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.

This week I want you to choose a room in your home that has a clutter issue, and this room is going to be the focus of your mini missions this week. Make a vow to yourself that you are not going to add any extra clutter to this room. Anything you use from or in it during the week you are going to put away immediately after use. Choose departure points for your decluttered items, some will go in the trash some will end up in the recycling bin while others will be donated. Make sure your donation departure point is in an out of the way place away from your target room. If you have the opportunity to dispose of them as you go along that is all the better because then you won’t be tempted to keep them. Lets get started.

Monday – Tidy off and declutter one elevated surface in your focus room putting everything away in its proper home.

Tuesday – Go back to your chosen room again and pick another elevated surface to clear off and declutter. Once again put everything away in its proper home and move any unwanted clutter to your clutter departure points. 

Wednesday – Today you are going to clear off and declutter the floor in your chosen room. Pick up anything that doesn’t belong on the floor and find a home for it. Once again move any unwanted clutter to its departure point.

Thursday – Choose a drawer in this room and declutter it. If you have no drawers choose a small area that is out of sight. A box under a bed, a shelf or a small cabinet.

Friday – Repeat the same task as Thursday.

Saturday – Declutter an area of your own choosing in the room today. By now the room should be in pretty good shape.

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.

Today I have brought this little gem out of the archives to share with you. It may be an oldie but it is still a goodie.

The departure point, the staging area, the sorting space… whatever you want to call it, having one certainly makes decluttering more organised. This is the space where your chosen ones, that is the items you want to get rid of are moved to prior to their final departure from your home. This makes the initial decision making precess easier without the complication of dealing with an immediate removal. The system works like this…

1. Chose an item you no longer which to have cluttering up your home.
2. Remove it from the space where it usually lingers.
3. Place it in the departure point until you are ready to do whatever it takes to rid it from your home.
4. At the appropriate time you move these items on to their next destination. Which might be a car boot sale, a thrift shop, to the post office for mailing to its ebay highest bidder, to a friends house etc etc.

Choosing your departure point

I try to limit my departure point to one particular area, which for me is a shelf in the garage. I have a spacious two car garage but not everyone is that fortunate. If you live in an apartment or small home you may want to use a shelf in a cupboard, a box by the front door, a space in your laundry or even the trunk of your car. Due to space restraints or convenience it may be wiser for you to have one place for donations and a different place for items you wish to sell and another for items you are handing on the a friend or relative. Perhaps you’ll even want a place to store items you have separated from the herd, so to speak, in order to decide whether you are really ready to part with them. It is entirely up to you but I really think it is helpful to choose your space or spaces and stick to it/them for the sake of good organisation.

The area your departure point takes up will vary depending on..

• How much space you have to begin with.
• How large or numerous your declutter items usually are.
• How many categories you wish to separate them into. This might be sell, donate, return or give to family or friend, for consideration.
• Whether you share your space with other people that may or may not be family members.
• How often you can get to your donation point.
• If you bother to sell items or just give them away.

My garage shelf has two boxes and some extra space for larger items that don’t fit in the boxes. One box is for donations, one is for items I plan to sell. Naturally things that are past being useful bypass the departure point and go straight into their respective bins, either garbage or recycling.

The items I am considering decluttering but haven’t fully committed to yet get put in either the sell or donate box depending on what I am likely to do with them if I decide to declutter them permanently.

My designated clutter departure point

To be honest though, due to me performing a little reshuffle in my craft room while around the same time my husband and son both did a some decluttering of their own my departure points have spread all over the place at the moment. My situation is complicated by the fact that I photograph everything for my blog. This a an example of why slow decluttering is much less messy.

Decluttering gone wild

In a nut shell. Decide on an area to store your clutter prior to its ultimate departure. This keeps your rejected items neatly rounded up and away from your keepers until you donate, sell or rehouse them. Then when the time is convenient send them on to their final destination out of your house. Then revel in the joy of living with less while you continue to divide and conquer.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

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.

