Swedish Death Cleaning

Our loved ones want to inherit nice things from us, not all things.

~Margareta Magnusson

When I first started exploring organizing as a profession, the market already had lots of different organizing systems and programs. Think Marie Kondo and feng shui. While each had some interesting aspects, I dismissed them all pretty quickly. No system could ever work for everyone! It just didn’t make sense to me that any prescribed method could be flexible enough for real life.

And then I stumbled upon Swedish Death Cleaning. To clarify, Swedish Death Cleaning is NOT cleaning while listening to Swedish death metal music. Nor is it what the Swedish do when someone dies. Swedish Death Cleaning is about taking responsibility for your stuff before you die. This lifestyle philosophy made sense to me!

But Margareta Magnusson, author of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, unfortunately gave her ideas an off-putting name! Many people are uncomfortable talking about death, much less thinking about or planning for it.. Yet it is an undeniable inevitability for us all.

Making and acting on decisions about all of your stuff, your lifetime’s collection of things, while you can, is acting with foresight. Not only is this a gift to your family and friends, so they aren’t burdened by the task while they are also grieving your loss, taking care of your own stuff is a gift to yourself.

The process of decluttering and organizing your home is self-care. You will feel better and function better in clutter-free and organized spaces. Digging deep into your home is an archeological dig into your life. You will find things long forgotten; memories will surface. This can feel great! And when it doesn’t, you can choose to release the objects that remind you of painful parts of your history.

The goal of Swedish Death Cleaning is to end up keeping only things that you need, use and those that make you feel happy, safe and comforted. This can work for everyone!

I also like the pace of Swedish Death Cleaning. I think of it as slow organizing. If you need the work done quickly, there are professional organizers who can swoop in and help out. But when you have the luxury of time, you will also feel immense satisfaction from doing the work yourself – a gift to yourself and your family.