I often check the discussions taking place on Unclutter Forums and sometimes even start a new topic myself. Recently I began a topic called The Neil Armstrong Approach to Uncluttering. This topic has attracted a reasonable amount of interest mostly due to the curiosity about the title but one comment really struck a cord with me. Pol wrote - I've been decluttering regularly and it simply gets easier and easier the more I do it! "Sentimental" clutter has always been the worst with me...   Each small step has opened my eyes to the damage I was causing myself, the stuff owned … [Read more...]
Day 113 Too much pressure
I read forums and posts on other blogs and I can't help but think that people put themselves under too much pressure when it comes to decluttering. Below are a few suggestions I have to help release that pressure... The clutter didn't appear overnight so don't expect it to disappear overnight. Don't look at the big picture it's too scary sometimes. Pace yourself, there is no hurry. Don't set a deadline. Save the hard to decide items until last. I find the further I get into this the more ruthless I become. Be rational, way up the pros and cons when it comes to what stays and what … [Read more...]
Day 95 Going to Extremes
While cruising the Internet looking for inspiration on the topic of decluttering I found a few interesting articles that take downsizing and minimalism to greater extremes. I am not prepared to go to that extent, not at this point anyway, but they were inspiring and made me feel that what I am attempting seems like a walk in the park. When I say "a walk in the park" I don't mean it demeans my efforts in any way, it just helps me see the bigger picture and I now feel very comfortable that the small sacrifices I am making are not such a big deal. Some of the topics to google when looking … [Read more...]
Day 87 Replace old habits
I heard somewhere recently that it only take two weeks to start breaking out of old habits. The idea being, if you can persevere and ignore the cravings to continue in your old habit for two weeks, you will start to notice physically and mentally the change in your behaviour at this point and start to realise you can cope with the changes. Hoarding is a bad habit that most of us have an addiction to to some degree. A bad habit that for the sake of a neat and clutter free environment we need to break. According to the two week rule mentioned above once we set our mind to de-cluttering instead … [Read more...]
Day 85 Magazines by the pile
I bet there isn't one of you out there that doesn't have a pile or two of magazines somewhere in your home that have some really interesting articles, pictures, recipes... so you are reluctant to part with them. I know I do. I was an avid scrapbooker for some time while living in the Untied States and as magazines subscription are so cheap over there I didn't hesitate to have a few. As these are reference material they never really go out of date and I have often looked back through them when trying to came up with ideas when creating my scrapbook pages. Needless to say they do tend to pile … [Read more...]
Day 66 Photograph for memories sake
At some point early in this exercise, my husband suggested that I photo document the items we rid ourselves of with the intention that I should get this blog up and running. I have since discovered two other good reasons for this archive of visual reminders of what was. The first being that we can look back on our achievement as we go along and remind ourselves how much clutter we expelled from the ever expanding space we live in. It inspires us everyday to come up with an idea for tomorrows contribution. The second reason is that, if there is the odd thing that we had a hard time parting … [Read more...]
Day 65 Nike Skate Shoes
Today, three pair of holey Nike Skate shoes that languished in the shoe cupboard for nearly three years head to the garbage bin. We can sometimes make personal attachments to the strangest things. I suppose this is so because they remind us of a happier time in a place we would much rather still be, a common mistake we fall into that causes a lot of clutter in our lives. Purging ourselves of these useless items will not make us forget the good times, the places we've been or the people we've met along the way so don't be afraid to let go. It is just "stuff" after all, the memories remain. The … [Read more...]