This week it is time again to go through those memorabilia items. We all have memorabilia items that we wouldn’t want to part with and that is perfectly fine. But most of us also have similar items that we only keep out of habit because tradition dictates that we should view these things as important. But the truth is if they mean little to us why burden ourselves with them.

Monday – Declutter those old greeting cards from people who no longer mean anything to you or celebrate occasions that hold little significance.

Tuesday –  Declutter a family heirloom you possibly never really liked. Give it to another member of the family who enjoys preserving the family history.

Wednesday –Declutter a souvenir.

Thursday –Declutter a childhood or baby item of you or your children that doesn’t hold as much significance to you as it once did.

Friday –Declutter a diary or journal that is so embarrassing that you wouldn’t want it to become part of your family history.

Saturday –Declutter a memento that is boxed away somewhere where you rarely see it and don’t care enough to visit it often.

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.

Random Acts of Miscellaneous Kindness

(Little thoughtful acts for no reason but to make a complete strangers life a little easier.)

If you have an act that you think would be kind please share it with me via my contact page so I can share it with your fellow readers. Here is an idea for an act of kindness from a reader name Jean.

People enjoy finding money, it is sweet to drop a coin where children might walk and find it, or even a dollar for older folks. Everyone feels lucky when they find money, even a very small amount.

How much space is taken up in your home with clutter from the person you once were. Do you still have…

1. Sports equipment the will never be used again.
2. Clothes that no longer fit.
3. Musical instruments that you never really learned to play.
4. College papers that are long out of date.
5. Supplies for a hobby that you lost interest in some time ago.
6. Music that you are embarrassed to say you once loved.
7. Love letters from a faded romance.
8. Books you read once and will never read again.
9. Enough linen, crockery, cutlery etc to cater for your family of five when now it is just the two of you.
10. Shelves of bric-a-brac that you no longer have the energy to dust. Or haven’t got the time to waste maintaining because you have more rewarding and enjoyable things to do.
11. Tools in the garage that you no longer have the dexterity to use.
12. Eyeglasses from when your vision was much closer to 20 20.
13. Business suits from the job you retired from years ago.
14. Supplies to put on those elaborate dinner parties you no longer could be bothered catering for. A simple meal with friends is now more your style.
15. Gardening tools from a era gone by when you had the time to garden.

Like most lists of clutter this one could go on and on but I think you get the picture.

I know I will never play softball again, my shoulder is already damaged enough from that previous life. I have let go of items of clothing that are not really suited to me now that I am in my mid forties. I have let go of my cross-stitch fabrics because there is little chance that I will go back to that craft. I prefer sensible shoes to high heals that kill my feet (Give me comfort over vanity any day) so I only keep a few pairs for special occasions. I have downsized my dining suite because 90% of the year there are only two of us eating at it. The ski equipment is long gone because we no longer live near ski fields.  Even the storage containers I once had an abundance of have dwindled to only a few because I refuse to go back to the level of clutter I once owned. And there are many more things that I have let go of that no longer fit with my current life.

There is no shame in moving on to the next phase of your life, as life is more fun when it is varied and interesting. So there is no point desperately clinging on the the past or it’s accoutrements . Be happy with the person you are now, embrace the new you. Let go of the items from your past that, if you are realistic, you know you no longer need. They are just cluttering up your life and holding you back. And also don’t over cater to the next phase that comes along because that is how our home become all cluttered in the first place.

I am still occasionally shedding things I no longer need and, given how life changes, this will go on until my last breath. Just this week I sent off numerous old Tupperware containers to my daughter. I no longer need them because, when catering to only two people for meals, I no longer find a use for so many containers. Recently I had two pair of high heal shoes fall apart on me. I threw them away and didn’t bother to replace them as I wear heals so little these days. On the other hand I sent a pair of flats to the cobbler for repair. And at the moment I am, once again, going through my craft supplies in a bid to purge them once again of items that haven’t been used in a long time. And clothes will be the next thing on the agenda, although some of them are just shabby and will need replacing.

