Tuesday- Temporal DeClutter

What type of Clutterer are you?

The Behind-Closed-Doors Clutterer

Symptoms
Home looks pristine and well organized—until you start opening closet doors and are suddenly buried by file folders, moth-eaten coats, broken lamps, old kitchen appliances, paper towels, holiday decorations, and shopping bags full of purchases no one ever got around to returning. The BCD clutterer, Walsh explains, "lives in some flawless future universe instead of creating solutions that work today."

Perpetrators
Perfectionists, control freaks, harried working moms, anyone who's time-starved and overbooked; perfectionists. 

The Knowledge Clutterer

Symptoms
Stockpiles every book she has ever read or hopes to read, and/or every issue of Architectural Digest ever published—believing, as Walsh explains, "that if she owns the book, then she somehow owns the knowledge, even if she never reads the book or takes it off the shelf." When she encounters an interesting article online, prints it and stashes it in an overstuffed file folder.

Perpetrators
Book club members; enthusiasts of coffee table tomes on interior design; recent college grads wanting to show off their feminist poetry collections.

The Techie Clutterer

Symptoms
Drawers, cabinets, and desk weighed down by a metastasizing tangle of cords, chargers, remotes, and half-full USB drives, many belonging to clunky devices dating to the '90s.

Perpetrators
Twenty- and 30-something Apple devotees; eBay enthusiasts; grandparents terrified to pitch the cord that connects their digital camera to their computer.

The Sentimental Clutterer/Family Historian

Symptoms 
Hoards baby clothes, kindergarten papier-mâché creations, and grade school report cards belonging to fully grown offspring—wrongly assuming said offspring will someday want them; stores acres of unsorted boxes of deceased relatives' clothing, tchotchkes, and war memorabilia in attic, basement, and closets.

Perpetrators
Besotted parents; empty nesters; women of a certain age who have suffered loss and/or who feel a responsibility to preserve family heirlooms and history.

The Bargain Shopper/Coupon Clutterer

Symptoms
Prides herself on clipping coupons and sourcing online promotion codes; keeps her kitchen, bedroom, and garage stocked with three years' worth of paper towels, mixed nuts, and orange Tic Tacs; spends $10 on gas speeding to three different megastores to save $10 on diapers for children not yet born; "is driven by the misguided notion that 'if I own it, I am better off, regardless of what it does to my space, my finances, or my relationships,'" as Walsh puts it.

Perpetrators
Stay-at-home moms; retirees; anyone with a membership to Costco or Sam's Club.