I am a dragon, by birthdate, we are supposed to have a hoard of treasure. I'm sure that's how I seem to end up surrounded by piles of stuff, all kept in one special room. Unfortunately it's also my bedroom, work room, computer room and living room. All one room because I only have one room to myself in the house. It's also my storage room, but that's pretty obvious.

My family think I'm keeping too much stuff, that I'm just not putting things away, etc. They don't say the word, hoarder, but I do. Usually just to myself because no one wants to be a hoarder, especially not after seeing some of the worst case scenarios on TV.

I read that a couple of the signs that you may be a hoarder are having clutter around you in piles, especially paper things. Another sign is that you buy storage containers and other methods of storing things and yet you still have more stuff which you need to store. I do buy storage things and I use some of them. Some don't work out as I hoped but I don't take them back - they get added to the clutter cause I might find a use for them. To be fair, sometimes I do, but a lot of the time I don't.

Tidy Your Books and Reward Yourself with Bookends

Why Do We Keep Stuff?

We keep things we think we will need to use later. Or, things we plan to use later. But, later takes a long time to come, a bit too often.

We can't decide on what to keep, what to get rid of (or give away/ recycle) so we keep everything. Trying to be a perfectionist and have everything we could ever need for any reason.

We have a sentimental attachment to a thing or a memory from that thing and we don't want to let it go, in case we forget. (In this case I have learned to take a photo of it and post it on my blog, keep it on the computer hard drive or a DVD disk).

Stop Procrastinating - Start Motivating

Don't keep procrastinating. Find yourself some motivation and begin dealing with your hoard today. My motivation is that I'm just sick of dealing with all this stuff. It's taking over too much of my personal space and I'm really tired of moving stuff out of my way. There isn't much here that's really worth the frustration of dealing with it all every day.

Pick apart something smaller from the mass. Don't put pressure on yourself, expecting to succeed in dealing with all of it in one day.

The other day I tidied up my computer desk (just a bit late for Clean Off Your Desk Day) and the area around it. I got mostly everything moved off or out of the way but a lot of it really had no where to go from there. Some things were easy, like hair clips and a vitamin bottle. They have other places they can be put away.

Next up are clothes and the clothes closet. There are clothes I won't wear or don't fit (for size or style reasons) and I shouldn't be keeping them. It's not easy to make hard decisions about clothes, some of them have been around long enough that I remember something nice happening when I wore that sweater, etc. But, it's really just a sweater, with a few holes in it. I don't even want to wear it out any more.

That's my plan for the day. I'm going to stop writing now and get to it. When I finish writing this post I will (hopefully) have that much done and have given myself that much more space and breathing room (not to mention walking room).

Of course, the bigger job is still left... all that hoard of paper and books. But, that will be another day.

A Tidy Desk Can be Rewarded with a Desk Set

Keep the Hoard from Coming Back (or Ever Starting)

When Bringing Stuff In...

Before you even buy something new (or bring something new home) consider whether you really need it or just want it. Is it worth spending money on, do you have the money to spend on it? Are you going to use it, or just leave it somewhere and forget about it?

Get in to the habit of not bringing in more than you need. Don't bring in something new unless you have used up or finished with something old. You won't have a hoard if you keep a balance of stuff in and stuff out.

Put Your Stuff Away...

Don't leave things packed in bags when you bring them home. Begin using them (something like a replacement part) or put them away where they need to be right away, not later.

Put things away once they are used. Or, after they are washed from being used. Get into the habit of not leaving the small tidying up for later and it won't build into a much bigger job over time.

When you finish a job, like laundry, making and having dinner, home repairs, etc. don't consider the job to be finished until you have done the clean up and put away your tools. Don't leave the clean up for later - later might be later than you think.

Be sensible about putting things away. Things you use together can be put away together. Especially basics like shampoo, toothpaste - things you would use in the bathroom should be kept together in the bathroom. This will make everything easier to find and quicker for you to get things done without looking for the things you need (if they were scattered around in different places).

Don't use more than a minimum amount of space for storage. If you go over the space you have, make some decisions about the stuff you are storing. How much of it do you really need? When did you last actually use it? Could you use something else you already have instead?

Don't Keep Too Much Stuff...

Become a recycler. Live by the 3 R's: recycle, reuse and reduce. I also like the fourth R - repurpose. It's about using what you have to make what you need, usually changing it to suit a new purpose. With anything paper especially, recycle it - don't keep it longer than you really need it. Don't build up piles of paper into mountains of paper.

