Our puppy, Riley, discovered my pile of slippers recently. He snuck in my closet and found that I had three matching pairs of navy blue, fleece Acorns.

The great thing about dogs is that they don’t judge you. They don’t say, “why the hell do you have three identical pairs of slippers?” They don’t see the silliness of such obvious clutter.

The slippers aren’t identical, of course. They are the same model & color, but differ substantially in wear & tear. These are the last three generations of slippers, each spanning about 3 years of primary use.

One of the insights as to why clutter accumulates is that it is difficult to get rid of anything that has an ounce of utility left. Even if a pair a slippers is old – and not what you want to wear around if company drops in – they still might have value as an ‘extra’ pair. So, I’ve kept them.

I’ve kept a pair I can keep downstairs in the workshop so I don’t have to run upstairs to get my ‘new’ ones. And, I’ve kept pair in the back hall in case I need to run out in the garage for something. In this way, old pairs haven’t been thrown out – they just find new spots in the house to be useful.

In this way, our house has become cluttered with lots of duplicates: extra tools, extra towels, extra adapters, extra sun glasses, extra shopping bags, extra boots, extra coats, extra binoculars, extra tablets, and dozens of other things. If we skinnied down to just the ‘latest’ purchase of something, we would probably be able to get rid of half of the things in our house.

It seems like the right idea to get rid of extra clutter, but why not keep something that can cover a secondary need or second location? I just ordered some new sunglasses 😎, but will surely keep the ‘old’ pair in the Jeep. The lenses aren’t perfect anymore, but good enough to keep using.

Truthfully, I probably have 4 or 5 old pairs of sunglasses. Hopefully the puppy won’t find them anytime soon, or he just may start judging me after all!

How much ‘duplicate’ clutter do you keep around?

Image Credit: Acorn