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.
Ok, so we are all over Christmas and are raring and ready to go with this years decluttering. So where to begin. Anywhere will do so long as you are doing it. But in case you are lacking in imagination here are a few places to start looking.
Monday – Declutter something from any drawer in your house.
Tuesday – Declutter something from the basement, garage, attic or shed.
Wednesday – Declutter something from a kitchen cabinet.
Thursday – Declutter something from your closet. And that doesn’t have to be clothes.
Friday – Declutter something in the living room.
Saturday – Declutter something in your linen or storage closet.
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
Take your own bag when you go shopping. It is amazing how much plastic that saves over a period of time.
It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow
Good missions, Colleen. We are doing all of them this week as we are going through the house to prepare for Mom’s move. Just Saturday we went through the craft/office/sewing area and we now have boxes of things to give to our church yard sale. THis week we will be working on the two closets in Mom’s bathroom, the space under the two sinnks in there, her room and the kitchen. She has suddenly become quite good at decluttering. SMILE!!
Woo hoo Deb J.!
Isn’t it wonderful when the “older” generation learns from the “younger” generation?
A role reversal of sorts. Daughter becomes the teacher and Mother becomes the student.
Love it. New ways of doing old things. Thinking outside the “comfortable” box!
Congratulations!
Yes, Kimberley, it is wonderful. I’m especially excited to see her finally getting it.
Wow Deb J! It must be strange and thrilling at once to have your mom be so excited to declutter 🙂
It is strange but exciting.
How awesome, Deb J!
Hi Deb, just as well you have a month to prepare. Although I dare say you must still be frustrated at the fact that your mum has always been happy to leave it until the last minute. Enjoy it while you can and do your best to convince her to let go of as much as possible.
Meanwhile I will do the happy dance.
I’ve got Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturdays missions in hand:
From a drawer, 1 unused microwave turntable, 1 bandanna, 1 bureau scarf, 1 scarf.
Two sets of never used curtain tie-backs from my closet.
I finally realized how tired looking my favorite pillow shams had become. (They were “quilted” in greens and reds). These shams were on standard size pillows on our living room couch, as back support. They will be going to the pet shelter along with a couple of towels. I am replacing them with some matelasse shams we already had.
Some ancient Aloe Rub from our linen closet. It was tiny, but it’s the thought that counts! 🙂
Well I’ll be, Peggy. Can’t say I have ever heard the term Bureau Scarf before today. I just always thought of them as a long doily. Now I know something new.
Well done with the missions. And yes things count no matter how small they are.
This works well for me as I am going thru the house room by room as things got a bit ‘let go’ over the holiday break.
I have to confess that quite a pile of stuff came into the house via the Boxing Day sales, but as it was my daughter buying stuff to set up her room when she moves to the Halls of Residence at University in February, so it won’t be staying too long.
At work, I was given the job of organising the tool room. The previous arrangement was ‘anywhere on the bench or floor that you can find a space’. I have been putting in extra shelves and creating space wherever I can. I’m going for the ‘everything has its place and everything in its place’ approach, and so far everything is fitting in quite neatly and easily. The guys seem surprised. Unfortunately not a lot to declutter as we did that last January, but good to see the room finally in a functional state.
I hope you are putting a little illustration of each tool in the place where it is expected to be kept or else you can almost bet those “surprised guys” will make a mess of your nice new arrangement pretty fast. Once done I would lay down the law on how you expect it to be kept. Labour ought to run more efficiently once they get the hang of it.
I have tons of stuff I am setting appart to donate, so I am quite on top of those mini missions. I am quite happy to say I am not letting the clutter grow, and as soon as some stuff has “no place”, I know I have to take action. A happy 2016 to all of you!
Good for you Andréia
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve done some of everything except Tuesday. The declutter game keeps me moving all around our house.
However, I had a real epiphany a few days ago. I was feeling that things are not moving fast enough. Then I realized that we are decluttering in some other ways:
We’ve cut our DirecTV back to a simpler plan (about -$65). Then we bought a Fire TV Stick (+40.00). Now we’re on Netflix (-10.00 a month) and plan to get Hulu (about -5.00). Then at that point we plan/hope to eliminate DirecTV altogether (another -58.00). So that should be replacing app. 123.oo with 15.oo plus the one-time expense for the fire stick! We are eating out less. We have decided to mostly have wine only at home (saves about 15.00 a bottle because we’ve found a box wine that we really like). We’re also going to check if we can lower our cell phone plan and our homeowners insurance. We also plan to begin ordering our meds online which is a lot cheaper (haven’t initiated that yet).
Now that’s decluttering!!!!
We’re both very happy with this…but we are expecting a learning curve!!
Forgot to click to receive followup comments.
Hi Deanna, do you think these recent entertainment financial decisions are a direct effect of decluttering the other areas of your life? That is once the house became more efficient you could focus some of your decluttering skills on your finances. If that is the case, perhaps you might like to write a blog post about it for me.
That is a good idea, Colleen … and I look forward to reading that blog post, Deanna. 🙂
When I first started decluttering about 15 years ago, my finances changed drastically. As I got rid of things, space opened up both literally and mentally. I was able to concentrate on other things. We concentrated on paying off debt vs. buying things. IT CHANGED OUR LIFE.
Decluttering and finances absolutely go hand in hand. We’re not perfect…..some years are better than others when it comes to clutter, but we continue to make progress. Decluttering and losing weight can go hand in hand, too, if you are interested in that goal.
Clutter affects every aspect of our lives, and any article/post that discusses that topic would help a lot of people, in my opinion. Go for it, Deanna!
Thank you for sharing your story Melanie. The results your decluttering had on the rest of your life is no surprise to me. And I have written in the past about the connection of decluttering to weight loss as well. Changing habits in small increments can made a big difference.
I think I can do all of these Colleen, nice missions -thank you. I like the idea of decluttering finances too.