Using the Swedish Death Cleaning Plan to Help Whoever Recovers My Body
I have had blogs since 2004 and presently have 5publications here on Medium organized on Kathy Berman’s Emotional Sobriety. I mention this to introduce the kind of writing I do. I started it 12 years ago — content curation. You can read about it here @kberman2020.
Having no family left at 80 years of age has prompted me to consider the person(s) who will deal with my earthly possessions. The Swedish Death Cleaning plan has been attractive to me for a few years now. so I began today to promise to clean out those smaller possessions — one room at a time. By cleaning out, I mean, some donations, some throwaways, and the rest in clear plastic storage boxes or clear bags. My goal is that any one can quickly assess what to keep and what to heave.
From What is Swedish Death Cleaning?:
“Swedish Death Cleaning is the brainchild of author Margareta Magnussen, who coined the term in her 2017 book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. Magnussen asks her readers to consider the loved ones who must comb through your possessions after you’ve died, providing suggestions for making their experience as easy as possible.
In practical terms, this means organizing and decluttering your home to reduce the burden of sifting through dozens of objects and trying to decide what’s significant. With Swedish Death Cleaning, you’ll have already done that for them by only holding onto items you’ve determined to be essential.”
From A Beginner’s Guide to Swedish Death Cleaning:
“In terms of the actual process of death cleaning, Magnusson has a lot of advice on how to do it:
• Death cleaning doesn’t have to be done in one go. It’s something to slowly chip away at over the years.
• Begin with the things you have in storage, hidden away in attics or garages. She suggests telling your friends and family when you’re starting the process so they can feel free to come and claim things before you throw them away or donate them to charity.
• Shred or throw away anything that could be upsetting, hurtful, or embarrassing for your family to find. “Save your favorite dildo — but throw away the other 15!” she says.
• Leave your photographs, letters, and journals until last. As anyone who has ever tried to de-clutter can attest, it’s all too easy to get stuck in a vortex of nostalgia and procrastinate from getting any actual tidying done.
• If you know what you’d like to be done with certain belongings after you die, tell someone or leave a note. When Magnusson’s mother passed away, she found notes attached to clothes and other belongings, explaining what should be done with them — like a will but for books that should be returned to their original owners, and a jacket that belonged in a museum.
- Death cleaning is a great chance to actually ask people if they want your stuff. “To know something will be well used and have a new home is a joy,” she says.”
From How Swedish Death Cleaning will Organize Your Life Once and For All:
“Like most decluttering methods, death cleaning is about more than sorting objects — it’s about emotions, too. Going through a lifetime of books, photos, and letters is bound to bring back memories, and while Magnusson suggests going through photos and other emotionally-loaded possessions last so you won’t get sidetracked, sorting through these feelings is an important part of the process.
Despite the emotional aspect of death cleaning, Magnusson insists it isn’t sad. “Death cleaning is also something you can do for yourself, for your own pleasure,” she writes. Before she says goodbye to each object she no longer needs, Magnusson takes a moment to reflect on the memories associated with that table, jacket, or cookbook, whether good or bad. “One’s own pleasure, and the chance to find meaning and memory, is the most important thing,” she writes. And so it turns out, once again, that the difficult process of tidying up has more to do with sparking joy than you might think.”
ALSO —
6 Swedish Death Cleaning tips to Help You Tackle Your Home’s Clutter