Keep a donation box or bag around, probably in a closet. Once a month, plan to donate books to the second hand bookstore, clothes to the thrift stores, unwanted gifts to a charity, etc. This is a great way to let you keep a balance of old things going out and new things coming in.

This is the only thing I've posted to the Medium site. I think about writing more, but I'm not sure how personal I want to be outside of this site which isn't likely to be read by anyone. So I post here.

It starts out small. You don’t suspect at all. One day you just have a bit more stuff than space, more stuff than time or energy. So you make a pile of it. Maybe on the seat of a chair, a stack on a shelf, a junk drawer in the kitchen. A few things tossed on your bed while you tidy up the rest of the room.

Hoarding comes along easy.

That pile of stuff on the chair doesn't get dealt with and next time you want to use the chair the stuff is in the way. A minor annoyance so you stash it somewhere else. A temporary fix, right?

Sometimes you may get caught up and avoid the start of a hoard. Usually you don’t. I don’t. I have a stash of unfinished work on nearly every surface available in my bedroom, most of the floor space is taken up with bags of stuff to do. I also have books, some tidy and organized on their shelves and some in stacks on the floor, or in bags. The non-fiction books are things I wanted to do, the person I thought I could be.

The rest of the house is tidy. Right now. I don’t live alone half the year. But, that’s part of the problem too. She is a clutter freak. Anything left out bothers her. I like having my coffee pot and the coffee grinder out on the kitchen counter. Why not, I use them every day at least once. I clean up any spilled coffee grounds or drips from the pot. There is no mess, just two pieces of kitchen gadgets out in open space. It took time but I’m now allowed to have them out.

Anything else I want to keep must be stashed away. This means adding it to other stashes, stacks and piles of stuff in my room. Stuff gets lost in there. It is a jungle of piles and stacks and stashes of assorted stuff I need or at least don’t want to have taken, thrown out, or lost.

Ironic that I keep things here to avoid losing them when I've long gotten past the point of being able to keep track and find much any more. But, its not forgotten. Things my (well intentioned) family have thrown away, I remember. Some more than others, of course.

Once, they threw away almost almost everything when I was away for a couple of weeks. I came back to an almost empty room. It was nice to see the floor but, there was nothing left of me in there. Privacy invaded. It was like I had died and they got rid of all my stuff along with burying my body. I felt like a walking corpse for a long time.

Hoarding happens when you need to hold on to things and run out of better options, or space.

Don’t think hoarding, keeping things, is taking the easy way out. Living this way is frustrating, for me more than anyone else. They may think whatever they like and they believe the problem is me. It is and yet it isn't just me.

A lot of the stuff here are things other people want me to do for them. Tasks and jobs and demands I have not found time or energy to do. Do you know the old joke about a round tuit? Look that one up. If you ever do find that legendary round tuit please send it to me when you’re done tuiting.

I need to say no but that isn't so simple. I won’t get into all of that. It’s an exercise in frustration to explain my need to be perfect and fix everything, do too much and prove myself to anyone who isn't inside my own head. So, just know that it is very hard for me to say no to family and friends who ask for simple, small favours. I add their projects, errands, lists, problems, and assorted other things to my hoard of to-do.

I don’t think anyone outside of hoarders can understand the pressure of having too much stuff around them. It weighs on you, it pushes against you and it limits you mentally, emotionally and physically too. I hate having just a small path trough my bedroom from the door to the bed with the computer desk being along that same path. I can’t put my clean clothes away because I can’t reach the closet. I can’t start tidying up because I no longer know where to begin. It’s all a chain. One thing leads to another and another. To pull one string means pulling another and finding a place to put the first string before I can pull the next string. But, there is no more room to put anything. A pile falls over and that is a frustrating and hopeless feeling.

I toss a pile of papers and old photos onto another stack of papers piled up on the floor. Another task demanded and no time or energy to do it. Another weight added to the pressure. Another layer added to the stuff I already can’t deal with! It lands atop the other stuff and I’m angry because this was demanded of me and I know I can’t do more and this is just more of more.

People think a hoarder is an awful thing: dirty, miserable, derelict. I’m not any of those things. Not ever miserable. I live my life around this hoard and I try to function in spite of it all. I can’t let go and give up the things in this hoard which I actually value. I don’t want to give up on the person I thought I could be, the things I thought I would do. I can’t give up on the things I said I would do, even the things I never actually agreed to do. I feel pressure and guilt and anger. It’s depressing, oppressing.

A simple solution is to deal with some small part of it each day.

