I have never encountered a kitchen that wasn't designed for clutter. There are nearly always cupboards in them that are too deep or high for practicality. These spaces are designed to store seldom used items. Everyone knows that the things you use all the time are the ones that are in the easy to reach places. In the fronts of the deeper cupboards and in the ones at the most convenient height. So I think it is entirely possible that everything else, at the very least, boarders on clutter and in most cases is clutter. Yesterday I was doing some reorganising of my craft supplies and tools. … [Read more...]
Control Issues
All that "I might need it one day!" clutter is about control. Control over your future, a future that may never unveil itself. A future created in your own mind that won't allow you to relinquish items you don't have a use for right now, probably never will and in all honesty, although used in the past, were never really needed even then. What tragic outcome would ensue in the future if, today, you decluttered that spare potato peeler? If you got rid of that ever growing pile of ragged bath towels you save in case of a huge spill? If you put all those magazine clippings in the recycling bin … [Read more...]
Fourth Thursdays with Deb J ~ Sew Many
We have talked about this before but I wanted to bring it up again. This is another area I would like to declutter but there is resistance. It’s all that thread and other sewing supplies. I don’t know how well you can see this in the pictures but Mom has about 60 spools of thread and about 100 various colors of embroidery floss. I can see having all of these when she used to sew and I cross stitched. Now she barely gets something hemmed and I haven’t cross stitched in 10 years or more. Why do we need all this? Mom says, “We might need a particular color some day and they … [Read more...]
Reverse Rationalising
One of my readers commented this week that she often finds herself trying to rationalise keeping items rather than letting them go. I have two pieces of advice about this behaviour. 1. If you find yourself doing this just put the item aside and move on to something that is easier for you to declutter. My experience has been that we get better at this decluttering thing with experience. The experience of performing it and the pleasant experience of realising the advantages of owning less stuff. I don't need to repeat again what they are. There is nearly always something that we a willing to … [Read more...]
Examples of today’s mini mission
Today's mini mission is ~ Declutter one hand powered kitchen gadget you don’t use enough to warrant wasting the space on. So let me give you some examples of the things like this that I can remember decluttering over my four year mission. Hopefully that will give you inspiration to let go of a few yourself. Flour Sieve ~ I had had my flour sieve since before I was married. It used to belong to my Grandmother. I used it most times when I baked. However in a mission to minimise and simplify in my kitchen I decided that I didn't need this item. I already had three progressive sized … [Read more...]
Fourth Thursdays with Deb J ~ Why oh why do we still have this?
I think it was two years ago when I talked about all the jewelry we have. We went through it all and got rid of about half. We still have too much in my mind. Most of it is never used. Some because we have nothing it really looks good with and some because it just isn’t stuff I like. I’ve thought about suggesting to Mom that as we find new clothes we make sure they will go with those pieces we really like.  Part of the problem is that in Indiana we had real winter and we wore sweaters and turtle necked shirts that many of the necklaces went with. We also wore suits or … [Read more...]
Garden Clutter and Aspirational Delusions
I catch the train a lot and love nosing at the back of people’s homes that we pass en route. I can’t help myself from thinking over some of them, that half an hour of putting things away at the onset of autumn would make such a difference to the look of a garden that never look their best during the wet dull days of winter. Of course, fortunately loads of strangers can’t see my back garden from a train :D We only have a small back garden – a very typical Victorian ‘backyard’ with high 8ft walls. The History Bit In the UK, the Victorian period is so named after the period … [Read more...]
Moni got published
I received an email some time ago from an online magazine, called Get Organized, asking if they could publish an article that they had seen on my blog. The article was written by Moni, one of our regular readers and commenters. She has been a big part of our discussions here at 365 Less Things for quite a while now and has written an article for us every now and again. She was happy for them to publish the article in their magazine and I received a follow up email last week saying that it had gone to print. Below is a copy of the article in the magazine and I have also included the original … [Read more...]
Decluttering, the cure for retail therapy
I was wondering what I should write about today when it occurred to me that I have just past the four year anniversary of blogging about decluttering here at 365 Less Things. That got me thinking about how things have changed and in some cases how things haven't. My living circumstances have certainly changed, having reached the goal I originally started out trying to achieve. I am a little amazed that the goal never really changed over that time. However, my principles of decluttering haven't changed at all. So today I thought, just for fun I would dig up a blog post from about this time … [Read more...]
On the subject of craft again
As anyone who has been reading here for a while knows, I have decluttered a lot of craft stuff over the last four years. My goodness, it actually has been more than four years now that I have been blogging about decluttering. Anyway, I had a tonne of paper crafting supplies which I reduced down to an amount I was happy with. I had designated a space I wanted them to fit into and achieved that goal. You can go to my Before and After page for a look if you haven't already seen the results. I did not declutter them all my supplies I spent very little time using them for the last few years. This … [Read more...]