveway. I rang the doorbell.

  The door opened to an appalling site. The floor was invisible. Every flat surface was stacked high with papers. The walls were lined with wall-to-wall file boxes, some stacked on shelves or tables. Many of the piles reached
the top of my head and I’m not a short man. The living room was so crowded that the kitchen had become their little boy Cooper’s playroom. A toy train track ran through the legs of the kitchen table, its cars long ago scattered, tripped on, and lost. The family was overrun with what appeared to be scrapbooking materials: glue, notebooks, piles of photos, trim, and all sorts of craft material. In short, the house was a disaster. I glanced at Jared and Lisa. To all appearances they are clean, hardworking, upstanding citizens, no different from you or me. Jared manages a successful airport shuttle business. After taking a few years off to have their first child, Lisa has just gotten her real-estate license. Cooper was three years old and delighted in showing me his firm handshake. A great family. And a successful one, in spite of the clutter. But underneath their sunny exterior was tension. They wanted more from their lives and believed the chaos of their home was taking away from their happiness. There was an obvious question that needed an answer: Why was their house completely out of control?

  I asked Lisa what it was like living in this chaos. She said, “It’s suffocating. I feel like I can’t breathe when I look in the office.” Lisa felt buried by her own stuff. She went on, “Something has to change. I don’t want to live like this. But I have no idea where to begin.”

  And then I heard the one refrain that sums it all up, the words of despair that I hear over and over again from everyone I work with: “It’s all too much.”

  That is why I decided to call this book It’s All Too Much. It’s a response to the hopelessness of that refrain. It’s about what to do when you reach the point where you don’t know where to start. When you’re faced with so much mess that you throw up your hands in despair and give up. When you just want to move into a hotel, or throw it all out, or shove it in the garage, like when you were a kid and stuffed all your dirty clothes under the bed. Amazingly, I have dealt with people who have purchased a second home rather than face the mammoth task of decluttering the home they have lived in for many years! Well, there’s no place to hide your mess when you’re an adult and, eventually, you have to come home, so you might as well start dealing with the problem now. It’s All Too Much is the solution.

  It’s just stuff

  I asked Jared if he felt as overwhelmed as Lisa. He shrugged. “I know our house doesn’t belong in Martha Stewart, but we’re busy. It’s just stuff. I don’t see what the big deal is.” I walked over to their bookshelf and started scanning the titles. There were diet books. Exercise books. Self-esteem books. Career motivation books. Parenting books. Finance books. Marriage books. Books on how to live better, happier, richer, fuller lives. It was a complete library of self-help books for every issue a family might have. It was time for me to tell him what I tell all of my clients: the truth. It was time to hold a mirror up to their life and their clutter so that they could see what was happening. I sat him and Lisa down and said, “You think the state of this house is no big deal, but look at all these problems you’re trying to solve.” I gestured toward the stack of self-help books. “Your home is the physical and emotional base for your family. You want to change? To get motivated? Improve your self-image? Lose weight? Start by taking a look at your home.

  “You want a life built on a solid foundation, but you can’t even see the floor beneath you. You want to lose weight, but your kitchen is overwhelmed with appliances you never use. You want to build your career, but your office literally makes you feel ill. You want change? This is where it starts: your home. Where you live, breathe, rest, love, and create. Forget the self-help books. Get rid of the clutter. Get organized. If you do, I promise that every aspect of your life will change in ways that you never imagined possible.”

  Jared and Lisa were like so many couples that I deal with—they had lost sight of the fact that who you are and what you have are intimately linked. The things you buy, the items you value, the possessions you hoard are all a reflection of you, your life, your relationships, your career, and your aspirations. You are not your stuff, but, believe me, your stuff reveals a great deal about who you are.

  This Means You

  Jared and Lisa did want to change. That’s exactly why they called me. In 2003, I became the organization expert on a TV show called Clean Sweep, a series for the cable station TLC. The mission of each episode of Clean Sweep was clear: A team of experts had forty-eight hours to help a family get uncluttered and organized. It was a simple formula. We had two days and two thousand dollars to redo two clutter-ridden rooms of the family’s home. I do the same thing for private clients like Jared and Lisa. But simple as the concept seems—getting rid of the stuff that overwhelms their homes—there’s more to the problem than meets the eye.

  Bear with me here as I walk you through Lisa and Jared’s home. It may not look exactly like your house—you may make beaded jewelry or collect ancient pottery instead of scrapbooking—but I have a feeling you’ll recognize bits and pieces of your own life in Jared and Lisa’s. If I have learned one thing in this job, it’s that when it comes to clutter, we are all far more similar than we think!