So take a look around your home and see what you have that you no longer use from your previous life, and as Marie Kondo suggests, thank it for its services and send it on its way.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

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.

Everyone enjoyed it the last time I had a set of mini missions based on colour, so I thought I would do that again this week. I have chosen a colour for each day and all you have to do is find something to declutter that is that colour. This is a very visual set of missions so that makes it quite easy to spot things to match. So good luck and happy decluttering.

Monday – Declutter something that is yellow

Tuesday - Declutter something that is brown

Wednesday - Declutter something that is white

Thursday - Declutter something that is red

Friday - Declutter something that is black

Saturday - Declutter something that is green

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.

Random Acts of Miscellaneous Kindness

(Little thoughtful acts for no reason but to make a complete strangers life a little easier.)

If you see someone looking a little lost, when out and about in your town, stop and see if you can help them find what they are looking for.

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.

This week, for our mini missions, we are going to visit little nooks and crannies around the house which may have, up until now, remained untouched by human hands, or the vacuum cleaner for that matter, during our previous decluttering efforts. I will list seven places I have thought of below, but if you have already taken care of these areas or you don’t have them in your home make some up for yourself. Don’t just declutter these areas give them a clean up as well.

Monday – The bottom of your linen closet.

Tuesday – A corner of your garage, attic or basement.

Wednesday – The cupboard under the stairs.

Thursday – Under your bed or any other bed in the house.

Friday – The cupboard/space under your laundry or kitchen sink.

Saturday – The top or bottom shelf of the pantry.

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

As you may have guessed, due to the lack of them, I struggle to come up with new posts these days, mostly because I declutter much less now, therefore the inspiration for posts isn’t constantly forthcoming. Today it occurred to me that I have been blogging about this subject for over six years now, so why not repost some of my old articles. They are still as relevant as they ever were, not everyone has read through all the archives and we could all do with a refresher of information previously disseminated. So without further adieu here is todays revisited post.

Take a look around your home to find items that you have been using constantly for many years. Items that you would never part with although maybe are outdated, getting a little shabby or just aren’t particularly aesthetically pleasing in any way. These items will likely have to reach natural attrition before they leave your home. Of course they don’t have to be shabby, they may be standing the test of time amazingly well. And thank goodness for that if they are items that are useful and/or beautiful to you. Think about what is unique about this item that causes you to appreciate it so much.

Think about what led you to acquire these items in the first place. Perhaps it was that you had a need for the items. Perhaps the beauty of the object was what attracted you to it. Perhaps you searched and bided your time until just the right items came along to suit your need or desire. Perhaps it was a combination of all three. Maybe someone you knew had one similar and you decided it was so useful or beautiful that you wanted one for yourself. Or maybe it was sheer fluke that brought you and the object together.

I know I certainly have objects in my home that fit my needs so well that I have owned them for many many years. Among them are items that fit all of the reasons for acquiring them that I stated above. But one thing that is similar in each case is my appreciation for these objects. Every time I see them or use them I feel pleased not only with the objects but for my “clever’ choice of them in the first place.

Now take a look around your home and identify other objects that you neither use nor find aesthetically pleasing. Ask yourself why do you keep each items. Was it an unwanted gift? Can you not afford to replace it? Do you feel guilty for wasting your hard earned cash on it, so are determined to get some use out of it? It is a family heirloom that you don’t really wish to be the caretaker of? Perhaps these items cause too much upkeep. Or worse still you have given up maintaining them and they are sitting idle and dusty. Whatever the reason, if an item brings forth negative feelings when you encounter it then this a something you should consider decluttering.

Your home is your fortress, your place of tranquility, or at least it should be. There are many thing that lower the level of tranquility in a person’s home. One of them is being surrounded by objects that evoke negativity. Another is the feeling of obligation to keep stuff the causes you work. There are only so many hours in the day, house that are better spent doing things you enjoy with people that you love. It is a shame to waste that time taking care of stuff.

