Here are some questions to ask yourself if you have a lot of nicknacks adorning your home. Usually a home full of nicknacks also has additional furniture to house those nicknacks. Pedestals and little tables for them to sit on, china cabinets and bookshelves crammed with them, open 3D frames hanging on the wall containing more tiny bits and pieces. Just the thought of it all makes me wheeze and sneeze. So here are my questions…

• How important can each and every item possibly be to you when they are crammed onto shelves where you can’t even see half of them because they are hidden behind one another?
• How often do you actually take the time to look at each and every one of these items?
• How clean is your home on a daily basis when there are so many of these items that you can only bring yourself to dust them once a year?
• How much time and energy do you even have to devote to maintaining your home in this state?
• How easy is your home to clean properly when so much wall and floor space is covered with the furniture or props holding these items?
• How much money has been spent acquiring these items while renovations and repairs have gone begging on the structure you live in?
• How much more could you enjoy and appreciate your favourites among these items if the overall quantity were fewer and less crowded?
• If you died tomorrow would you really want your loved ones to have to deal with all your stuff in their time of grief?

If you do have a desire to reduce your collection in order to make cleaning day easier but you are having a hard time letting go it is possible to desensitise yourself from this anxiety. All you have to do is choose an item that you care the least about among the collection and let it go. If you feel any pangs after parting with an item remind yourself of your goal of easing your cleaning burden. Give yourself a day or two to establish the fact that you have barely noticed an item’s absence and then choose another least loved item and again let it go. Continue on with this method and I am sure you will end up letting go of more items than you ever thought you would.

Rearrange and spruce up your collection as you progress so as to have it looking the best it can. Bringing all your favourites to the fore.

Hopefully you will advance so far with this task that you start to empty furniture items and can also remove them to create open spaces which are easy to clean. Just thinking about all the balls of fluff, dust mites and possibly even mould and roaches that can hide in all these nooks and crannies makes me cringe. And although that may sound a little melodramatic it is entirely possible. In Australia these are also places where venomous spiders (Redbacks and Whitetails) can lurk.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter any old manuals or warranty papers that are out of date or you no longer have the items for. This is one of those areas of paperwork that builds up over time. Be vigilant because paperwork can be very daunting to deal with when allowed to accumulate.

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

Some of the first items I decluttered

In order to write this post today I took a look back to Day 64 of my declutter mission. This was the day that I first began to blog about my resolution to declutter 365 things. Since then I have often written that the simplest way to begin decluttering is to start with the easy things. Looking back on the photos and list of items I had decluttered prior to blogging proves that this is exactly what I did.

Many of these items had never been used, hadn’t been used for a long time, I didn’t like for one reason or another or I had too many of. The items came from places all over the house, from drawers, closets, cupboards, cabinets, open shelves and even the garage. I dare say to begin with I would not have been able to tell by looking around that I had even decluttered much, but that did not deter me. I knew the stuff was gone and that was all that mattered.

I then looked a little further along in my photo archives and found that I continued on in this way for quite a while until I added a degree of difficulty by beginning to sell on ebay. Then it seems I began my first use-it-up challenges with toiletries, pantry and craft items. Next larger items, from outside, that required dismantling began to appear in the photo archives. Then obligation items began to show up, things given to us by friends and family that we no longer wanted. And by now my husband was well and truly involved in the decluttering effort.

By this point furniture began to be decluttered, furniture that was finally emptied and no longer required. This was all before day 200. It was easy to see from the following photos that I was really becoming ruthless. Sentimental items were heading out the door, as were useful items from my kitchen that I had decided I had too many of. Items that at the start I wouldn’t have thought I would declutter were also now fair game.

I won’t bore you with over two more years of my decluttered inventory. However I do hope that you can see the point of this post by now. Choosing the easy things first really is the less painful way to enter into this hopefully life changing mission. No matter how many things you have or how attached you are to some of them, if you begin with the easy stuff you will make a difference. You may not notice the difference at first but it will become obvious soon enough. Just be grateful that you are making progress and that it isn’t so hard.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter A Guilt item. Something you feel guilty about acquiring in the first place.

Eco Tip for the Day

Think twice about buying anything that you don’t need. Whether your use for it will last, whether it is just a novelty or whether it even adds anything to your life.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

Have you ever been in a relationship with a person who was just too hard to please. Someone that no matter what you gave them it was never enough. Your time, your effort and your hard earned money all wasted in vain, that person were never satisfied. You even went into debt buying the things they wanted and they would to be happy for a short while but then it was back to wanting something else. The stuff you gave them accumulated leaving you with the task of taking care of it or cleaning around it, a constant reminder of your foolishness.

