‘Death cleaning’ a life-changing way to declutter

If your family doesn't want your stuff when you're alive, they sure won't want it when you're dead.

That's the blunt assessment of yet another self-help author from abroad who is trying to get Americans, who have an addiction to collecting and storage units, to clean up their acts.

The latest volley in the decluttering business comes from Stockholm, where 80ish artist Margareta Magnusson has just published a slim yet sage volume, "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning." The book will be published in America in January.

While Marie Kondo gave us strict instructions to keep only things that spark joy in "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing," Magnusson's book is straightforward and unsentimental, with a bit of humor. The main message from this mother of five is: Take responsibility for your items and don't leave them as a burden for family and friends. It's not fair. Magnussun says you can keep things that evoke good memories; there are no hard-and- fast rules such as folding your remaining T-shirts to stand upright in your drawers, as dictated by the KonMari method. The concept of decluttering before you die, a process called "dostadning," is part of Swedish culture. (It comes from the Swedish words for death and cleaning.) Karin Olofsdotter, 51, the Swedish ambassador to the United States, says her mother and father, who are in their 80s, are in the midst of it back home.

"My parents and their friends are death cleaning, and we all kind of joke about it," Olofsdotter says.