Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Swedish Death Cleaning First, Chunking Second

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | March 19th, 2018

Swedish death cleaning has replaced hygge as the hottest Scandinavian life management tool in the U.S. It seems that Margareta Magnussen’s system for de-cluttering (detailed in her book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Make Your Loved Ines’ Lives Easier and Your Own Life More Pleasant) is a little more straightforward than Marie Kondo’s (described in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up). The current popularity of Magnussen’s book and the continuing attention to Kondo’s indicate that in America, and probably elsewhere, many of us have finally reached the point where we really have too much stuff around. When a space we’re in is cluttered, visually and otherwise, we get stressed. Then our professional performance degrades along with our mood, and we start to do undesirable things such as eat food that isn’t good for us. Since de-cluttering is top-of-mind, it seems like a good time to take …