"Decluttering"
At times, my fellow humans ask me about decluttering. I feel that I understand well what is meant by this word and see much value in this concept (it probably indicates that a person is stepping on a path of relating with objects and consumption differently!), but personally I try to avoid using the word as much as possible in my everyday life and in my academic works. I avoid it because what we call clutter is embodied nature and human labour and time. I might not need these objects, but at some point they were raw materials from nature, someone designed them, someone assembled them, and someone sold their time to earn the money that bought the objects. And someone else might find these objects incredibly useful.
I never went through a stage of decluttering where I got rid of a large number of possessions in a short-ish period of time. I saw an opportunity to live with less when I moved countries. I was in my late teens when I was planning to move. At that time, I didn't have as many possessions as, say, my stepfather or grandmother. None of the furniture or household items belonged to me personally, and many of the items could be used by my brother who was younger and would live at home for a few more years. I did say goodbye to some notes from school and uni. I didn't need them. I had more items of clothing than I have now, and my grandmother donated them and gave some away to her friends so their grandchildren could use them. I gave my bags and accessories and my mother's jewellery to my grandmother so she could use them.
After that, I never lived with an excessive number of items. Yet, it still felt like it was too much for me. My approach to keeping some items and saying goodbye to others was sketching a playful "sufficiency list". I've mentioned it a lot in this autoethnography already and published it in this paper for the first time. I simply asked myself: what are the items that I genuinely need and that make my life good/cosy/comfortable? I also carefully observed what I took with me when I went somewhere for a while. It was surprisingly easy to sketch this list. The first few items that came to mind were my laptop, my phone, documents, a bank card, clothes, personal care items. I realised that I didn't need to keep most of the items that were not on the list. So I gave them away. Over the years, the list hasn't changed much at all. At different times it did reflect different needs though. For example, when I lived in Northern Sweden, I needed mittens and a hat. In England I could easily live without them.
My sufficiency list is absolutely not a benchmark for anyone. But I do think it could be an interesting and fun exercise for those fellow humans who seek to relate with objects, space, time, consumption, etc. differently, to sketch their own. Everyone's list would look different. For example, my natural desire to create (that every human being has!) is channelled into my academic work and writing, so I need my laptop. Some fellow humans need, for example, art supplies and equipment, and that's ok. There is no perfect number of objects that one should keep.
I didn't split my sufficiency list by room (e.g., kitchen, bedroom), because there are very few objects that I need to live a happy and cosy life. If there were more objects, I would probably think about kitchen equipment, bathrooms, living room, clothes etc. separately. In any case, I would begin with spending a lot of quality time with myself and a piece of paper sketching the list.
Other fellow humans find other strategies more helpful. My ex partner "decluttered" room by room. Some prefer to spend time with actual objects and decide whether to keep them or not. Yet others have a dedicated space where they keep the items they might not want to keep, and either bring them back after a while or donate/sell them.
While I generally live only with what I need and enjoy, new items enter my home every now and then. Usually they are gifts from fellow humans. I used to donate them immediately, but these days I keep a box where I put them. When someone visits me, I ask them if there is anything they need. Many of my fellow humans who visit me are interested in sustainability, so they understand why I ask. This time, there were some very nice items in the box that could be regifted, and I didn't have any visits planned. I took the items to my local byttestation (swap shop) so someone can find them and hopefully regift, or keep them.