So as you encounter these items that cause negativity ask yourself what is more important to you..

• The compulsion to keep them regardless or..
• To heighten the level of tranquility in your home.

Share a story about such an item you encounter in the comments below. Tell us what your decision is for keeping it or letting it go.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

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.

The idea behind this set of mini mission and all the great examples was brought to you by Peggy. Great and original idea Peggy, thank you. As you can guess by the title your mission this week is to declutter containers of all sorts. Bonus points for declutter the stuff in the container as well.

Monday – Declutter excess travel containers ~ Suitcases, overnight bags, toiletries bags etc.

Tuesday – Declutter excess Food containers ~ Mugs, coolers, thermos, Tupperware and the like, drinking glasses, bowls etc.

Wednesday - Declutter excess empty containers ~ Hat Boxes, shoe boxes, appliance boxes, plastic bags,  large storage containers you are aspiring never to fill again, etc.

Thursday – Declutter excess disposable containers ~ Plastic bags, takeaway containers, envelopes, paper bags, old shopping bags, empty jars, those little medicine bottles you think you might have a use for someday etc.

Friday - Declutter miscellaneous storage containers ~ Eyeglass cases, trinket boxes, jewellery boxes, vases,

Saturday – Declutter portable containers ~ Totes, handbags, purses etc

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.

Random Acts of Miscellaneous Kindness

(Little thoughtful acts for no reason but to make a complete strangers life a little easier.)

Give a street person some cash instead of just passing by. Do just walk away because you think the money won’t be put to good use. Just be glad that isn’t your lot in life.

Clutter isn’t about what we have, it is about why we have it. 

We acquire stuff for many reasons, aesthetics, functionality, sentimental, recreation and entertainment and even societal, just to name a few. In fact those few reasons just about account for most of the excess stuff in our lives. So lets just take a closer look at them.

Aesthetics ~ The stuff we enjoy mostly because it is pleasing to the eye such as art and décor items, fashion accessories, jewellery.

Functionality ~ These are items we acquire that are useful to us in some way, generally to make our lives simpler or more comfortable.

Sentimental ~ Things we acquire because they bring back fond memories

Recreation & Entertainment ~ The stuff accumulated under this topic is many and varied, CDs, DVD’s, sporting equipment, toys and the list goes on.

Societal ~ This accounts for those items that we acquire because of the culture we live in. And of course they aren’t always necessities and as members of society we just end up falling in line with the trend and acquire them whether we need them or not.

So let’s now have a look at some very typical items that fall into one, or even several, of these categories…

Clothing ~ This falls into every category. Western society dictates that we don’t get around in public naked. So we wear clothing for its function of covering us up. And while choice of what we acquire is partly dictated by the situation the particular garments are required for (recreation, work, evening functions etc) a big part of what we choose is driven by our aesthetic preferences. Where this gets out of hand is when we desire an abundance of variety in that aesthetic and buy way more clothing than we really need. Also aesthetics gets us into trouble when we disregard what suits our “particular kind of beauty” and buy items because they just look good. These items often end up rarely if ever used. And then there can also be clothing items that we relate to special occasions that we keep for sentimental reasons long after they are useful to us.

Kitchen Gadgets ~ These of course have a function, the question is whether or not we actually have a “need” for that function. Once again Western Society tends to dictate that life is easier if we have a tool that speeds up performing every little task required of us. And it is the job of advertisers to convince us that such items can actually do this for us by only showing us the upside, imagined or not, of owning such items. Hence we end up with a gazillion single-use kitchen gadgets that we only “require” once in a blue moon that don’t really save us enough time to warrant the amount of room they take up, the time wasted trying to find the one you “need”  among all the others or the money wasted on acquiring them.

