In her New York Times Bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin starts her year-long Happiness Project with a focus on vitality and a plan to boost her energy.  One of the things she tackels is her clutter, noting that “Household disorder was a constant drain” as well as acknowledging the “psychic clutter of loose ends”.  She proposes 8 types of clutter she finds daily in her life.  How many sound familiar?

nostalgic clutter – relics from an earlier life

conservation clutter – useful things that are useless to you

bargain clutter – unnecessary things “but they’re on sale!”

freebie clutter – gifts, hand-me-downs, and giveaways

crutch clutter – things we use but really shouldn’t (we all have tee-shirts like this)

aspirational clutter – for all those things we’ll get to someday – yeah, right!

outgrown clutter – those things that were useful once upon a time but not anymore

and my favorite

buyer’s remorse clutter – really, do you feel less guilty if it’s stuck in the back of a closet?

I think these are awesome ways of thinking about the clutter we accumulate. I’ve got all of these – how about you?