Zen and the art of clearing your head space

A new band of professionals is bringing peace to people's minds as it declutters their homes.

The instant Wang Zeyu stepped into the apartment in downtown Shanghai she knew she had her work cut out for her. Before her stood a mountain of clothes, under which she would eventually find cleaning products, facial masks, hand sanitizers and disinfectants. That was in addition to the chaos that seemed to inhabit almost every wardrobe, cupboard and drawer of the home－all this mess packed into a relatively small 90 square meters, the living space for a family of five.

Wang, who uses the name Sica professionally, is more than your run-of-the-mill ayi, those blessed souls who seem to spend their lives cleaning up other people's mess; she is a home organizer and decluttering consultant who, with two others, spends six to nine hours a day transforming disorder into order.

"During the coronavirus pandemic in particular, many people have hoarded a lot of stuff, including supplies, which is totally understandable," Sica says. "Still, what I came across in that home was a real eyeopener.

"There were enough hand sanitizers, facial masks and cleaning products to last for 10 years. After talking with the family we removed 70 percent of them, saving a lot of space. The family had also hoarded food, especially of the instant variety, and most of it had passed its use-by date," she says.

In April, after a forced break because of COVID-19, Sica returned to work and started to consult online and realized that the pandemic had produced one more side-effect: people feeling they needed to use her services because of the clutter that had sprung up or become worse over the previous three months.

Having a comfortable living environment has become all the more pressing for people forced to work at home, and for families having to spend long hours together under one roof the appreciation of the importance of everyday order and comfort has grown.

"People are fearful of the future, especially with this pandemic," Sica says. "Will it get worse? Will it return? … I reckon it is a good idea to clear your home as a way of clearing your mind. This is an ideal time to tidy up and give some thought to what we have and to be grateful for it."

Before she became a professional home organizer and decluttering consultant, Sica, 30, who was born in Hebei province, graduated from Shanghai International Studies University in 2012 after studying English.

Working in a Japanese advertising company in Beijing from 2015 to 2017, she was introduced to the art of decluttering and organizing.

One of the most prominent experts is Marie Kondo, whose book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has sold millions of copies worldwide and has inspired countless numbers of people to reorganize their homes and lives.

Although Kondo focuses on the tidiness of physical surroundings, the psychological benefits of it are said to feed into the goal of adding joy and sparkle to one's life. The book has struck a chord with many middle-class readers and fueled their enthusiasm for joyful lifestyles.