I received a comment from Willow on Day 365 which really got me thinking. Her comment read... Congratulations, Colleen! Your perseverance has been an inspiration to me. What is the biggest, most important lesson you learned this past year? And my response was... Hi Willow, it is really a combo of all the lessons but I suppose the biggest one was to stop shopping and don't replace the stuff with something else. Hardly a thing has entered my house all year and what has replaced something old and worn, which wasn't included in the 365 things because it was being replaced. Learning to let go … [Read more...]
Day 347 Staying ahead of the game
There are three key elements to decluttering Purging your home of items that are unused Being selective with future purchases so you do not end up recluttering you home. Staying ahead of the clutter by removing items as they become redundant. Today I want to talk about #3 on the list above. The key to staying decluttered is to make sure you remove any redundant item from your home as quickly as possible after it outgrows its usefulness. Redundancy can include... Physically growing out of an item Children are especially prone to this, some more so than others. I was … [Read more...]
Day 313 The trouble with collectables
I love to browse the antique shops just for the nostalgia that it evokes. I often see things there that remind me of my grandmother or things that bring back fond memories from my childhood. The beauty of these occasional visits is that I can enjoy the sensations for free and come home empty handed. I don't need to own the stuff to enjoy it every now and again. How many of us actually bring this stuff home or even make a hobby of it. There are a lot of collectors out there and an endless variety of things that can be collected. Some people do this because they enjoy the novelty/beauty/rarity … [Read more...]
Day 282 The seven deadly sins
Pride    Envy   Gluttony  Lust   Anger   Greed  Sloth If loosely translated you could associate five of the seven deadly sins to clutter. This may seem a bit like hitting below the belt but sometimes that's what it takes to make people realize the error of their ways. Pride - otherwise known as vanity is a sure trigger to the collection of numerous unnecessary items. How many things do we buy just because we want others to see how trendy, clever, sporty, rich, beautiful... that we are. We don't use these things in the privacy of our own home, we just want the world … [Read more...]
Day 275 Hang-ons from old hobbies
Scrapbooking is a wonderful pastime, and I enjoyed it for many years. The problem is that by its very nature it causes an enormous amount of clutter. Supply clutter, tool clutter, souvenir clutter, photo clutter not to mention time clutter. I have rarely met a scrapbooker who can keep up to date with all the happenings in life that they wish to record thereby causing a backlog of all of the above mentioned items. Remember earlier this week, on day 272, I decluttered an old Rick Steves' travel guide that had been languishing in my bedside cupboard for three years. Close by that guide was also … [Read more...]
Day 228 The third drawer down
Ah ha! Yes that's right now we are getting amongst it. Who is familiar with the third drawer down? You know the one. It could be in the buffet, the kitchen cabinets, a desk or maybe the bathroom cabinet but nevertheless it is the same situation regardless of the location. The first/top drawer is always the prime drawer with the important everyday/most used items. In the kitchen and the buffet it will likely be the cutlery drawer, in your desk it will be your pens, pencil, stapler etc and in the bathroom it usually has your hair brush, hair pins and the like. Now the second drawer down is … [Read more...]
Day 227 Have you ever watched paint dry…
...well that's what it is like waiting for my son to get around to clearing out the unwanted clothes from his closet. So today while he was out of town I pulled out everything I haven't seen him wear in a long time and put it on our portable clothes hanger. When he gets home he can take five minutes to decide what stays and what goes and put me out of my misery. Decluttering your own stuff is one thing, waiting patiently for someone who doesn't give a hoot to do their part in this process is quite another. Sometimes one just has to expedite things a little bit. It's not all bad though every … [Read more...]
Day 224 Stationery declutter
Stationery is another one of those items I am leaving up to natural progression decluttering. It is a very slow process though. This evening I made a very small dent in our supplies and fulfilled a request from my daughter at the same time. Last week, she asked me to print her a copy of the family cookbook that I had painstakingly digitised about 10 years ago. I have added new recipes as I have tested and deemed them good enough to add to the regular rotation. In printing the recipe book for my little girl I managed to use up... 68 pieces of coloured paper 34 plastic sleeves 13 … [Read more...]
Day 195 Computer clutter
I don't usually write about computer clutter in my blog as it is not really an area of expertise for me. However I am going to mention it today because it can be a problem for some. I would like to concentrate on email clutter. I am not actually talking from a personal level here more from a professional point of view. It can be very annoying when you share a computer, specifically email, in he work place with people who are not very computer savvy. The idea of using folders to sort emails is alien to some and even deleting unnecessary emails does not seem to be a priority. Therefore the … [Read more...]
Day 191 One area of doom half sorted
I think I mentioned some time back that one of the areas of doom when it comes to decluttering my house is my daughters bedroom. It is mostly awkward because for now she is living elsewhere while going to university so that adds a degree of difficulty I didn't really want to deal with. It is not for me to decide what she wants to keep and I cannot be bothered sending long convoluted emails or wasting precious phone minutes to have her decide long distance. Luckily for me she came to visit the week before last and I warned her ahead of time that she was going to have to help me do some … [Read more...]