[C0LLETTE]

ATM: I AM DEATH CLEANING ... "DOSTADNING"

There’s a Swedish word for declutter: dostadning, a hybrid of the words for death and cleaning. And as morbid as it sounds, that’s exactly what death cleaning is: the process of cleaning house before you die, rather then leaving it up to your loved ones to do after you’re gone.

A new book called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning makes the case that the task isn’t morbid at all. Author Margareta Magnusson—a Swedish artist who describes herself as somewhere between age 80 and 100—says it’s “more like a relief,” and that it has benefits you can enjoy while you’re still very much alive.

“Generally people have too many things in their homes, it’s a good thing to get rid of things you don’t need.” Magnusson says she’s always death cleaned, “because I want to have it nice around me, keep some order.”

Magnusson says people should start thinking about death cleaning as soon as they’re old enough to start thinking about their own mortality. “Don’t collect things you don’t want,” she says. “One day when you’re not around anymore, your family would have to take care of all that stuff, and I don’t think that’s fair.”


Keep a “throw-away box,” things that are “just for me.” When she dies, her children know they can simply throw that box away, without even looking through its contents.

“There can also be something very empowering and healthy about taking care of your own space and making it more organized while you’re still around.”

Death cleaning may have benefits for the cleaners themselves, and not just for their loved ones. Clutter in the home can raise stress levels and reduce productivity. As adults get older, a house full of stuff may also raise risk for falls and create other health and safety hazards.

Many people may engage in a type of death cleaning without calling it that—when they downsize from a large house to a small apartment as they get older, for instance. “It’s a new way of thinking about the grunt work that comes along with those transitions, which can be really stressful.”

Death cleaning is an ongoing process that’s never truly finished. “You don’t know when you are going to die, so it goes on and on,”

Death cleaning ends with death.

Seems reasonable to me.