u/jjjjennieeee

One of my friends (mid-30s) recently said she thinks the only way adults can keep their homes presentable is if they have a spare room for all the extra stuff they feel they need to keep but that there's no sensible home for.

This got me wondering how many of you in this sub feel the same? I live in a small modern condo, and I feel lucky to have a spare bedroom. But, on some level, I want to convert this current catch-all room into something more functional and social -- maybe a place where I can invite friends over to watch TV since I don't currently have a place in my home for that. The only TV in my home now is in my bedroom. There's no place for a TV setup in my small common area space. Only problem is if I convert the room, I'm going to have to make a lot of decisions on many different categories of useful stuff that really has no place to be re-homed. :/

No pantry, and I can't use the small garage chain-walled storage room that is assigned to each unit because there's a huge problem with thieves that break in and cut the wire walls to get to people's stuff despite people knowing not to keep valuables there, ugh. They steal bikes, too, so can't even keep my bikes there.

Since a lot of people have shared that counting helps them keep track of their decluttering progress, whether it's the calendar challenge or something else, I was wondering if anyone here feels similarly to me that counting seems to make me feel more exhausted vs when I didn't count. Even though I've stopped counting now, I'm still much more aware of the fundamental level of life admin needed to maintain a decluttered state so I think that is what is making me still feel exhausted knowing it seems like a lot.

I thought that once I reached a visible amount of progress that the feeling would change, but it hasn't. I've also simplified quite a lot about my life, but I feel the weight of new decisions that could bring in new unknowns when old things need replacements. The feeling might be magnified since some areas of my home need a lot more time/energy for me to tackle so I only chip away at those areas and maybe this feeling will go away once I feel more "done" -- and by this I mean I have areas that only have partial makeshift solutions I'm not thrilled with, but I know the great feeling of knowing practical "homes" exist that truly work for most of my other areas I feel I can manage the maintenance of.