Declutter a couple of old shabby shoes that you no long choose to use. … [Read more...]
One readers clutter nemesis
I received an email from Christie this week asking for some advice. I'll launch right in with her email, followed by my advice, and then I would love you all to add your thoughts on the subject. Hopefully somewhere among all that advice there will be the spark to help ignite a flame of determination in her to let go of these items standing in the way of a beautiful uncluttered life. Christie's email Hi Colleen. I am a single mother with a long list of things to do...always. Life is a process I know and I can't tackle everything at one time. I try to heed my own advice I give my … [Read more...]
The endless to-do list
Isn't it baffling that no matter how much you reduce your belongings and simplify your life, there still seems to always be an endless to-do list. I think it is highly possible, at least in my case, that while I am un-complicating one area of my life I am filling that void with something else. Actually as I write this, I am sure I published a post on this very subject not so long back. Nevertheless I am going to prattle on about it again today. If for no other reason than the fact that I obviously didn't listen to my own advice the last time. Sometimes even the things we enjoy in life … [Read more...]
Intentional Living by Deb J
In my last post I talked about how I had been reading too much and needing to be more intentional with my reading. This post I want to talk about being intentional about what we do so that we don’t have cluttered lives. I am so excited about the decluttering progress we are seeing from people who comment on this blog. While we all have places where we struggle, we are all moving forward and working to break through those struggles. The majority of this decluttering is that of ridding ourselves of the things we accumulate over the years. We have talked some about decluttering our … [Read more...]
A Post from Deb J ~ Reading Too Much
I have discovered something about myself. I read too much. Yes, I really said that. I definitely read too much. I love to read and I am a very fast reader. I read 2-3 books in an evening depending upon the length of the book. I was pretty happy with the decluttering I have done over the years. I used to have an extensive library. I once sold enough books to pay for one semester of college. While I never accumulated that many books again, I did have a bunch of books that I decluttered over the last few years. Then I started using a Kindle and had over 1000 books on it. I … [Read more...]
Old habits don’t have to die hard
I was talking to Wendy F the other day about breaking old habits. Smoking, I believe, is a very difficult habit to break, as is overeating, chewing your nails etc. I have a theory about this. I think that just trying to stop a habit is difficult. The ultimate reward can seem a long way off and hard to achieve. In this case the whole focus is on trying not to do something that, in some cases, you have spent a very long time doing and enjoying. While replacing an old bad habit with new better behaviour has immediate rewards even if they are only small. An immediate reward is far more … [Read more...]
Quick purge or lifestyle change
More than one person commented last week that they can't believe they are still finding things to declutter after years at the task. And what I say to that is ~ rejoice and be glad. Usually after most people do the usual kind of quick declutter they find they are back at square one a couple of years later. With a slow and deliberate declutter one gives a lot of thought to their habits of acquiring and holding on to stuff. Being aware of these habits makes it much easier not to make the same mistakes in the future. The reason why years later they are still finding things to declutter is … [Read more...]
Declutter item of the day ~ Fear
I received the following comment from creativeme on Wednesday and thought it would be a shame if anyone missed it so had to make a post of it. Also I wanted to add my 10c worth, of course! It was meant to publish yesterday but it wasn't finished and I was sick. So here it is, better late than never. "I’m getting better at this. Especially with the food! I have found that I go through this journey of letting go of stuff, what I am really letting go of is FEAR. I think I was afraid that I might not have enough in the future or it would never go on sale again or that I might not be able to … [Read more...]
Don’t return to old habits
How many times have you decluttered in the past but then a year or so, or maybe more, later you find yourself back at square one. This is often the outcome when the task of decluttering is the focus and not the cause. In fact many times in the past I have decluttered only with the intention of making room for new stuff. Stuff I didn't even realise would be my future clutter. The thing that was different this time for me was that my focus was mainly on my intent to remain decluttered in the future. With that intent in mind it is helpful to analyse the clutter as you let it go and recognise … [Read more...]
Decluttering & discovering your true self ~ by Andréia
Not so long ago, Colleen wrote an excellent post about discovering who we really are when decluttering. The post was “Who are youâ€. I thought that post was great. It encouraged me to think about whom I had been before decluttering and who I am now. It made me think about what I want out of life, work and my home environment. Throughout my decluttering journey many times I have struggled with stuff related to who I was a long time ago as opposed to whom I am now. One example of that were my cassette tapes which I got rid of. While they were all important to my teenage self and listened … [Read more...]