Tracy McCubbin - Make Space for Happiness

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Books . Change . Lives .

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Books . Change . Lives .

ALSO BY TRACY McCUBBIN

Making Space, Clutter Free:

The Last Book on Decluttering

Youll Ever Need

Copyright 2022 by Tracy McCubbin

Cover and internal design 2022 by Sourcebooks

Cover design by Sourcebooks

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McCubbin, Tracy, author.

Title: Make space for happiness : how to stop attracting clutter and start magnetizing the life you want / Tracy McCubbin.

Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks, [2022]

Identifiers: LCCN 2022006670 (print) | LCCN 2022006671 (ebook) | (trade paperback) | (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Simplicity. | Orderliness.

Classification: LCC BJ1496 .M385 2022 (print) | LCC BJ1496 (ebook) | DDC 179/.9--dc23/eng/20220511

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006670

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006671

For Rich.

Thank you for filling up my life with love.

G LOBALLY , 2020 WAS A CRUCIBLE FOR MANY peopleand for many reasons. For those of us who were fortunate enough to keep our health, we still faced enormous upheaval as we moved our lives indoors and hunkered down. A home that had served as little more than a changing room before the pandemic suddenly became a persons entire world. In my role as a professional organizer and declutterer, I saw my clients in Los Angeles and across the country have a reckoning with their home environments unlike anything we have ever experienced in our lifetime.

My assessment: we are in crisis. A stuff crisis.

Whenever I had the occasion to get in my car and quickly zip across Los Angeles during lockdown, I couldnt help but notice that most of the vehicles on the street were UPS, DHL, FedEx, and Amazon. So many Amazon trucks. So many, in fact, that I started to notice that unmarked vans had slapped on Amazon magnets and drivers in orange vests were popping out of them with armloads of packages. Then I started to notice the piles of packages on doorsteps. Piles. Every front stoop looked like a Leaning Tower of Packages. Blue recycle bins were barfing out empty cardboard boxes. When I finally started to work in clients homes again, I was shocked at the amount of shopping they had done. It looked as if they had rebought everything they had decluttered beforeand then some.

For many people, having to be stuck at home confronting their disorder, disarray, and excess, was a rough awakening. Previously, they could hunt down their keys, or their good blouse, or the right travel mug, and eventually get out the door. They could promise themselves once again that they would deal with their clutter soon. But during the pandemic, they had nothing to do but accept that their homes had become unmanageable. Just like overeating or drinking too much, overshopping is fun in the moment but there is always a heavy price to pay later.

I thought business for dClutterfly would be slow as lockdown restrictions lifted. Instead, I ended up hiring more employees to help me get my clients clutter under control so that bedrooms, garages, and kitchen counters could become offices, so that children could go to school from home, and so that families who used to sit down for a meal once a week could now eat three meals a day together and work alongside one another with minimal friction. And thats not to mention helping all the people moving. Aging parents moving in with their adult children to stay safe and help with the grandkids. Grown adults moving back in with their parents due to the economic downturn. People deciding it was time to get out of the city and move somewhere quieter. Everyone trying to make big shifts happen quickly was confronted with how much stuff they had and how little they needed.

What did helping mean?

In some instances, we emptied garages of broken lawn mowers and unused furniture. There was gently used baby gear to pass along. We helped consolidate closets so that one could be converted to an office. We packed up china from credenzas and replaced it with school supplies.

But, primarily, what people called us for was to deal with the overwhelming excess. The hallway lined with boxes. The closet filled with untouched shopping bags. The kitchen drawers bursting with multiple unused gadgets. The den filled with dusty exercise equipment.

Look, we all need things. I own many, many things. I have things I cook with, things I bathe with, things I wear, and things I work with. I even have things I just like to look at because they make me happy.

But when we have excessive amountsmore than our homes can hold, more than we can clean and care for, more than we can ever usewe need to reflect. After being home twenty-four hours a day for months on end, we have to ask ourselves how much do we really use? How much stuff do we really need?

Lets agree that if we werent dusting off the treadmill during the pandemic, we are never going to.

Despite everything advertisers want us to believe, stuff does not make us healthy or better or more successful. It doesnt give us longevity, and it certainly doesnt help the planet. Most importantly, it is scientifically proven that stuff does not make us happy.

And your happiness is what I care about.

I grew up in California, the daughter of a wonderful man with an intractable hoarding problem, so I saw firsthand the tenacious pull that stuff can have on our psyches. As an adult in Los Angeles, I became a personal assistant known for being able to tackle any organizational challenge. As word spread, my business was born, and dClutterfly is now Los Angeless premier home organization company.