Was this relationship worth the effort? Was it satisfying? Are you still in it?

Was and is this relationship with yourself? If so then isn’t never too late to redefine it and begin again. Hopefully you can do this with a little understanding and compassion for yourself, otherwise seek professional help.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something you are keeping “just in case”.

Eco Tip for the Day

Instead of shopping go for a walk with a friend, a swim at the beach or take in a movie.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

 

Cindy

Can organizing help you declutter? The tidier your stuff is, the more you can pack into a small space, that’s for sure. But we all know that’s not the same as decluttering! Nonetheless, organizing can help you declutter in a number of useful ways:

When you gather together like-with-like to organize it, it’s easy to see and find your duplicate (triplicate!) items. You can either give one of them away or have a use it up challenge, whichever is appropriate.

• When you decide that all your books must fit on the bookshelf in the traditional up and down style, then you must declutter all the books that you cannot fit onto the shelves. If you decide to display some sentimental trinkets (that you love, find beautiful, hold dear, etc.) on your bookshelves as well, then you’ll have to reduce your books further.
• The same can be said for your linen closet, food pantry, or wardrobe  If you decide that everything must fit in that space, you’ll declutter until it does fit.
• While organizing your items, it’s a good time to consider their placement. Do rarely needed coats really need to be in the front door closet? Maybe that’s a better space for pool bags, towels, and extra sunblock (something I think you almost cannot have too much of because you never want to run out  – at least not if you’re as fair as my family). If you never wear belts, why do you have a special holder for them on the door of your closet? Are your most frequently used kitchen spoons in a convenient location, or is the plastic wrap that you hardly ever use holding court in the easiest to reach drawer?

To me, organizing doesn’t mean buying a whole bunch of boxes and clever “solutions” so that I can jam more stuff into each square inch of space. It means culling and cultivating my collection (of clothes, jewelry, books, kitchen utensils  gardening tools) so that everything is useful, easy-to-location, in good working order, and appropriate for my lifestyle. Is there anything you could organize today?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something made from paper.

Eco Tip for the Day

Instead of giving lots of sugar laden, foil wrapped Easter treats do what I did. Only buy ten little eggs attach $1 or $2 coins to them and arrange a Riddle Easter Hunt. Hide each egg with its coin separately with a riddle attached leading to the next egg. You can also skip the chocolate eggs altogether and just hide the money with the riddle. I used to recycle those plastic eggs year after year and hide the money and riddle inside them. It is fun to watch the kids trying to figure out the riddles, making them harder and harder each year.

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

Since I have brought us back to the subject of being open minded, now seems as good a time as any to write a post about our state of mind when it comes to stuff. I was reading a post this morning, which I will link to on Friday, and one quote really stood out for me…

“Most of us have so much – much more than the majority of the world at least (and more than our primal ancestors ever dreamed of), yet we live with a misplaced sense of deprivation.” ~ MARK SISSON

This statement puts into words something I wonder about often. I think about it from all aspects. There is the “Have” side where, as Mark mentions, people seemingly have much more than they need but are forever wanting more, so feel deprived. And then there is the “Less Privileged” side where people can’t afford all the trappings of life and naturally feel deprived. Then there is the minimalist who chooses and is happy to live a life like the less privileged and doesn’t feel deprived at all. What is different about his state of mind.

It is understandable to feel deprived when one works hard but struggles to provide the necessities in life ~ food, clothing, shelter and medical care. But when one feels deprived when they can afford this an more, then perhaps something else is wrong.  Or perhaps we are simply duped about what it is we should be striving for. When one comes to terms with the idea that what they give and what they have in life is enough, then stuff no longer matters.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a kitchen item that you have simply because everyone else does. If you don’t find it helpful on a regular basis then it isn’t necessary to you. ~ Examples:- Garlic press, potato peeler, cake pans, blender, turkey baster, meat thermometer, deep fryer…

Eco Tip for the Day

Be conservative about how many dishes you use when cooking and eating. The less there are to wash the less water and electricity is wasted. And in my case ~ my dishwasher is out of service at the moment ~ this tip saves on dishpan hands. I realised, while preparing ingredients for dinner last night, that it would save me on washing up if I just left all the chopped veggies on the cutting board rather than putting them in bowls. I have also discovered that washing plastic bowls, that have had greasy leftovers in, is a real pain. Which for me is another good reason to declutter more plastic.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

My girlfriend R stopped by my house two days before Christmas, looking mighty cross. She started spewing about how aggravated she was to be buying gifts for her many family members “just to be buying them something.” Her family is Jewish, and they celebrate Hanukkah as well. She’d tried to tell her brother that they shouldn’t exchange gifts, but his response was “Too late. I’ve already bought you something.” In addition, they don’t drawn names or limit giving to children, so everyone is giving a gift to everyone! R was definitely not feeling the holiday spirit. Here is the advice I gave to her:

First of all, you have to do what you’ve always done this year. Hanukkah is already over, and Christmas is in two days. You can’t change the rules now.

Beginning in January, though, you need to talk to your family about how you want to change your traditions. Maybe you should only do Christmas or only do Hanukkah. You could include Jews in Christmas or gentiles in Hanukkah – celebrate the holiday that works best, religiously and culturally, for your family.

Next you need to decide who you want to give to. R already gives charitable gifts to her parents. A donation to Heifer International for her dad and the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee for her mother. Maybe all her gifts should be charity; maybe she doesn’t want to continue with charitable gifts every year. In addition, she needs to think about the extended family that’s accustom to getting gifts from her: her brother, sister-in-law, their children, as well as her husband’s siblings, spouses, and their children, plus others who might be on “Santa’s” list. Does she want to eliminate all giving to adults? Draw names? Only donate to charity? Eliminate giving to everyone?

However, I also cautioned R that she can only control herself, her giving, her pocket book. She cannot force her siblings or in-laws to comply with her wishes. She can think through how she would like the gift-giving traditions in her families to evolve and make proposals. She can state firmly and clearly what she’s willing to do, but she can’t force others to bend to her will.

Today’s the day to begin this conversation: The holidays are fresh on everyone’s minds, and other people might be feeling the fiscal, temporal or environmental stress of having overbought, as well. Starting the conversation  well in advance, so no one is surprised by a sudden change in tradition, is the kindest gift of all.

Paper Free Grocery List

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something that you have way too many of than you really need. This could be cutlery, crockery, glassware, craft supplies, stationery items, tool, jewellery pieces, shoes etc.

Eco Tip for the Day

Here’s one way to save paper. Write your grocery list on the fridge with a whiteboard marker and then photograph it with your cell phone and take that with you when you go shopping.

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

We all know there are only so many hours in the day. How many of them do you want to spend…

1. …looking for things you need but can’t find among your excess stuff.
2. …looking for things you didn’t put away where they belong.
3. …choosing what to use or wear among an overabundance of stuff.
4. …moving things in order to clean your home.
5. …running around like a mad thing cleaning up every time someone is coming to your home for a brief or long visit.
6. …dusting trinkets that aren’t even really that special to you.
7. …struggling to make things fit into, what ought to be, your more than adequate size home.
8. …shopping for more stuff that you will have to cram in somewhere just for the thrill of having something new.
9. …feeling ashamed of how your home looks.
10. …procrastinating about doing something about it.

What could you spend your precious time doing instead?

1. Relaxing
2. Feeling less stressed.
3. Spending time with friends and loved ones.
4. Creating beautiful things.
5. Exercising
6. Living in the knowledge that anyone could drop in anytime and your home will be tidy and inviting.
7. Enjoy some time in nature, a walk by the beach, hiking or watching your garden grow.
8. Volunteering in your community, This can be very satisfying.
9. Having extra time to focus intently on one task at a time so you get the best result
10. Getting your home in order so you can feel content there.

It may take a little time to get from list A to List B but it will be totally worth it.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter an item of clothing that you don’t feel good in. Be that because of  fit, visual or comfort reasons.

Today’s Declutter Item

South Park Character Costume

Eco Tip for the Day

Organise your weekly menu prior to grocery shopping. This will help avoid extra trips in the car to the grocery store.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

Many a time when I have put together the Monday Mini Mission posts I have included a mission about adjusting your possession to reflect your current situation. I mostly relate this to changes in locality, particularly ones that includes a climate change. For example thick winter jackets become clutter were you move to a warmer climate. I am very familiar with this concept having been through this process several time during the somewhat transient nature of my twenty five years of marriage.

There is another perhaps even more radical change that families go through that warrants some serious decluttering and that is when the children leave home. Yet in my experience no such transformation takes place in many households. Ten years, twenty years or even more later the home is still containing sufficient equipment to constantly cater to a full household. This isn’t so bad if there were originally just two children in the family but if there  were four or five what was once constantly useful has become clutter 90% of the time.