Seems simple enough. Until you start somewhere and get caught up in one thing for too long. One thing leads to another problem when you don’t have enough space to work in. Too many things are buried and it is frustrating to know they are there but out of reach. To begin finding what I need causes the moving of the hoard which means the things which were on top (the things I could locate) will now be moved and become the things I can’t find.

Hoarding is a trap.

During half the year when I live here alone I take a few days and then begin moving things out of my space and into another spare room. I get some clearance, some room to move and work. At first the release of having space and feeling hope again is just nice in itself. I haven’t thrown anything away but I have space again. Having space makes me feel I have some control, and can actually do something about all of it.

I make some progress. Last time I began with clothes. I sorted out a lot of clothes I haven’t worn in years and those which I won't be wearing now that I’m no longer 20-something. I had them all ready to go to the Salvation Army thrift store. I felt good thinking some other woman would be able to wear those clothes. But, I got caught up in road blocks.

I was stopped from giving away the clothes because other people thought I shouldn't just give them away. “You can’t just give away something that still has value! Some day you may fit into that again. That dress used to look so great on you”.

Isn't that funny? I thought I was the hoarder.

I explore abandoned houses and such places. The rule is not to take anything (or leave anything, like garbage). I photograph the outside of old farm houses mainly, seldom entering them at all. In more than five years exploring the only thing I have ever taken was a green Pyrex bowl which I found out in the deep grass, full of rotting weeds. It took several bleach washings to get the smell out of the bowl. I kept the bowl and I have no desire to sell it. I kept it for the house, the history of the place.

My Mom and I go to auctions, flea markets and thrift stores. We also pick up stuff from the side of the road if it looks good. But, we don't sell it. Most of it gets refurbished and then we give it to family members and friends who need it. We repurpose. The odd time something ends up being left at the bottom of our own driveway for another picker to pick it up and see what they do with it.

A few times I tried selling old things we don't still use or have space to keep around. But, it was annoying to deal with people who wanted to shop, rather than buy.

When does collecting become hoarding? I think a lot of people forget the actual pleasure of having something you enjoy. Instead they just want the hunt, the finding of  so-called collectibles and then they just want to own it. Not to enjoy it, but just to own it, like having the right number in their collection. They forget to actually enjoy having it. Someone could move all the items and they could never see them for years and it would make no real difference. They might even prefer to just collect it again rather an feel the loss of it.

I like to watch the shows about antiques, collecting, the storage locker buyers and even (less often) the hoarders. But, I don't think I will take it on as a business. That would take the fun out of the picking up of junk and turning it into something of value. Plus, I don't want to take on more stuff. There is only so much space available and only so much time I want to spend on dusting and maintaining stuff.

• HubPages: American Pickers: Who Has the Money to Buy This Junk?
• HubPages: How to be a Picker of Antiques and Collectibles
• Daily Motion: Pickers Inc.
• Yard Sale Shark
• Snip.it: Antiques, Vintage Collectibles and Collecting
• Entrepreneur: Four Tips for Getting Started in a Collectibles Business
• Mother Earth News: How to be an Antique Picker
• HubPages: Would you Be a Great Picker?

The above photo is upcycled jewellery from The Key of A.

Keeping things is a luxury. Think about it. You have to have space, usually space isn't free, not for any dependable length of time anyway. Then think about pioneer women who left all their keepables behind as they kept moving to the next space. Even when they found a space they held onto it was a luxury to keep anything they didn't need for survival. Keeping things is definitely a luxury.

We keep so much too. We even have a fancy word for it: keepsakes. Every time I hear or see that word I think about modern people having too much stuff and those old pioneers who had so little. It must have been very hard to part with Grandmother's china for the sake of getting the wagon load of supplies and family through the mud to the next town.

What do you keep that you could really get rid of? If you move this becomes a big focus of your packing experience. It's so easy to keep things, collect things but so much work to pack and move all those things. Do you really want to heft around a 30 pound box of Beanie Babies? How important do they feel when you have to weigh them against space in the moving truck, your own sore muscles and the fact that you'll have to give them space in your new place.

I keep things too. You're not alone in this keeping boat. But, at times I envy the vagabond, gypsy, nomadic lifestyle. Don't you think it would be nice to live simply? To have less to dust, less to care about and so much less to cart about, it sounds like a breath of fresh air compared to all those keepsakes weighing you down, taking all the air out of the room. Do you feel trapped?

But, we all want nice things. Cute things, things that might some day be worth more than you paid for them and things that will some day prove useful, it's just giving them space that bothers me. Space in your dwelling and space in your life. I think I need a little less luxury and I'm over due for a hefty Spring cleaning.