Matt Paxton - Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward with Your Life

Why You Cant Let Go

I have seen it all.

Ive met a couple whose unimaginably creepy collection of over a hundred dolls put them at risk of eviction. Ive met a woman who hoarded her chickens and all their eggseven the bad onesinside her house because she couldnt part with them. As a decluttering and organizing expert with over twenty years of experience, Ive met countless people who let clutter rule their livesand I have helped nearly all of them let go of their stuff and start living.

From being the featured cleaner on Hoarders and hosting Legacy List with Matt Paxton to giving a TED Talk on extreme cleaning and helping Jimmy Kimmel clean out an office, I am known as the guy who gets knee deep in stuff for a living to help people declutter and downsize. I have helped thousands of people from all walks of life, of all ages and income levels, leave behind belongings that no longer serve them so that they can finally take the next step.

So how was it that, just a year ago, I found myself paralyzed with fear at the prospect of downsizing and moving my own stuff?

It was the summer of 2020. COVID-19 cases were spiking and Id been quarantined at my home in Richmond, Virginia, for a few months. As someone who thrives around people, I had gotten a bit stir crazy. Whats more, I was in love.

For more than a year, Id been dating a woman named Zo, who I was bonkers about. She is funny, smart, kind, everything a man could want. But she lived in Georgia and one of her four kids was in high school, so moving was not an option for her. For us be together, I had to make the decision to move.

If I was going to move, I desperately needed to declutter and downsize. I mean, I have three kids. For all my years of exposure to the problems created by excesskeep in mind that one of my clients held on to a cherished jar of mackerel for thirty-seven yearsI hadnt stopped myself from accumulating a dizzying amount of stuff. My kids had enough Legos to build us a new house. I had enough tools to build Noahs Ark several times over. There were superfluous pieces of every type of furniture imaginable, from beds to desks to couches.

Lets be honest here: The chances of me getting a woman like Zo are slim. This was my golden ticket to romantic happiness, and I knew it. But I felt immobilized in the face of the distress and pain of moving. I couldnt bring myself to part with all the heirlooms I cherished.

To start, there was Dads artabout fifty paintings strewn about the house. Hed passed away twenty years earlier, and his art kept his memory alive in my house. Then there were my poker chips. A former gambling devotee, Id collected dozens of $5 and $1 chips. As an entrepreneur, Id accumulated hundreds of books. Parting with them felt like abandoning the ideas that helped me make my livelihood.

I had lived in my home for only ten years. A good chunk of time, sure, but some of my clients have been in their homes for forty or even fifty years. They have lived entire lifetimes in their one spotand I have helped them move on from it, with all the difficulty that change carries. And here I was, panicking at the thought of leaving behind a decades worth of belongings.

As I thought through my decision to move, I realized that my anxieties were rooted in more than just material things. Id been living in Richmond for most of my life, and leaving it all for faraway Georgia seemed scary. Who am I if not a Virginian? The year I was born, my grandfather bought four season tickets to the local college basketball teammy beloved Richmond Spiders, surely the greatest team in sports history. Just over forty years later, my three sons sat in those same seats with me, watching the same team Id watched with my grandfather decades earlier. The prospect of moving brought my identity into question.