  As Jared and Lisa finished showing me their house, Lisa turned to me and asked, “How did this happen? We work hard; we live in a nice neighborhood. Why us?” I looked out the window at the other houses up and down the street. From the outside they looked just like Jared and Lisa’s. And I was willing to bet that they had the same problems behind those closed doors. The person for whom clutter is not an issue is rare. We are all in some way owned by our possessions. As we get older our families grow. Children outgrow their toys and their clothes. We accumulate books and papers. We take on new hobbies and collections. Our extended family members die and we inherit boxes—or truckloads—of their possessions. Stuff is cheap—look at electronics. Not too long ago, televisions and computers were big purchases that you only made a few times during your life. Now we think nothing of replacing them every couple of years or buying new ones rather than having them repaired.

  The Container Store is a national chain—thirty-four stores and growing—selling storage and organization solutions, but, as their website boasts, there’s no containing their growth. Their sales revenues grow 20 to 30 percent every year. Can you imagine if your possessions grew at that rate? This year The Container Store secured a new distribution center that’s 65 percent bigger than the last to accommodate continued growth. Think about it: This is a store that sells only organizing solutions; that means that there are millions of Americans buying and trying to organize, but I guarantee there’s very little organization as a result. And what’s the typical American solution to having too much stuff? Buy another organization solution!

  Then there are those of us who can’t fit our belongings in containers and resort to self-storage, the no-man’s-land of stuff. Self-storage is often supposed to be temporary—we’ll just store this couch until we move to our next house, where we might have space for it—but it’s a fifteen-billion-dollar industry. There are more than forty thousand self-storage facilities in this country, each averaging about fifty-five thousand square feet! This accumulation of stuff is a national trend. At some point, every one of us has to figure out how to manage this influx of stuff before it gets out of control.

  FYI—SELF-STORAGE MANIA

  The first self-storage facilities appeared in Texas in the late 1960s. Today, approximately 10 percent of American households have items in one of the forty thousand self-storage facilities in this country. This is a 75 percent increase from just ten years ago and it has happened during a time when the size of the average American house has increased by half. Larger houses and more stuff in storage!

  Our home is too small

  Before I could help Jared and Lisa get their clutter under control, I needed more information. What was all this stuff they owned? Where had it come from? How important was it to them? Why did they hold on to it?

  We started with Lisa’s scrapbooking materials. Truth be told, they were all over the house, but we started in their family room, scrap
booking headquarters. Lisa had taken up scrapbooking when Cooper was born. Her baby shower had a scrapbook theme, and it blossomed from there. There were photos, memorabilia, ribbons, stickers, and rubber stamps jockeying for space on her wraparound desk. The built-in bookshelves were stocked with labeled plastic storage bins, all so full that their lids floated inches above the bins. Lisa smiled weakly. “I know it looks bad, but I actually need all this stuff to do my albums. And I know where everything is. Almost.”

  Lisa didn’t think that she was disorganized. There was a method behind the madness of that room. The real problem, as far as she was concerned, was that the room was too small. I agreed with her—but not on the size of the room. She was, indeed, organized, but she had organized an entire extra room’s worth of stuff that wasn’t necessary. We finally agreed that the problem wasn’t that Lisa didn’t have enough room; she simply had too much stuff. Instead of getting rid of some of it when she felt overwhelmed, Lisa just bought more storage systems (more stuff!). Who hasn’t tried the same thing? At some time or another, we’ve all bought storage bins or file cabinets or a closet organizing system or invested in some other shiny new system that promises to elevate us to a higher plane of organization. In fact, I’ve found plenty of these very storage systems, still unused, wasting valuable space in people’s garages, offices, and bedrooms. I am constantly amazed by the amount of stuff that people will squeeze into a room. Listen to me—it’s a basic law of physics that you can’t fit five cubic feet of stuff into three cubic feet of space! You cannot create more space than you have. Nevertheless, I know that people will keep on trying! Like I always say, rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic as much as you want, the ship is still going down!

  Meanwhile, Jared isn’t sentimental like Lisa, but he is afraid of identity theft. He has saved every envelope or magazine that comes into the house with his name on it because he wants to make sure he shreds every single label to pulp. Jared’s piles of paper and shredded strips completely overwhelmed their small office. While Jared’s worry may be justified, the way he is dealing with the concern is creating a bigger, more immediate issue for his family that affects the way they live every day.