Death and Taxes

and the art of decluttering

American polymath, statesman, scientist, diplomat and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States Benjamin Franklin famously said there are only two certain things in this life: death and taxes. He wasn’t the first to coin the phrase, but he was probably the most famous. And whilst my thoughts lately have not really been focused on taxes, aside from a little whooping and dancing on receipt of a letter confirming this was the last year I needed to submit a tax return, my thoughts have been on death. Not in a particularly sad or morose way but more on a reflection of the inevitability of the event. After all, none of us are getting out of here alive!

I can see why this has been a recurring theme to my thoughts recently, as the first two months of 2025 have been spent dealing with my Mum and her affairs in what has felt like an all-consuming blur. It started with clearing her flat which thankfully has now sold but although we did really well selling some items, passing the majority of furniture etc. onto charities, taking relatively little to the dump and ultimately landfill, we are still left with piles of boxes of Mum’s stuff tucked into corners of our own home. That is our own home, which still has corners piled with items from my late mother in law’s home not to mention all our own excess clutter, despite a major downsize six years ago.

In addition, last week Mum seemed to take a turn for the worse, sleeping much of the time, refusing food or personal care and conversations were had with her carers and doctors about end-of-life care. Sleep was elusive and my thoughts ricocheted between worrying if her affairs were all in order, writing a eulogy and thinking of all the people I will need to contact. This week it’s a different story and just like Lazarus she’s up from her bed and sitting in the lounge watching TV. Well, I doubt Lazarus watched much TV, but you know what I mean.

The upshot has been that I feel an overwhelming need to clear all the clutter, get all our affairs in order and not leave all this for our children to deal with after we have departed. Speaking to one of my sons, his thoughts were, I do this for my Mum, they will do it for me, and their children will do it for them. It’s the way of the world, but it doesn’t have to be that way and I’d rather it wasn’t.

Obviously, the problem of clearing clutter isn’t something that has only recently cropped up in my life, it’s just that it has come back into focus, and rather sharp focus at that. In common with many other creatives, I know I have a tendency to leave a pile of mess in my wake, especially when in mid flow. My desk gets buried under piles of paper, paints, pencils, fabrics etc. or whatever else it might be that I am currently working on. It then all gets too much, until the point where it no longer feels creative, and it becomes a hindrance to creativity. There is a whirlwind of tidying up and putting things away and the whole vicious circle starts all over again, but what if it didn’t have to be this way.

The problem as I see it is we all have too much stuff to begin with and if we could tackle that problem, we might stand a chance of keeping it tidy, so I am on a mission. I have tried various methods in the past including the Konmari method made famous by Marie Kondo. I even bought the book, which I recently donated in a brief fit of clearing shelf space. Oh, the irony!

I can see that as a method it works but it feels very drastic. Rather than tackle a room at a time or maybe even a single cupboard or drawer which to date has been my preferred option which obviously doesn’t work, she advocates to work in categories, first clothes, then books, paper, komono (miscellany) and finally sentimental items. So, starting with clothes, every item of clothing owned gets piled up in one place. Then one by one you have to take each item and ask if it sparks joy. If not, and this is the bit I find way too woo-woo, thank the item, and say goodbye before consigning it to the bin or charity box. The remaining items that you wish to keep get folded in a particular way and preferably stacked on their end in a drawer so every item can be seen.

I have been watching repeats of the Marie Kondo TV programmes on Netflix where the beautiful petite Marie goes into homes to work her Konmari magic. It is absolutely dreadful TV but utterly compelling, although horrifying too. I have realised that my own clutter problem is nothing compared to some of these people, but it is a method that clearly works in these televised cases. However, I can’t quite bring myself to put all my clothes in one place at one time. Where would they all go? If I piled everything onto the bed, where would I sleep if I didn’t finish it all in a day – some of these Netflix people take several days, weeks even, although in reality I don’t have that many clothes to necessitate weeks of clearing. To be fair I have seen it work in a small way as I used the method on my sock and underwear drawer (I know one drawer at a time is not the way to go) about three years ago and it remains as tidy and ordered as the day I first did it, although I think I just like to see all the neat rows of hand knitted socks!

The other method, or philosophy of decluttering that has received a lot of press recently is the Swedish art of death cleaning, which given my current preoccupation does appeal to me. It’s not only about physical clutter but digital clutter too and it seems to be a philosophy for a more organised life. The idea is why should we burden our young relatives with the job of clearing and taking care of what we either couldn’t bother doing ourselves or never got around to. It is about finding meaning or memory in our things and realising what matters in life are relationships, experiences, and memories, not possessions and stuff. It is less about decluttering and more about simplifying. In other words ‘clearing out our crap so someone else doesn’t have to do it when we die’ which brings me full circle because if there is one certainty in life it is that we are all going to die. Putting off clearing our stuff doesn’t put off that ultimate end. However, death cleaning isn’t about death, it is about living our life to the full and living now. It’s an act of love to those who will be left behind.

Another aspect to this is also being prepared for our own deaths with a box or folder containing everything our families might need such as banking and financial information, passwords, special instructions, copies of wills and lasting powers of attorney etc. Fortunately, I managed to gather all this type of information from my Mum quite a few years ago when I started to help her pay bills etc.

Of course, in reality whatever method we choose whether it works or not depends entirely on getting the job finished and not giving up part way through which is the real challenge, so I am reminding myself of the benefits in the hope it will make me stick to it.

· It will make life simpler if we pare down to life’s essentials

· It will help keep our home cleaner because less clutter makes things easier to clean.

· Less clutter and a cleaner house mean less stress

· It will help us focus on what is important in life

· It will help our family.

We set ourselves a challenge a couple of months ago, to each discard or give away at least one item every day no matter how big or small. It was never going to be a quick or practical solution to the long-term problem, but I thought it would be a fun little game to keep us in the right mindset for decluttering. This week I got rid of the jigsaw that had been plaguing my life, cluttering up the end of the kitchen table for eight weeks since Christmas. I did finish it and now it’s on its way to someone else, a friend keen to give it a try.

Some of Mum’s photos of people and places unfamiliar to me have also found their way to the bin this week as well as some old paperwork. I also got rid of a polytunnel but to be fair it wasn’t cluttering my house; it was just lying around in pieces on my allotment like a weight around my neck. It’s a start but it’s slow progress. Meanwhile most of the boxes I brought back from Mum’s are still there reminding me I need to do something. One thing is for certain, they are definitely not sparking joy!

Do you have any decluttering tips that work for you?