Sarah Metcalf 

You tackle your big organizing project, you declutter, you install the systems, you finally get things the way you want them in your home, then three months later you look around at new piles of stuff and wonder, “What happened?”  

A piece of the organizing puzzle that is often overlooked is the ongoing inflow of stuff. You work so hard to correct the clutter problem in the present, but if you don’t look at your purchasing habits, you may be in a similar situation in the near future. This creates a loop of buying and decluttering that continues to repeat itself.  

Pay Attention to the Stuff Coming into Your Home 

Life is busy. We are sold solutions to make life more manageable, yet sometimes those solutions become part of the problem: 

• Does anyone else have a hard time remembering auto-ship orders that you signed up for six months ago? 
• Or have you gone to open a package that was just delivered and can’t remember what you ordered?   

We’ve all been there.  

Take an inventory of your household buying habits. Review your credit card statements. Look at your auto-ship subscriptions and online purchases over the last few months. Get curious about the patterns you see. What shifts could you make to reduce the volume of stuff coming into your home?  

This is also a great time to think about other avenues of how stuff accumulates in your life. This could include thrifting, garage sales, holiday gifts, accepting free items from friends and family, or taking in family heirlooms. Pay attention to your incoming mail. Are you receiving more magazines, catalogs, or mailers than you would like or expect? These are all ways that we can add significant clutter and bulk to our homes without realizing it. As you identify the ways in which stuff is accumulating faster than you can manage, think about what it will take to reduce or stop the inflow. Maybe it is a conversation with a relative or it could be that you need to reduce your incoming mail by opting out of magazines and catalogs.  

If you are a parent with younger kids, you probably are dealing with an almost daily inflow of paperwork, artwork, and small toys. This does get better as kids get older, my high schooler rarely brings in much paperwork or clutter. On the other hand, my kindergartener brings home a folder bursting with paper every single school day! I have found taking 5-10 minutes each night to process the incoming paper and artwork to be helpful. If I let it pile up too many days in a row, it feels overwhelming and I tend to miss important communication.  

Try a No-Buy Challenge 

Consider trying a No-Buy Challenge. These challenges are usually a month long, but you could see a benefit after a few weeks.  

What I personally like about this exercise is that it acts as a sort of reset button for my purchasing habits. It makes me pause and think before I order something new.  

I keep a running list of everything I was tempted to buy, and at the end of the challenge, I review it to see if I still want those things. Most of the time I don’t.  

Marketers are good at creating urgency in our buying. When we intentionally add in a pause, the urgency tends to fade. I highly recommend the book No New Things by Ashlee Piper for a thoughtful 30-day challenge.  

Consider Where You Spend Your Money  

How and where we spend our money is a form of power. You are voting with your dollars every time you buy something. When you look at your spending habits from this mindset, what aligns with your own values and what would you like to shift? 

Money spent at a local business typically keeps 68% of every dollar spent in your local economy, which strengthens the fabric of your community. Can you shift some of your spending to support your local small businesses versus supporting billionaires or large companies? You don’t need to overhaul your spending all at once, but thoughtful shifts can make an impact. Each purchase is a choice. 

Here are some ways I love to shop local:  

• I shop weekly at my local farmer’s market for bread, produce, and eggs when it is in season. 
• I buy books from my local independent bookstore. The family that owns the store lives in my neighborhood and our kids attend school together.   
• I buy coffee, wine, and kitchen supplies from a local shop that is owned by my neighbor. 

It feels good to know that my purchases help to support people in my community. If we want locally owned shops in our communities, we must support them. If not, they cannot keep the lights on and their doors open. Where we spend our money matters.  

Editor’s note: A popular app called Goods Unite Us lets you see how brands and companies lean politically, including where they direct their donations. Understanding how their values align—or don’t—with yours can help you make more informed choices about where you spend your money and could deinfluence your spending. 

Identify Your Next Step 

The work of organizing is an ongoing process. As long as we own things, we will need to maintain them in some way. We can make that job easier for ourselves by reducing the volume of new things coming into our homes and getting intentional with our spending.  

What would make the biggest impact to reduce the inflow of stuff coming into your life? Getting curious and making some small changes in the present can make a big difference over time.  

Financial Foundations for Productivity and Organizing Professionals: Master Your Money, Maximize Your Impact
Buried in Treasures Workshops Hoarding Specialists SIG Open Call

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Meet the author, Sarah Metcalf