The art of Swedish death cleaning

Clutter. We all have it, but what can we do about it? 

Ignoring it is one option, or putting off decluttering for next week, or next month, or next year is another. But in the end, clutter’s gonna’ get you, so it is best to bite the bullet and dive into it sooner, not later. 

Baby Boomers face a wide range of decisions as we inexorably march toward that final expiration date we all have but would rather ignore. However, not knowing when it is coming suggests that we address these decisions with family ASAP, to be better prepared. 

It’s often difficult to talk about these late-life decisions with family members. Where do we want to live? Will our current home support our needs as we age or should we make modifications now? Should we downsize? Will we be comfortable with in-home care assistance? Is it time to consider a continuing care retirement community that offers multiple levels of care and living arrangements on the same campus?  

All these are important issues, but decluttering is the low-hanging fruit that helps move all the other decisions forward. 

I have twice helped aging family members declutter in order to transition to later life phases. Neither of the experiences was pleasant. Both were done in crisis mode. 

One was my widowed mother, when she came to live with me and my young family during her last two years of life. The other was when my wife and I helped her parents move from a good-sized home in Macon, to a family member’s home in Athens. 

In both cases, a lifetime of accumulation had to be laboriously sifted through, and decisions made about where items would go – either to family members, or sold, or donated or trashed. In both cases, if the process had started much sooner, it would have been much less stressful for all parties concerned.  

Swedish Death Cleaning   

American Baby Boomers were mostly taught that the good life involved accumulating things which, over time and moves, meant storing all these things in your house, and/or shed, and/or barn, and/or storage unit. Now, several decades later, we have stuff that we have not used or seen in years, possibly decades!  

Athens retiree and solo ager Cher Snyder, 72, decided in January 2024 that it was a good time to make some changes — she would turn 70 that June. “I decided to do something about my weight, drink no more alcohol, and get my affairs in order,” she recalls.  

There are many books and philosophies on how to deal with all our possessions. Famous professional organizer Marie Kondo encourages keeping only those things that “spark joy.” Others advocate for “intentional minimizing” to remove all excess. The one that spoke to Snyder is Swedish Death Cleaning, first touted in a 2017 book by Margareta Magnusson that turned the Scandinavian practice of decluttering into a global phenomenon.   

The term “Death Cleaning” in Swedish translates to “dostadning,” comprising “do”, which means die, and “stadning” which means cleaning. The term reflects a practice of decluttering to ease the burden on loved ones after death. 

“Swedish culture embraces a more minimalist, less consumer-oriented, approach to the accumulation and possession of items than is typical of our culture of ‘he/she/they who dies with the most toys wins’”, Snyder says. “The idea of death cleaning is to curate your possessions carefully throughout your entire life so that, upon your death, no one will be unduly burdened with figuring out how to dispose of what’s left.” 

Snyder got started by going through and pulling out decorative things she didn’t need any more and simply asking her friends to come by and take what they wanted. “They cleaned me out,” she says. 

“I feel better when I know something that has significance for me has found a new home – that’s more rewarding than just donating it,” she explained. “Now when I visit my friends, I can see my stuff on display.” 

After going through her own decluttering process, Snyder was inspired to develop a class for OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) at UGA, which she has taught twice. The class is titled “How Swede It Is”, and she also leads an OLLI Shared Interest Group called “Swedish Death Cleaning for Life,” which meets monthly for members to share resources and encouragement.  

Dawn Torcivia, 70, has read the Magnusson book and taken Snyder’s class because she is determined, “I’m not going to make my kids go through what we went through.”  

After moving her 91-year-old mother from a house in Miami to assisted living in Tampa in 2020, and further going through her stuff after she died in 2023, Torcivia and her husband last year confronted the need to move her 96-year-old father-in-law out of a 4,000-square-foot house in three weeks.  

“We made 15 trips to Goodwill,” she recalled. “Habitat came with a truck. All the relatives came and took what they wanted and then we opened it up to the neighborhood.” 

Curate for clarity 

“Curating speaks to finding and celebrating the things that bring delight and meaning to your life,” Snyder explains. “Everything else is just stuff.” 

She finds that many Boomers are shocked that family members don’t want their stuff, as if rejection of the gift is a rejection of the giver, or a sign of disrespect for family history. 

