Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.
Today’s mini missions are categorised by what they are made of. This gives you a pretty wide scope as to what to let go of that is made from each of these materials. I’ll help you out with some suggestion as to what you might look for but, by all means, use your own imagination. So have fun as you declutter something made from…
Monday – Glass ~ There are no end of things made from glass within the average home. Here are some suggestions of items you might declutter in this category. Drinking glasses, vases, eye glasses (donate these to charity), figurines, computer screens, pictures frames…
Tuesday – Paper ~ This is one of the materials that are really difficult for many people to deal with. Items made from this are either usually loved or hated. Books, magazine, letters and photos can be numerous and cherished, while paperwork is a pain to sort through and deal with. You only need to spend 10 minutes on this so make the most of it.
Wednesday – Metal ~ Once again plentiful. Tools, mixing bowls, utensils, pots, vehicle parts and jewellery all come to mind very quickly but I am sure you can think of more.
Thursday – Fabric ~ Clothes, linen, carpets, blankets, pillows ought to be items easy enough to find. I have something in mind for this one this week.
Friday – Wood ~ Furniture items, kitchen tools (cutting boards, knife blocks, trays, bowls etc), and unused project materials would be  good targets for this mission.
Saturday -Â Plastic ~ Excess storage containers, toys, bowls and sporting equipment are just a few suggestions but I am sure you can think of many more.
Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.
Good luck and happy decluttering
Eco Tip for the Day
Don’t use throw away cleaning wipes. They have them for cleaning wood, kitchen spills, television screens, make-up removal etc etc. They are usually made from manmade fibres, soaked in chemicals and sold in plastic containers, all of which are bad for the environment. You can do all these jobs with a little water and a microfibre cloth that can be washed and used over and over again.
It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow
Ooooh – I am ready for Tuesday. I’ve been making way through your archives, Colleen, and found a post about gift wrap. Really, I enjoy wrapping gifts but there are some wraps that I’ve had forever because I don’t like them well enough to use! While I was at it, I cleared out all the mashed bows, unusable tissue paper, tags, ribbons, one-purpose dispensers and left only the items I know I will use. Now it is all contained in one small bin – but I will use ALL of it.
And I am going to be disciplined about using up what I have before acquiring more. This part is key in a lot of areas!
Good for you Vicki K. I remember doing this myself and writing that post about it. Now I rarely buy material gifts so usually don’t need gift wrap anyway. I also save the rare gift bag should someone give to me one(most know I don’t want material gifts). I have a friend who can’t help but give me gifts but she is trying to be mindful about adhering to the non material gift idea. The last one she gave me even came in bag she recycled. She was very proud to announce this and I was very proud of her too.
I have been working on Monday’s Mission, glass, for a few weeks now! We moved across country about a year ago and even though I had given away probably half of what we owned we still moved way too much stuff – we had over 80 boxes for 2 people, yikes! I found that kitchen items were at least 1/3 of those boxes. And also that everything glass took up twice the space in boxes because it had to be wrapped and padded. We are in an apartment that we will probably move from in a year so I want to get our belongings down before we move again. I just added 8 Christmas glasses to the give away. They are wine glasses, we don’t drink, and they have Christmas flowers all over them. Only good once a year. I also added 8 soup bowls/crocks. They are really nice for soup but nothing else. I haven’t made soup in over a year now and don’t have plans to. If I did, I can just use regular bowls. I got rid of about 10 decorative dishes that don’t suit us anymore. They were made to hang on the wall but have been in a cupboard for years. I have 4 glass pitchers, rarely used, so I am parting with one. I still have way too many breakables/glass items for two people! I’m going to keep working on it for sure.
Colleen, these are good. Every one of them makes me think of something I can get rid of. I’m enjoying being back to decluttering one or two things at a time.
Wow – these are hard ones. . . uh, I mean, GREAT ONES! I suspect I am still not great in the glass department. That is an area that surely could be revisited! Although I’m sure I could find stuff in each category.
I read these yesterday and once again I realised I had it covered already. That’s not to say that my decluttering is done (almost there) as I have some big and important projects to tackle this year like finishing digitising and organising our family photos, editing our family dvd’s etc. And yes there will always be stuff to declutter because life changes and re-arranges!
However, I have had on mental to-do list that our sleeping pillows are all due for replacement, so maybe I can focus on Wednesday and get it done and get the old ones out the door.
Great set of mini missions this week Colleen! These should be easily attainable. Thanks 🙂