This post relates closely to Tuesday’s post about over catering for guest except that it often stretches further than just the linen closet, pantry and kitchen cupboards. Some grandparents houses contain enough toys, children’s books, board games, televisions, luggage, old unused sporting equipment, toiletries, stationery and even space than is sensible to maintain. This is especially so as age creeps up on us. It is simply a fact that as we get older keeping cleanliness and order just gets harder.

Now back to the concept of ~ “…what was once constantly useful has become clutter 90% of the time.” Once the children leave home there is a good chance that if they haven’t moved somewhere just down the street or across town they are going to want to come home to visit. Even with the possibility that they will eventually have your grandchildren in tow that doesn’t mean you need to have a houseful of stuff all year while most of it is only being used occasionally when family arrive to visit. With three or four adults in the home during visits to maintain order the household can run efficiently with less stuff for short periods of time.

Here are some examples ~

• You don’t need a ten seat dining suite. When the guests arrive sit the adults around the ~ smaller more appropriate for you ~ table and let the kids eat in front of the TV or bring in the outdoor setting in for them to sit at.  This will probably become one of the things the grandchildren love about coming to grandmas.
• You only need enough cutlery and crockery to cater to yourselves and your visitors at one sitting. They can be washed and dried before the next meal. If something needs reusing in the same sitting then give it a quick rinse.
• When the grandchildren come to visit I will almost guarantee they will bring plenty of entertainment with them. iPods, PSPs, Nintendo DS’s, perhaps a book to read and maybe even iPads or laptops. So there is really no need to stock enough toys to cater for them living there permanently. I remember visiting my grandparents when I was young and we always managed to entertain ourselves with the few toys they had to offer. We mostly made our own fun, digging in the dirt, pottering around discovering what was in the back sheds, helping bake, visiting other relatives, playing with the kids next door who we only saw two or three times a year and going to the local park to play on the swings.
• We discussed towels, sheets and other bedding on Tuesday so we should be savvy about that now.  In the event that lots of visitors converge at once they can always bring sleeping bags for the kids who can then camp out together on the lounge room floor or the sofas.
• One pot cooking is a great way to cater for guests with the odd roast dinner thrown in and a takeout meal every now and again to relieve the pressure of a kitchen that isn’t overflowing with equipment.
• People generally bring their own toiletries so there is no need to be overstocked in this area. An extra bar of soap or two should be all you need.
• When you had a houseful of kids attending school it always paid to carry a good stock of stationery items However those days are gone and now this equipment rarely leaves the home so just the few items you use all the time and a couple of spare pens is all you will likely need.

So if you are in this position ~ where the kids have left home or even if the kids have just moved to another stage in life within the home~ take a look around you home and determine what you really need 90% of the time and minimise the rest.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter tools or equipment you rarely if ever use. Consider that you could borrow these items when you are in need from those who do actually use theirs. In some cases these items are so expensive that it would be cheaper to pay someone to do the job for you when the rare occasion arrises rather than maintain ownership.

Today’s Declutter Item

Let’s face in the unlikely event that we were to have so many guests that we didn’t have enough wine glasses I am sure no one would mind drinking from our water glasses. These two glass are odd ones out and excess to our usual requirement so they are off to the thrift store.

Excess and odd wine glasses

Eco Tip For The day

Consider online magazine subscription rather than wasting paper.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

At the end of every school year, I volunteer to take home all the lost and found from my daughters’ school. I look through it, sort it, wash it, fold it, and give it to charity. The amount of lost and found (or as the Head of School calls it, “Lost and Sometimes Found”) is absolutely amazing.  At the end of this school year, I had 20 expensive metal water bottles (one still had a clear $25 price tag on it), a dozen lunch bags in good condition, probably 50 items of clothing worthy of the thrift store, and 5 or 6 coats, including one very nice Columbia brand coat.

Such waste!

Colleen once wrote a post, which I cannot locate, about “What if I had just one?” Just one pencil, just one coat, just one pair of scissors, just one water bottle and one lunch sack?

Overbuying has to be part of the explanation for this phenomena. In my house, the girls have two water bottles each – one large and one small, and they each have one lunch bag. If the bag doesn’t come home, they take their lunch in a plastic sack, which in itself is a reminder to check the lost and found. But if you overbuy, then each item has less value and less chance of staying with its owner.