The fact is that descendants may not share Boomers’ tastes and preferences, notes Snyder, adding that a great legacy we can leave is to curate our stuff, leaving in our wake only those items we most cherish. 

She suggests that to begin curation, break it down into small, manageable chunks. “There is a sense of accomplishment as each chunk gets checked off the list.” 

For example, make a list of rooms (including garages, sheds, etc.) in your home, from those with the least stuff to those with the most. For each room, list where all your stuff is, subdividing into smaller units such as closets, drawers, cabinets, storage boxes and so on. “Now you have a road map to navigate your journey,” she says. “It may help to invite a friend or family member to help with the process of going through each chunk. Make a game of it, a competition to see whose “save” box holds the fewest items.” 

They say you can’t take it with you. But now the phrase is much more meaningful. “As I look around my domain, I wonder, ‘How in heck did all this stuff get here, and what in the heck am I gonna’ do with it!’ I cleaned up the language, but I would be willing to bet there are many fellow Boomers in the same boat.” 

So, starting today, I am going to be more like the Swedes and start to clean my house to death. 

Using a professional organizer 

So, when is the best time to start decluttering? 

“Immediately!” says Adele Gross, the CEO (Chief Executive Organizer) at her company, 

Simple Solution Organizing LLC. She is also a Certified Daily Money Manager, helping people get their financial house in order.  

“Accumulation is the enemy of good organization,” she says, noting that often this accumulation, a.k.a. clutter, exists in layers.  “The best way to start is to choose one layer at a time.”   

For example, start with clothes. Look in your closet and decide what still fits and what does not, what you want, what you do not wear any more. Offer them to family members, donate them, discard them. Line up three boxes, one marked keep, one donate, one discard. Fill them accordingly and get them distributed. Then move on to another layer, such as paperwork, or photographs. 

It is important to have the financial clutter organized. “You’d be surprised how many people inadvertently pay twice for the same thing, or forget to pay important bills, or simply lose track of where their accounts are,” Gross says. She helps people develop a “money map” to make sure they and their descendants know where it all is and how to access it. 

Identifying and organizing all these layers is a time-consuming task, Gross notes. “It could take weeks or even months to go through the layers,” she says. But in the process, a real dent is made in the clutter. 

Gross has been at this for 23 years, so she has seen it all. She has basically spent her whole life decluttering. “I was just born to be a good organizer. Some people are, some are not, but I have always found it is easier to stay organized rather than get organized.” 

There are varied reasons that clearing the clutter starts. “It may be a crisis, where adult children lose their parents and hire someone like us to help them get the house ready to put on the market,” says Gross. “Many times, the children are angry that their parents left them with such a task. They do not know what to do with all the accumulation.” 

Another situation is when families must help parents downsize as they prepare to either move to a smaller, more manageable home, or live with one of the children, or enter a retirement community.  

“The biggest obstacle I’ve encountered is family getting along,” says Gross. “The more children, the harder it can be to make decisions. Then they procrastinate and have to get a storage unit because no one can decide. If that happens, get a mediator.” 

A much more deliberative method is for Boomers to dive into their accumulation right now, not later, to lighten the load for everyone. It is better to let your family know what your plan is.  

It often helps to have an unbiased third party helping. “I get a lot of calls from adult children asking, ‘Can you help my parents with all their stuff?’,” Gross says. “I can meet with them, and we can produce a plan to present to their parents. However, the most important question is: are the parents motivated to execute the plan? If they are not, the plan is not going to work.” 

Having that third party assistance can depressurize what often is a high-pressure process. “There’s no judgement from us, just an empathetic ear and tons of energy to tackle your project,” Gross promises. 

            Ultimately, whether Boomers get professional assistance, family involvement or go it alone, the decision to start decluttering lies in the hands of the individual, or couple. Clutter can happen to anyone, but the power to declutter resides in everyone. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at time, but as distasteful as it sounds, you must take that first bite. I hope our experts have provided you some useful tips and inspiration to do that – if only for the kids’ sake!  

The author, an early septuagenarian, is a retired Marine who learned much about organization during his 20-year military career; however, he credits his mother and older sister as being his first “drill instructors” who taught him how to clean and organize both house and barn on their Wisconsin farm. 

Additional resources. 

Cher Snyder recommends these books to her class as well as a streaming video series: