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    The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter
    The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter
    The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter

    By Margareta Magnusson

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    *The basis for the wonderfully funny and moving TV series developed by Amy Poehler and Scout Productions*

    A charming, practical, and unsentimental approach to putting a home in order while reflecting on the tiny joys that make up a long life.

    In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning “death” and städning meaning “cleaning.” This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner than later, before others have to do it for you. In The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, artist Margareta Magnusson, with Scandinavian humor and wisdom, instructs readers to embrace minimalism. Her radical and joyous method for putting things in order helps families broach sensitive conversations, and makes the process uplifting rather than overwhelming.

    Margareta suggests which possessions you can easily get rid of (unworn clothes, unwanted presents, more plates than you’d ever use) and which you might want to keep (photographs, love letters, a few of your children’s art projects). Digging into her late husband’s tool shed, and her own secret drawer of vices, Margareta introduces an element of fun to a potentially daunting task. Along the way readers get a glimpse into her life in Sweden, and also become more comfortable with the idea of letting go.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateJan 2, 2018
    ISBN9781501173257
    Author

    Margareta Magnusson

    Margareta Magnusson is, in her own words, aged between 80 and 100. Born in Sweden, she has lived all over the world. Margareta graduated from Beckman’s College of Design and her art has been exhibited in galleries from Hong Kong to Singapore. She has five children and lives in Stockholm. She is the author of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and The Swedish Art of Aging Well.

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    Reviews for The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

    3.5/5

    269 ratings26 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Wonderfully funny, practical an wise. Everyone should read this book.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed the read. Gave one a new way of thinking about the difficult task of parting with possessions that mean so much to you
    • 3/5
      A quick cute read but it wasn’t filled with steps of how to do it like the Marie Kondo books.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A remarkable, inspiring, and useful little book - especially for people over a certain age, myself included. I finished it in one afternoon. Unabashed frankness about the subject of death is so refreshing.  The Swedish author makes such a great point, while reminding us a few times throughout the book that she is between 80 and 100 years old! Great sense of humor too! Her suggestions on "death cleaning" (no need to be shocked at the phrase at all...) are so reasonable and completely up my alley. I agree with everything she says. Has to be done (for everybody's sake) - and better earlier than later. It's simply rude to leave a mess for somebody to take care of when we are gone - when we can easily do it the decluttering ourselves while we still can.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      I went into this expecting a philosophical approach to downsizing I could apply to my (distinctly not end of) life. However, since it focus more on things like what to save for your children and the like, I didn't get a lot from it.
    • 5/5
      „Manchmal muss man sich von liebgewonnenen Dingen trennen und kann nur hoffen, dass sie bei jemandem landen, der bald eigene schöne Erinnerungen damit verbindet.“ (Zitat Seite 57)Inhalt:Die Schweden haben ein eigenes Wort dafür: döstädning, das Aufräumen des Lebens. Genau darum geht es in diesem Buch. Wir Menschen neigen dazu, nicht nur Erinnerungen, sondern auch Dinge zu sammeln, aufzubewahren. Wir alle tun dies, einerseits, weil wir vermuten, einen Gegenstand, der noch in Ordnung ist, vielleicht doch irgendwann wieder brauchen zu können, andererseits, weil uns etwas gefällt, wir es gerne in unserem Wohnraum haben, um uns daran zu erfreuen. Im Laufe des Lebens sammelt sich da vieles an, Hausrat, Erinnerungsstücke und auch Dachboden, Keller, Garage und Werkzeugschuppen füllen sich. Genau über diese Situation machte sich die Autorin Gedanken und begann mit dem Sortieren und Aufräumen. Ihre Erfahrungen und Tipps hat sie in diesem Buch gesammelt.Thema:In diesem Buch geht es darum, wie wir besser Ordnung halten können und was man speziell mit fortschreitenden Alter tun kann, um den Nachkommen eines Tages ein langwieriges Auflösen des Haushaltes zu ersparen oder dies wenigstens zu erleichtern. Eine Möglichkeit dazu ergibt sich, wenn man ohnedies aus einer großen Wohnung oder Haus in eine kleinere Wohnung zieht. Doch im Grunde ist es jederzeit sinnvoll, den persönlichen Besitz in Ruhe durchzusehen, sich zu erinnern und dann loszulassen – oder den einen oder anderen Gegenstand bewusst zu behalten. In kurzen, übersichtlichen Kapiteln spannt die Autorin den Bogen ihrer Themen, vom Möbelstück über Bücher bis zu Küchenutensilien in mehrfacher Ausführung. Auch Haustiere sind ein Thema. Viele unterschiedliche Anregungen und Tipps sorgen dafür, dass Leserinnern und Leser die jeweils für die persönliche Situation passenden Ideen und Vorschläge finden. Anders als bei diesem Thema vielleicht vermutet, handelt es sich hier keineswegs um ein trauriges Buch, sondern die Autorin schreibt mit viel Einfühlungsvermögen, lebensbejahend und humorvoll. Fazit:„Nach ihrem Tod wird niemand seine kostbare Zeit damit verschwenden müssen, den Krempel zu entsorgen, den Sie schon jetzt nicht mehr benötigen.“ (Zitat Seite 155). Dieses praktische, humorvolle Buch ist für alle Leser, die diese Ansicht teilen.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      The book basically just says get rid of your stuff before you die so your loved ones/other people don’t have to deal with your junk. It’s very light on strategy. But it’s nicely written.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Charming, meandering, and slightly dotty Nordic alternative to awful Marie Kondo.
    • 4/5
      In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning “death” and städning meaning “cleaning.” This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner than later, before others have to do it for you. In The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, artist Margareta Magnusson, with Scandinavian humor and wisdom, instructs readers to embrace minimalism. Her radical and joyous method for putting things in order helps families broach sensitive conversations, and makes the process uplifting rather than overwhelming.Margareta suggests which possessions you can easily get rid of (unworn clothes, unwanted presents, more plates than you’d ever use) and which you might want to keep (photographs, love letters, a few of your children’s art projects). Digging into her late husband’s tool shed, and her own secret drawer of vices, Margareta introduces an element of fun to a potentially daunting task. Along the way readers get a glimpse into her life in Sweden, and also become more comfortable with the idea of letting go.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I love to listen to books that will help me to be better at something and I love to do that while cleaning, thus this book called to me. I will say I was disappointed. Other than it being a spin on my quarterly big cleans, I really didn't glean any cleaning tips. These tips were more about the emotional, or in this case lessening of emotions, when getting rid of things. I do this anyway but maybe others would find occasional learning moments in the book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Helped me to communicate with my grandma, who is a hoarder. Worth 5 stars just for that, but also a good read and as it says, very gentle.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this. There's not much here that isn't common sense, but it's written very well.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      4 stars from me but not for the tips and advice. Decluttering has been done to death over recent years and Margareta Magnusson hasn’t really come up with anything new. However, the whole point of decluttering, to her mind, is to get it done so that the job isn’t left to your spouse or children after your death! Very sensible idea if you ask me! My eldest daughter has already made comment to this effect “I’m going to have to deal with - all this - one day, you realise”. Don’t tell her I’ve told you this!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a charming little book about a Swedish tradition of minimizing and organizing ones possessions before death. The author has lots of little helpful tips usually drawn from her own life experiences. It's a thoughtful book about the way times changes, lives change, and the calm way one should prepare for the inevitable.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Very inspiring and easy to digest. Good job and thanks a lot to the writer

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The first part of the book she was describing my mom death cleaning our house after my dad passed. If I could come back in time, I would change this. I would move to my mom's house and cleaned everything. It was hard for her. This book made me realize many things, and I don't want to be a problem to whoever stays when I am gone.
      The fact she wrote this book and added the line "I wish to have my husband organizing this house with me, but he couldn't because he died" was so powerful. I want to do this with my husband while he is alive.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I read this in one sitting! Margareta Magnusson has such a kind and gentle way of urging her readers to de-clutter. I have read many books, articles, and blog posts about freeing myself from the clutter I've collected. The author beautifully addresses both the basic items that we accumulate and those that have memories/emotions attached to them, offers a fresh perspective on the process of down-sizing. I strongly encourage you to read this.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Sometimes I think it must have been much easier to live and die at the time of our ancestors, the Vikings. When they buried their relatives, they also buried many objects together with the body. This was to be sure that the dead would not miss anything in their new environment. It was also an assurance for the family members who remained that they would not become obsessed with spirits of the dead and constantly be reminded of them because their possessions were still scattered all over the tent or mud hut. Very clever.Can you imagine the same scenario today? With all the skräp (Swedish for “junk”) people have now, they would have to be buried in Olympic-sized swimming pools so that their stuff could go with them!Swedish death cleaning is a way of decluttering your possessions in advance of your death, so that you do not leave it all for your heirs to do. If you do not want to pass on loved furniture or other items to your friends and relations now, you can make a list or label items with the name of the person you would like to have them after your death.But if you're famous, maybe you shoudn't do too much death cleaning, or scholars won't have anything to work with when trying to write about you later on. Incidentally, I discovered that Ingmar Bergman thought about his death all the time, as is evident in some of his films, but didn't bother to do any death cleaning. In Stockholm we now have a huge Ingmar Bergman archive as a result.Interesting idea. I must try it at some point.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      This gentle book tells gentle stories from the author's life and how death cleaning became important to her. She writes about how she came to understand the need for reducing possessions, particularly when she had to go through households after the deaths of several loved ones and when she had to downsize and move to a smaller home. However she does not provide specific ideas, methodology or tips that are not generally known. The stories are interesting but the book was not useful to me. Some of her suggestions are counter productive. One suggestion that I particularly dislike is to give your unwanted items and knick knacks to others as hostess gifts or to relatives when they come to visit. It seems if you don't want to keep an item then you should not gift it to others unless they have specifically expressed strong interest in it. Otherwise you are just transferring your stuff to someone else's death cleaning pile. The truth that she tells is that if you don't do your own death cleaning and thereby show your heirs what is important to you then, once you die, it is likely everything will just be hauled away in a big truck because no-one will have the time or knowledge to winnow out the important items. The other truth she tells is that we should share our cherished stories now with our children and grand children rather than hope they will appreciate our items after we are gone.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This book is hilarious and fascinating. It's not just a book on getting rid of stuff you don't need so your relatives won't be saddled with doing it for you. It's about Swedish culture, raising a family around the world in the 20th century, and the Magnusson family. I read it in what my brain thinks is a Swedish Grandma Accent and it made sentences like this, from the "If It Was Your Secret, Then Keep It That Way" chapter, the best thing ever: "Save your favorite dildo - but throw away the other fifteen!"

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      If you're looking for a how-to manual on decluttering your house in preparation of your own eventual demise, this is not that book.

      If you want a book that has a strong impression of being a cozy chat with a grandmother who offers you tea and says semi-scandalous things while you chortle over a biscuit, this is that book.

      With a wry, sometimes delightfully passive-aggressive tone, Margareta shares her life wisdom with a gentle and often funny meandering book. The whole book was like wrapping yourself in a warm quilt and spending time with a loved one.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Not nearly as practical-minded as "Spark Joy," this book is more oriented towards her memories with a few useful tips along the way, such as when downsizing, only keep as many place settings as your table will have room for. The idea of death cleaning is a good one though and when the time comes for me to do so, I will only save the things that bring me joy or that I will definitely use again and again.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This was the most enjoyable book I've read in quite a long time! Amusing, wry, helpful, and so well written - I know I will read it more than once!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Clearly, I’m secretly Swedish. I’ve been death cleaning all my life. Sadly, as I try to give things away, people don’t cherish them as much, and I end up keeping too many memories.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      I learned more from the back of a Boo Berry cereal box
    • 2/5
      It's a short book, full of useless not inspiring personal anecdotes. Not recommended even if I love the topic

    Book preview

    The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning - Margareta Magnusson

    DEATH CLEANING IS NOT SAD

    I am death cleaning, or, as we call it in Swedish, döstädning.

    Dö is death and städning is cleaning. In Swedish it is a term that means that you remove unnecessary things and make your home nice and orderly when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet.

    It is so important that I have to tell you about it. Maybe I can also give you a few tips, since this is something that we will all have to face sooner or later. We really must if we want to save precious time for our loved ones after we are gone.

    So what is death cleaning? For me it means going through all my belongings and deciding how to get rid of the things I do not want anymore. Just look around you. Several of your things have probably been there for so long that you do not even see or value them anymore.

    I think the term döstädning is quite new, but not the act of döstädning. It is a word that is used when you or someone else does a good, thorough cleaning and gets rid of things to make life easier and less crowded. It does not necessarily have to do with your age or death, but often does. Sometimes you just realize that you can hardly close your drawers or barely shut your closet door. When that happens, it is definitely time to do something, even if you are only in your thirties. You could call that kind of cleaning döstädning, too, even if you may be many, many years away from dying.

    I think women have always death cleaned, but women’s work is not often in the spotlight, and should be appreciated more. When it comes to death cleaning, in my generation and those older than me, women tend to clean up after their husbands first, and then they clean up before they themselves are no more. While one would usually say "clean up after yourself," here we are dealing with the odd situation of cleaning up before . . . we die.

    Some people can’t wrap their heads around death. And these people leave a mess after them. Did they think they were immortal?

    Many adult children do not want to talk about death with their parents. They should not be afraid. We must all talk about death. If it’s too hard to address, then death cleaning can be a way to start the conversation.

    The other day, I told one of my sons that I was death cleaning and writing a book about it. He wondered if it was going to be a sad book and whether it made me sad to write it.

    No, no, I said. It is not sad at all. Neither the cleaning nor the writing of the book.

    Sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable with how unappreciative I am being about some of the things I want to rid myself of. Some of these things have brought benefits to me.

    But I’ve discovered that it is rewarding to spend time with these objects one last time and then dispose of them. Each item has its own history, and remembering that history is often enjoyable. When I was younger, I never used to have the time to sit and think about what an object meant to me in my life, or where it came from, or when and how it came into my possession. The difference between death cleaning and just a big cleanup is the amount of time they consume. Death cleaning is not about dusting or mopping up; it is about a permanent form of organization that makes your everyday life run more smoothly.

    Now, when I am not running around Stockholm, taking part in all that the city has to offer, I have time to take part in all that my apartment has to offer, which is a reflection of my life.

    The world is a worried place. Floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, fires, and wars follow one another. To listen to the media or read newspapers makes me depressed. I would shrivel up if I could not get relief from the negativity of the world’s news with good friends, experiences out in the natural world, music, beautiful things, or just enjoying something as simple as a sunny day (which can be rare in our northern climate).

    I would never, ever want to write something sad; there is enough sadness out there already. So I hope you will find the words and thoughts ahead helpful, entertaining, perhaps even a bit humorous.

    To do your own death cleaning can really be very hard. Maybe you have to downsize your home for some reason, maybe you have become single, or perhaps you need to move to a nursing home. These situations tend to affect most of us.

    Going through all your old belongings, remembering when you used them last, and hopefully saying good-bye to several of them is very difficult for many of us. People tend to hoard rather than throw away.

    I have death cleaned so many times for others, I’ll be damned if someone else has to death clean after me.

    Once someone is gone, there can be chaos enough anyway, I can tell you. There are many sad stories about siblings who start to quarrel because they want the same item. This type of situation does not need to happen; we can plan in advance to lessen the chances of these unhappy moments.

    I had, for example, a very nice bracelet that my father gave to my mother a long time ago. It was given to me in my mother’s will. The easiest way to avoid future complications among my children was to sell it! That was a very good idea, I think.

    Later, discussing the sale with my children, they were fine with my decision. They had each been given something that had belonged to my father and mother. And after all, the bracelet was mine to do with as I pleased. Taking precious time to discuss one bracelet with my five children seemed unreasonable. Death cleaning is about saving such time.

    WHY I AM WRITING THIS BOOK

    I am now somewhere between eighty and one hundred years old. I take it as a responsibility of my old age to tell you about my experiences, because I believe this philosophy of death cleaning is important for all of us to know. It doesn’t matter if it is your parents, friends, or family who are getting older or if it is about time for you to begin death cleaning for yourself.

    I have moved seventeen times within my own country and abroad so I should know what I am talking about when it comes to deciding what to keep and what to throw away, whether you are moving house, moving country, or moving to the Great Beyond!

    Although it seems to be mostly women who death clean, since they statistically live longer than their husbands or partners, sometimes, like in the family in which I grew up, my father was left alone first.

    If someone has lived in a home for many years where children, grown-ups, relatives, and guests have stayed and felt welcome, that same someone is often so busy that they never think of reducing the number of things in the household.

    And so the number of possessions grows and collects quickly over the years. Suddenly the situation is out of control and the weight of all those things can begin to seem tiring.

    Your exhaustion with all this stuff may appear out of the blue one day. When someone cancels a weekend visit or a dinner, you feel grateful—instead of disappointed—because you may be too tired to clean up for their visit. The problem is that you have too much stuff to deal with. It is time to change your way of living. It is never too late to start!

    PRECIOUS TIME AND HELPING PARENTS

    Today things are very different from when I was young, of course. I did not say better. But the pace today is very fast.

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