Quote Of The Day By Nate Berkus: How To Tell When You Have Too Many Things

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Nate Berkus knows a thing or two about decluttering. Berkus is an interior designer and TV personality who's known for several shows centered around design and renovations. He runs "Nate Berkus Associates," a high-end design firm with offices around the country, but he really became authority on interior design by sharing his expertise on television. He's been in the game for a long time, becoming the Oprah Winfrey Show's  design expert as early as 2002.

Since then, Berkus has appeared in several shows and cemented his status as interior design icon. In 2017, he and his husband, Jeremiah Brent, launched a joint show on TLC named "Nate and Jeremiah By Design", which was followed a few years later by an HGTV show called "The Nate and Jeremiah Home Project." In the latter, the couple helped families get a fresh start by helping them declutter and let go of things before renovating their home, setting them up for a new life in the property they already own.

When it comes to pairing down on material possessions, this father of two is a pro. And that's exactly why Berkus is today's quote of the day.

The full quote reads: "When you stop being able to have your eye travel around a space and land on something that evokes a memory, [something that] reminds you of where you've been or who you are or where you aspire to go, then you have too many things. We try to edit down to the most meaningful things, and that's a good rule of thumb for people to do in their own spaces." 

This quote comes from a 2023 House Digest exclusive interview that Nate Berkus and his husband Jeremiah Brent. It was an opportunity for the pair to share tips on how to craft meaningful interiors ahead of the release of the second season of "The Nate and Jeremiah Home Project". 

Next time you're wondering whether you own too many things and need to spend an afternoon decluttering your home, think about Berkus and his quote. Not only is it full of wisdom, it's also easy to implement in your own home.

With his quote, Nate Berkus centers the human, not the clutter. He encourages you to take a look at your belongings and truly ask yourself whether they have a connection to you. This doesn't just mean the "you" of today, but also who you'll be tomorrow, and who you were in the past. If you take just five seconds to look around you right now, do you see something that really connects to who you are? If so, you probably don't have too much clutter. If those five seconds aren't enough and you keep looking over random stuff that doesn't have a connection to you, it might be time to declutter.

This doesn't mean that each and every single piece in your space has to have an emotional meaning behind it. It simply means that the random clutter that's around those special pieces isn't taking over. Sure, we all have that random water bottle on our desks that doesn't mean anything to us. But right behind it, you can easily see a framed family photo. Those meaningful pieces aren't hard to find within a few seconds because they're not drowning in meaningless knickknacks. What you keep is a personal choice — certain things that look like clutter to some may actually be meaningful pieces with a deep significance to others.

So next time you're wondering if you have too many things, take a look around. What's meaningless, and what's not? And more importantly, what's the ratio between the two? 

•  "A mistake people make [when moving] is they feel obliged to do the same thing over and over. And that's fine if that is what makes you comfortable and what makes you happiest at home, but moving is an amazing opportunity to try furniture in different spaces, even if you're using all of the same things, to recover certain things or add new lampshades or reframe artwork that's well-loved." — from a 2023 House Digest interview.
• "Home represents everything we love. And everywhere we've been. It's the physical manifestation of all of our experiences." — from an Eyeswoon interview. 
• "Make it personal. Create your vision. Embrace character, meaning use old things where you can. Incorporate things that have history on their own ... a room filled with new things looks terrible to me." — from a 2025 interview on "Open Book with Jenna Bush Hager."
• "Your home should tell the story of who you are, and be a collection of what you love." — From Berkus' book, "The Things That Matter." 
• "In a small space everything really does have to do sort of double duty. Rather than buying a console table, that console table should probably be a chest of drawers or a sideboard so that you have storage inside." — from a 2025 Architectural Digest interview.