From the People's Daily app.

And this is Story in the Story. 

According to a survey from 2018, over 75 percent of the 2,000 respondents polled said that they kept items they did not need.

Also, fewer than 40 percent said they regularly decluttered their homes, while 42.5 percent said they felt uncomfortable with having to discard their possessions.

The concept of decluttering stems from the Japanese term ‘danshari,’ and is comprised of three characters that mean "refusal," "disposal," and "separation."

The concept of space organization is so new that local registration administration departments do not know how to define this service. 

Meanwhile, some have discovered that this career path offers opportunities to earn much more than one might think.

Professional home organizers command different fees than home cleaners and can earn upwards of $70 dollars an hour depending on the size of the job.

Today's Story in the Story looks at home decluttering services, and how the idea of creating more space involves getting rid of useless personal items known as "clutter."

Home organizers sort out items. (Photo: China Daily)

Five hours after stepping into the home of a 90-year-old woman in Shanghai, Lei Lei left with a cornucopia of items.

They included 86 shopping bags, stacks of expired retail coupons and tickets, eight plastic combs, two bags of plastic fans, and a variety of objects that had not been used for decades.

"This process is also a wonderful experience for me," said Lei, a young mother of two who has worked as a professional home organizer for 15 months.

"Being able to transform chaos into order makes me feel great. What I think is even more important is getting to see families regain the beauty of an orderly living space."

Lei, who runs the company 37 Degrees, is just one of many people who have joined the relatively new home decluttering services sector, which has attracted attention in recent years.

In China, Han Yi'en, founder of Yien Organization, which trains home organizers, is considered a pioneer in this nascent industry. Han started offering free home organization services on weekends in 2013.

Convinced that this was the career she wanted, she quit her job as a legal consultant before setting up her own home organization company in Shanghai in 2016, offering not only decluttering services but also classes to train professional organizers.

A team poses for a group photo at a client's home. (Photo: China Daily)

Now, Yien Organization has trained more than 300 professional home organizers who have provided over 310,000 hours of decluttering services nationwide.

"Factors such as improved living standards and the fast development of online shopping and delivery services have resulted in more and more people buying things they don't need. Without regular decluttering, their homes would soon be filled with unnecessary items," Han said.

"It doesn't help that there's a tradition in China of treasuring possessions. Most people don't have the habit of discarding useless items unless they are worn out," she said.

"Home organization is not home cleaning. It's completely different. Decluttering is not merely about disposal and sorting things out - it is a way to improve the relationship between people, their belongings, and their space, which can help lead to a tidy and comfortable life. It is about education and bringing beauty and harmony into our living space," she said.

Han said one of her most challenging projects involved a 12.5-square-meter apartment in Shanghai. Despite the small size of the property, it took 21 organizers seven days to sort through all the items that had been collected by an elderly couple for 36 years. Han and her employees ended up discarding 58 bags of useless possessions, each with a volume of about 1 cubic meter.

Sun Shijin, director of the Psychology Department at Fudan University in Shanghai, said that having an organized home helps with one's inner peace, and the process has even been recognized as a psychological treatment to improve people's moods.

"The home, no matter whether it is a small bedroom or a big villa, can be seen as a big sand table that is a reflection of a family's situation. Their attitude and awareness of life are also reflected," Sun said.

Speaking during the Third Chinese Home Organizer Conference in Shanghai on May 19, Sun said that in psychiatric treatment, patients are often asked to arrange items on a sand table, as this can help to explain their inner thoughts.

"Home organization does not just teach us how to get rid of useless items - it also shows us how we can get rid of useless activities and pressure in life," he said.

(Produced by Nancy Yan Xu, Lance Crayon, Brian Lowe and Chelle Wenqian Zeng. Music by: bensound.com. Text from China Daily.)