Entertainment Items ~ For a society of people who seem to work endlessly to “make ends meet” we sure do seem to acquire and require an lot of stuff to fill the spare time we are always complaining we don’t have. I often wonder how many of the dollars we earn from those hours spent working are used to acquire stuff we don’t really even need and sometimes don’t even use much before the novelty wears off. Although rest, recreation and entertainment are essential to a healthy lifestyle it seems counterproductive to work our butts off in the first place to cater too it excessively. Fortunately music, movies and games can be enjoyed digitally these days so we don’t actually have to clutter our homes with them. And although televisions screens seem to be getting bigger and bigger they are also getting slimmer and slimmer so they don’t really take up that much room. Computers, phones and also music players have also shrunk over the last 3o years however where once we used to have one of each of these things we, in Western Society, now usually have at least one for every person in the house. And then there is also the variety of of sport and exercise equipment available to us, the clothing to go along with that. And then there are the bags etc required to tote all this stuff around ~ laptop, tablet and phone cases, sports bags, handbags, backpacks… Yikes!

Keepsakes and souvenirs ~ Although these have a function, to remind us of special occasions, good times and loved ones, collections of them can often get out of hand. We even find ourselves accumulating them against our own better judgement because they are another one of those things that society tends to dictate that we should be passionate about. We go on vacation so we “should” get a souvenir from every place we visit. We go to a funeral or wedding and isn’t it respectful to keep the service booklet? Wouldn’t it be wrong to throw out even one picture your child brought home from school, their report cards or any of those band concert programs with your child’s name in it? The answer is no it is neither disrespectful, heartless to dispose of these things nor necessary to have a physical reminder of every vacation or event you ever attended. Sure keep some reminders, the most treasured ones, but not all. It is possible to be sentimental without being cluttered.

Décor items ~ A bed is a functional item that assists us in having a good night sleep. A pillow makes us that bit more comfortable and blankets keep us warm in the cold times. However that is where the functionality of the bed ends, throw rugs and cushions are décor items. Trinkets, art, artificial plants, etc, etc are also just aesthetic items we can either chose or not to adorn our homes. If they didn’t exist we wouldn’t care but once again society and advertising comes into play very much when it comes to the plethora of choice there is out there. And again, they cost money, they require maintenance and the novelty of them tends to wear off over time at which we spend more money switching them out for something new.

Today’s Mini Mission

I starting out writing this post to point out all those things in our lives that we think we need but really don’t and why we acquire them. And sure most of them do add to the enjoyment and comfort in our lives. However there is always a point where enough is enough and beyond that we are just working too hard to be able to afford all this excess and spending too much time maintaining stuff. Not to mention the detrimental effort that producing all this excess has on the environment.

So think twice about continuing to acquire at such a pace for your own wellbeing as well as that of the planet you occupy. And also pass on some of that excess while it is still useful to someone else so they don’t go out buying new. And I will leave you with a great quote I unexpectedly stumbled upon this week just to get life into perspective…

“We are not made rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” Immanuel Kant

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.

So the idea behind this week’s mini missions title is to have you getting rid of some stuff in your home that is next to useless to you. The “I might need it one day!” or the “I only use it maybe once a year but it is still useful!” …. kind of objects or items you avoid using for one reason or another. Just take ten minutes on each suggestion this week and ask yourself do I really need this item or is it not worth the space it is taking up. Let’s see shall we.

Monday – Declutter one single-use kitchen gadget.

Tuesday – Declutter a tool anywhere else in the house that rarely gets used. Anything that a little improvisation could mean you don’t need it at all.

Wednesday – A beauty product that doesn’t live up to its advertising hype. And in future investigate the “science” behind such products in order be educated as to whether they will actually work before laying your hard earned money down.

Thursday – Anything in your closet that you avoid wearing because it makes you feel uncomfortable when you wear it. Be that physically or mentally uncomfortable.

Friday – Anything past its best by date. Toiletries, food, medicines etc.

Saturday – A purely decor item. These are useful if they bring you pleasure but if they are simply there out of habit and collecting dust then maybe they a next to useless.

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.

Random Acts of Miscellaneous Kindness

Pick up a piece of litter that you encounter and toss it in the trash. This will make life just that little bit nicer for the next person who comes along without them even knowing it.