What’s the Difference between Collection and Clutter?

Collection of Stamps from East Germany

People often find it difficult to distinguish between a collection and clutter. They deliberately blur boundaries to convince themselves that their assortment of old clothing is a vintage collection of dresses from past decades. This attitude fosters inaction on tackling your clutter problem and cleaning up your home. In your mind, your pile or filled storage spaces really are valuable and worth keeping. It also makes you feel better as you don’t have to address the fact that you are somehow unable to deal with your emotional barrier to parting with old belongings.

I am not judging anyone here; I know how hard it is to let go. We often attach emotion to our stuff. I once had a grey dress with doves that I had bought from the GAP. I loved wearing it; it made me feel good and didn’t need ironing. After losing weight and dropping two dress sizes, I kept it for over a year.

We can clearly define clutter as a random, note the word random, selection of things that usually take up a lot of space in our home. It doesn’t necessarily serve a purpose, and individual items within the pile of clutter are often hard to locate.

For example, you might have a vast selection of old newspapers and magazines lying around your house. They all contain articles that you have read and found worthy of keeping. But be honest with yourself. How likely are you to find a specific article should you have the urge to re-read it? In today’s age, where we are swamped with information, do you even remember that you have an article on topic A or topic B somewhere? The same would apply to other areas of your home, like food or spices. Where is that Cajun pepper when you need it if you have just buried them in your larder?

Some clutter is normal in most people’s homes as life circumstances prevent us from having a ‘show home’. Do we even want to? Going out with friends, walking the dog and exercising is more fun or necessary than having a perfect house.

But clutter becomes a problem when it takes over every space of your life. Renee Garcia, in her article The Difference Between an obsessive Collector and Hoarder defines hoarding as the need by a hoarder to hold onto things regardless of their worth or condition:

‘Hoarders, on the other hand, have a strong perceived need to keep the items, despite their condition, believing that they may need them, or they will be valuable in the future. Individuals who are compulsive hoarders have difficulty discarding items and become extremely distressed at even the thought of doing so. The result of the hoarding leads to clutter, distress and impairment.’

Susan Box Mann, in an article on collecting, states that collecting is very common and believes that almost everyone does it without even knowing they do:

Almost everyone collects something. Sometimes a collector does not even realise they can be called one. For example, the person who clips and saves recipes is a collector of recipes. We even have a name for someone who collects everything compulsively – a hoarder.

trabantbettina

Bettina Anna Trabant, Founder of Life Organised, your professional organising and decluttering service in East London. Eco-conscious minimalist and avid tea drinker,