When my daughters first starting attending school where they had to provide their own supplies, I was absolutely horrified by the list: 2 boxes of 8 markers, 6 glue sticks, 4 packs of post-it notes, and my winner for most ridiculous: 48 pencils. 48 pencils times 15 girls equals 720 pencils per school year per classroom! How many third-world classrooms could be outfitted with 720 pencils? I thought it was because the girls went to private school, but my public school friends told me that their lists were similarly excessive.

Why would you value a single pencil when there are 719 more in your classroom?

It’s so easy to overbuy when things are “2 for 1” or “Buy 1, get 1 at half price”? I know I used to do it too. But it’s just not necessary. It’s bad for the environment, bad for your check book, and devalues each and every item, making each one more likely to be lost, discarded, or shoved to the back of the cabinet.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter an aspirational item. Something you aspire to getting around to using or trying one day but you know one day is unlikely to come.

Today’s Declutter Item

I would like to say this is the last of the snow gear but there is still a snowboard out in the garage to list on ebay before that chapter of our lives is behind us. It is one step closer though and that is all that counts. I sold this jacket on ebay on the third attempt.

Ski/Snowboard Jacket

Eco Tip For The Day

Donate or sell under utilised items in your home in the hope that it will prevent someone else, who might have a use for them, from having to buy new.

* * * * * * *

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

My husband and I had a garage decluttering session the weekend before last. Let me just say that the garage gets regular attention as we get more and more ruthless with our decluttering. It is also the holding area for the items decluttered from the house ~ prior to trips to the thrift store and ebay auctions and for those procrastination items awaiting decision ~ so the landscape is constantly changing out there.

There are also items that have been stored there for some time that, if we are to be honest with ourselves, are really just “I might need/want it someday” items. Some of those items didn’t make the cut this time like…

• Ikea peanut table that gets used maybe twice a year when we have a neighbourhood get-together. I can always borrow a table for this purpose from one of my neighbours or friends.
• The original boxes for packaging up small electronic items when we move. Small items that aren’t really that fragile don’t need to be packed in their original boxes.
• The folding photo screen that has been in the house for several months that I put aside for my daughter. The reality is that it will probably always be harder to get it to her than it is worth.
• Tools and other equipment that are never used. Unused items that came in sets of which only some items are helpful to us and other items that were useful to us in the past but are no longer.
• Like the picnic rug that hasn’t been used in the five years we have lived here. We really aren’t picnic people and even if we do decide to dine on the grass we can always use a couple of old towels or other more versatile rugs in the house.
• The clothes rack that I would have a use for on ironing day if it fitting in the house but it doesn’t so there isn’t much point it keeping it.

Many of these things are useful items that once served us well and I find these old faithful items harder to part with than most other things including sentimental items. I obviously place a lot of worth in usefulness. But what better way to honour these items but to set them free to be useful to someone else.

At first I held back on the peanut table ~ which I forgot to photograph ~ and the photo screen but my desire to decrease the quantity of stuff in my garage overtook my desire to keep these things. This is usually the case with all of my decluttering. If there is a space that I want cleared my desire to minimise will usurp my desire to keep things just about every time. Items need to have a legitimate and immediate use once they are in my radar or they will most likely be out of here.

With that said there are still a few items in the garage that won’t be there for long. There is a corner display stand that is just waiting for a friend to scrutinise and possibly claim, two organising container that I am awaiting possible first dibs by friends, a box of books that I am going to double check to see if my daughter still wants and two bags that belong to my husband that may or may not also finally succumb to our decluttering efforts. I am also still looking forward to the day my daughter can finally collect her stuff which also resides on my garage shelves. My current goal is to reduce the garage storage to one set of shelves plus the under-stair cupboard that is in the back righthand corner. I am not far from that actually.

All I can say is it is an ongoing process. I am working at it at a speed that I am content with. The progress is evident from the photos below. And taking into consideration that there may not be a garage as such in the next home we live in I had better hope I can get it down to a least my current goal and perhaps even a  little further. Actually I have no doubt that I can achieve this and more. Already as I look at the last photo in the group I can see more things that I am confident will not be there this time next year.

The progress made over that last two plus years.

Today’s Mini Mission

What is on your walls? Is there something hanging there simply out of habit that you don’t really want or even particularly like? Now is the time to declutter it.

Today’s Declutter Items

Below are the items removed from the garage last week. They were all donated to the thrift store. What is not shown in the pictures ~ because I forgot to photograph them ~ was the recycling bin full of cardboard that was eliminated from the under-stair cupboard.

The items removed from the garage last week.

Eco Tip For The Day

Buy local produce where possible as this cuts down on fuel required to transport products from further away.

 * * * * * * *

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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