We’ve all heard of Swedish death cleaning, which involves proactively clearing out a lifetime of clutter before we croak. Ideally, we want to spare our heirs the pain and inconvenience of disposing of the detritus of our lives after we’re gone. While leaving everything behind sounds like an easy way out for us boomers with too much crap, let’s face it, that would be really mean.

My husband’s business records from 25 years ago could probably now be shredded. Hopefully, CRA won’t need us to validate that his business dissolved decades ago and made no money in this century. A basement full of empty Amazon boxes (just in case we need one), racks of old winter clothing and boots, every tool that constitutes a complete Home Depot-like basement workshop, shelves of no-longer-used home accessories, all those old door wreaths, Christmas decorations, and canning jars are of no value to anyone but us – and even we would live lighter and happier without them.

I recently read about a new approach to decluttering that is very much like what I did for my dad when I moved him from his suburban split-level to a small assisted-living apartment. It’s called reverse decluttering. I gave Dad a pack of Post-It notes a couple of months before his move, and told him to go around and stick a Post-It only on the items he wanted to take with him.  Everything without a sticky note attached would be left behind when he moved. To his credit, he was very efficient, and while it was difficult for him to leave the contents of his workshop, his generator, his snowblower, his beloved antique clock collection, and his garden tools behind, he got ‘er done.

After he finished, we had a highly edited collection of necessities he could take to his new apartment. Everything else was left where it sat in the house. The following week, a nice lady who liquidates estates came in, organized everything that was left, and prepared it for selling. She held the sale in the house, and a short time later he received a cheque in the mail for what he netted from the sale. It was the best solution for a difficult problem.

The prospect of reverse decluttering has me already making mental notes. As I look at our current inventory of multiple beds and other household furniture, I’ve already decided which bed and dressers I will take to the home. My still-perfectly-good sofa might fit into a small apartment, but the comfy white twill loveseat that I bought at DeBoer’s a million years ago will have to be sacrificed. If my apartment won’t accommodate my three-seater sofa, then I could reupholster the loveseat and take it with me. Or, I could buy an inexpensive new one.

Which dishes will I take? Should I take my silverware, which rarely gets used? The dining room suite I love (made in Quebec), along with its contents, will have to be sold. Sigh! I could probably dispense with my desk and use my laptop on a small table. I hope a library or charity can use my collection of books. Even though I have kept them for years, they rarely get opened or referenced anymore; it’s hard to part with books. Most of my reading these days is done on my iPad with books downloaded from the library. So many tough decisions ahead.

I don’t think I will miss my collection of pots and pans, drawers of kitchen utensils, and various tchotchkes. I’ve never been an enthusiastic cook, so I look forward to someone else preparing my meals—even the institutional kind—as long as I can still make my own pot of Yorkshire Gold Tea when I fancy a cuppa. I’m hoping we can stay in our current home until it’s time for us to go to the home. We would like to avoid the interim step of moving to a condo, then into assisted living, as that would involve two moves and could be tricky for hubby, who has dementia. The downside of staying put means I keep putting off purging my junk. In fact, now that we’re down to one car, we have gained extra storage space in the garage! Not necessarily a good thing.

The work of reverse decluttering is already incubating in my mind, which hopefully will make the actual event a bit easier. Remember how little we owned when we were in our twenties? We lived in bachelor apartments or shared a one-bedroom apartment with one or two other girls, and we survived very well!  We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. Clearing out is freeing. Out of sight, out of mind. When I think of how much better I feel every time I purge my closet and take the excess to Salvation Army, I’m encouraged to remind myself that when the time comes to make the move, I would like to think I’ll be equally receptive about parting with the big stuff. Maybe the incentive of getting new “stuff” to fit my new lifestyle will help. Time will tell. We start with nothing, and hope to depart with as little as possible. That’s the circle of life, isn’t it?