In the last week or two in Nottingham, the sun has been shining and I feel full of life again! Maybe you’ve felt it too?
Maybe you’ve thrown your curtains open wide to let the light in and felt a sudden urge to start clearing out your stuff and do a deep clean?
Spring is a time of renewal and regrowth. Spring cleaning - clearing out the old to make way for the new - has ancient origins, crossing different cultures, religions, and practices, from improving public health to cleansing the home of bad luck.
Every March, APDO, the professional body for declutterers and organisers in the UK, promotes something called Spring Clearing week to coincide with astronomical spring. Each year, it has a different theme. This year, it's all about your legacy. Whatever stage of life you’re at, it’s worth thinking about. Legacy isn’t just something that happens when we’re gone - it’s built up throughout our lives.
Working with people to uncover the layers they’ve been living under, sometimes literally and always metaphorically, is something I love about helping people declutter and organise their spaces. Another unexpected element I love is the community connectedness it’s helped bring about too.
Recently, someone I was working with was very brave in letting go of things they’d built up some attachments to, but no longer needed. And from that action, blankets are being knitted for hospices, toys and games are on children’s hospital wards through the Nottingham Hospitals Charity, the Nottingham Brazilian cultural centre has new kit, a local women’s art group has new materials, someone who lost a loved one during Covid has been reunited with an item just like one they weren’t able to have as a keepsake due to rules at the time. Wow! Finding the right home for things, rather than just passing things on to a charity shop to sort out, is a privilege and a joy.
I’ve met so many wonderful people and groups through doing this work, those who in turn help others or bring joy to the lives of those around us. What a wonderful legacy that is. And what a wonderful legacy for people who let go of their things to know they’re no longer sitting unused, taking up space, but are out there in the world creating happiness for others!
Every action we take has an onward action. Which is worth thinking about when wondering whether to buy something or not, whether to replace or repair, and so on. Choices aren’t always easy, but we always have them.
APDO members across the country also offer their time in different ways throughout Spring Clearing Week, helping the UK to declutter sustainably, to find freedom from their attachments, and to leave a legacy by design for their loved ones.
Some ways you could consider your legacy include:
- Creating photo albums and scrapbooks for your family with the most important pictures, tickets or keepsakes and, importantly, some narrative alongside them. Consider digitising photos and perhaps letting go of some of your holiday or trip trinkets
- Leaving clear instructions to help your loved ones. For example, where important documents are, passwords, things you’d rather they didn’t look at, things they might like to look through and so on
- Deciding what items will be inherited and why. Which bits really need to be passed on, to who, and what’s the meaning with them? Leaving itemised information in your will can help at a difficult time by making there less to think about
- Choosing to give gifts of time or tasks rather than buying well intentioned but possibly unwanted gifts that are quickly passed on. Take a look at our ‘Presence over presents’ blog post for a bit of inspo
- Thinking about what you buy and where from. Seeing what local makers have on offer or going to refill/zero waste shops - even for just some of your stuff - makes the planet a bit happier
- Slowing down. We’re encouraged to race through the world and our lives but what purpose does that really serve? Taking things one thing at a time, enjoying where we’re at, spending time really looking at and listening to the people in our lives will have a lasting impact on both them and you.
Read more about sustainability, spring, and all the best local happenings in the latest issue of the beautiful Nottingham magazine Made. Every issue is free to read online or available in print via an annual subscription. You might just spot Unjumble in this edition too!
If you’d like to tackle clutter or get organised in your home or mind, - in Nottingham or further afield - get in touch today.