Clear the Clutter Out Before You Die

After funerals at Kettering, OH funeral homes, many families go home, get some rest, and then start tackling all the stuff that their loved one left behind. This can be a daunting task, especially if their loved one was, while not a hoarder, an avid collector of things, or was someone who just never threw anything away.

Imagine opening a desk drawer and finding grocery store receipts from 1970 onward. It happens more than you might think. Imagine a basement or a workshop that’s packed to the brim with large boxes, crates, and plastic containers full of stuff. In fact, the basement or workshop is so full that you can’t even walk through it and you have to pull those boxes, crates, and plastic containers outside to make a pathway to get inside. This happens a lot too.

Stuff, and a lot of it, can be overwhelming. It can be so overwhelming that family members just walk away and leave it for the next generation to clean out when these family members are gone.

The reality is that a lot of the stuff we have is no longer relevant to our lives. We get emotionally attached to stuff, and, that is why we tend to hang on to so much of it.

But, If our children are in their 20’s or 30’s, we probably don’t need those cute little drawings from when they were in kindergarten.

We may have books – which are outdated – and paperwork related to jobs we had a couple of decades ago, that we aren’t doing now, and will never do again.

We may have clothes that looked really cool when we first bought them, but aren’t cool anymore. We may have too many clothes and shoes.

Do we really need five 2-cup measuring cups and eight sets of measuring spoons? What about the drawer with the four sets of beaters for personal mixers that you no longer have? Are you really ever going to use all the various-sized empty jars you’ve saved over the years?

This list can go on and on, but these are some areas where people tend to collect. It’s time to declutter, because tomorrow you may run out of time and your family will have the not-so-fun task of doing it for you.

Decluttering serves two purposes. One purpose is to simplify your life and your living space, which will make things easier for your family and you. The other purpose is to eliminate, as much as is within your control, the possibility of your family fighting over stuff when you’re gone. If they want it now, give it to them.

Decluttering is easy if you break it down into smaller chunks. Take one room at a time (start with a room that you’re least passionate about the stuff it contains). Put three boxes in the room. One box is labeled “Keep.” The second box is labeled “Donate.” And the third box is labeled “Trash.”

If you need to, enlist some objective help by asking a friend to give you a hand and to make the final call on what box to put things in when you can’t decide.

For help with decluttering tips from Kettering, OH funeral homes, our compassionate and experienced staff at Glickler Funeral Home & Cremation Service can help. You can come by our funeral home at 1849 Salem Ave., Dayton, OH 45406, or you can contact us today at (937) 278-4287.