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...]
Lingering Impulses
This post is especially for those with lingering impulses to do one, some or all of the following... Impulse shop. Keep things that you once loved or found very useful even though you no longer do. Have a had time resisting stuff you can be creative with, repurpose or revamp. Let me begin with a little example not related to clutter. I like a good cup of coffee or tea. I will admit I drink far too much of the stuff. This has been going on all my life. It is a regimented habit too, just like my eating.  generally I'll have a cup, of either, when I first get up in the morning, … [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...]
No Regrets
On our daily walks by the beach my husband and I pass by a little rock pool area. As we walked by the other day I wondered something of Steve that not one minute later he put into words ~ "Do you sometimes regret decluttering the snorkelling gear?" After laughing and telling him I had just wondering if he though that, my unreserved response was no. You see we had had that snorkelling gear for at least twenty years when I finally decluttered it. It hadn't been used for about nineteen of those twenty years. The fact is that if I hadn't began this declutter mission, and let go of all the things … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Mourning My Dancing Shoes
My daughter, who is 13, is starting to take ballroom dance lessons. I'm happy for her, but this new passion has caused my first case of declutter regret. Yes, after 3 years of decluttering (June 1 was my anniversary), I finally caught the bug. It took someone else to cure me. You see, my husband and I used to ballroom dance, as well. We took lessons for 4 hours a week for 2 years and went to many dances up until my new dancer was born. I held onto my dance shoes - a pair of black practice shoes and a pair of gold performance shoes - for years. Dance shoes are pampered and get very little … [Read more...]
How much do you really love those nicknacks?
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 … [Read more...]
Mini Mission Monday ~ Someday Clutter
Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and "fun" for you to achieve some quick decluttering. The theme for tomorrow's post is Someday so I thought I might as well make it the theme for the mini missions this week as well. I won't elaborate too much on someday because I will cover that in full tomorrow. Simply put though, holding stuff, or worse still buying stuff, for someday is a major … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Is Your Clutter a Pile of “Should”?
My in-laws are visiting, and I was thinking about my father-in-law. He really likes to do home improvement projects, to work on his own vehicle, and he's done some truly outstanding woodworking projects. My husband is not really like his father. No one else I know works on their own car, my husband can only do the simplest of woodworking, and although he does home improvement projects, he doesn't love it. Yet at least some of his clutter reflects who he thinks he should be (see his Dad, above) and not who he really is. The fancy name for this is "aspirational clutter," but I'm going to call … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – Reaching into the Archives
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I revisted the archives from September 1, 2010 for this post. It was titled "Cindy's Take on Avoiding Recluttering." This time I have published it with gift buying in mind. As appropriate, insert "the gift recipient" in place of "I" It’s bound to happen sometime; you’re going to have to break down and buy something. Before you do, consider these factors: Do I need it? Do I want it? Did I come into the store looking for this item, or did it just catch my eye? Would I be criticized if my spouse or family members knew that I had purchased this? Can I … [Read more...]
How Do You Know You Need to Declutter?
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom While we have plenty of old pros here at 365 Less Things, we have plenty of drop-by readers and lurkers, some of whom are probably in denial about their need to declutter. So here's my checklist, roughly arranged from the most obvious to the most subtle clues that you should use if you think that maybe you don't really need to declutter. You rent a storage unit. Your garage, basement, or attic looks like a storage unit. You have a whole room devoted to storage. You have a door in your home that you cannot open. You have a door in your home that you cannot … [Read more...]