Today’s Decluttered Item
This is just a small sample of the dozen or so that I have given to my children in the last week.

The beginning of the year is always a good time for a post about the benefits of owning and wanting less stuff. By wanting less stuff I mean not wanting for stuff, being free from the desire to acquire. That combined with the benefits of having less stuff to care for and accommodate is reason enough for learning to let go.

Also at the beginning of the year is when new readers arrive at a blog like mine looking for help with the process of decluttering. So a post pointing out the advantages of letting go is always a good way to encourage a person to jump in feet first and get on with the task.

Since I have written several post like this in the past I figured I would just share one with you that I have posted previously. Those who haven’t read it will benefit from it and those who read it along time ago can also benefit from a reminder of why they are making the effort of going through this process. So here is a post I wrote back in August of 2011. Enjoy!

When we talk about decluttering our goal is to end up with less stuff cluttering up our homes and lives. But after living for so long having and always wanting, more the word less sounds like something negative, not a good thing. It exudes a vibe of going without or lacking in some way. And that doesn’t sound at all pleasurable. But in reality the opposite is true. So instead of dwelling on the idea that less is a negative thing why not focus on the positive. How does less equal more?

• Less stuff to take care of = More time to spend doing the things you enjoy. More time to spend with the people you love.
• Less stuff cluttering up your home = More space for comfort and it makes your home seem bigger.
• Less money spent acquiring stuff = More financial security for the things you really need like food, shelter, health care etc.
• Less Money worries = More piece of mind.
• Less happiness tied to material “wealth” = More focus on what really matters in life ~ Friends, family, activities that help others not just yourself etc.
• Less desire for material items = More freedom from the strain of having to work so hard to earn the money to pay for the things to quench that desire.
• The Less products you consume = The better it is for the environment and the supply of natural resources.
• Less things you own that tie you down = More freedom to escape to do the things you enjoy like travel.

This list could go on and on. Think about the material things you desire then think about how much you need them verses the impact they have on your life, your family and the environment. Think also of the way your money could be better spent.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something whose purpose is to wrap around something. Perhaps a belt, a set of sheets, and old scarf, excessive rubber bands…

Eco Tip for the Day

Only run your dishwasher when it is absolutely full.

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

When we talk about decluttering our goal is to end up with less stuff cluttering up our homes and lives. But after living for so long having and always wanting more the word less sounds like something negative, not a good thing. It exudes a vibe of going without, lack and life being not so pleasurable. But in reality the opposite is true. So instead of dwelling on the idea that less is a negative thing why not focus on the positive. How does less equal more.

• Less stuff to take care of = More time to spend doing the things you enjoy. More time to spend with the people you love.
• Less stuff cluttering up your home = More space for comfort and it makes your home seem bigger.
• Less money spent acquiring stuff = More financial security for the things you really need like food, shelter, health care etc.
• Less Money worries = More piece of mind.
• Less happiness tied to material “wealth” = More focus on what really matters in life ~ Friends, family, activities that help others not just yourself etc.
• Less desire for material items = More freedom from the strain of having to work so hard to earn the money to pay for the things to quench that desire.
• The Less products you consume = The better it is for the environment and the supply of natural resources.
• Less things you own that tie you down = More freedom to escape to do the things you enjoy like travel.

This list could go on and on. Think about the material things you desire then think about how much you need them verses the impact they have on your life, your family and the environment. Think also of the way your money could be better spent.

Today’s Declutter Item

One less item of aspirational clutter. This necklace is something from among my craft supplies the was given to me by my mother. I have decided that it is time to reduce my beading supplies and this necklace (or the beads I had planned to deconstruct it for) are excess to my needs. I will be making more visits to my beading supplies over the next couple of weeks. The more I decluttering in this area the better I feel.

Too much of a good thing

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I love the days when I spend half the day cleaning the house and then still somehow find enough giddy-up to vacuum out the car as well. Not to mention churn out a blog post, find my declutter item, chat with my boy, have a coffee with a friend, answer comments…

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Dan and I were sitting in the living room recently. He looked around with great satisfaction and said, “This is the new messy.” I wasn’t sure what he meant. I looked around too. There were a couple of things on the coffee table that didn’t belong, a stray pair of shoes, the dog beds were sort of tossed to the side, and a project of mine that I had basically abandoned but not put away was sitting on the floor. I said, “It is kind of messy in here. What do you mean?” He replied, “I mean, if we have company, we could have this room completely together in an hour, including dusting and cleaning the floor.”

The new messy. I like it. Believe me, I’d had more than my fill of the old messy, where we couldn’t have company because it would take too long to get the house together.

How did we get there, and more importantly, how can you get to the new messy in your own home?

One day at a time, one item at a time.

Your house didn’t start looking like a toy store, a book shop, a paper factory, or a junk shop in one day, and it won’t be remedied in one day. It’s taken me more than a year to get to the new messy. It may take you six months or three years, but once you get started, eliminate one or two items a day, and you keep after it day after day, your situation will improve.

What will the new messy look like to you? Will it be defined as being able to sit on the sofa without moving a pile of items? Finding something in a drawer the first time you look, in the first drawer you look in? Having company stop by and being able to say without flinching, “Won’t you please come in?” Or maybe it’s being able to downsize to a house half of your current size or being able to actually count the number of items that you own without running out of numbers? Whatever your goal, you can get there one day at a time, one item at a time.

Today’s Declutter Item

I seem to be finding that I need less and less kitchen storage containers these days. Or is it just that they actually haven’t been used for some time and I am only now coming to terms with letting them go. Getting some return on your items can make it a lot easier to part with them. I sold this Tupperware container for $10 on ebay. The lady who bought it lived locally so saved $10 in postage by picking it up. She ended up giving me a tip so I actually got $14.00 for it.(Thank Carmel)

Another Tupperware piece sold on ebay

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Last week and today I have been trying to figure out some link issues that two of my readers have been having. In the process these two lovely ladies have written such beautiful stories and thank yous to me about their declutter missions and how my blog has helped them along the way. It is gratifying to know how my unique approach to decluttering has worked for people that could not find the solution any other way. I have received many lovely stories and thank you messages over the last 18 months and I am grateful for each and every one of them. It is very time consuming to produce a post five days a week and respond to all the wonderful comments I receive. But let me tell you it is a labour of love that is well worth the effort. Thank you all for keeping me company on my journey.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Recently I spent Sunday looking at open houses. All of the houses were clean and nicely presented, and all of the garages were full of stuff. In some houses, the stuff in the garage was unpacked; in others, it was already in boxes. Boy, oh boy, did all these folks have a lot of stuff. I asked each of the real estate agents why the owners were selling. There was a divorce, a job loss, an unexpected opportunity to buy a nicer house in the same neighborhood, and a new business starting in a different part of the country. For the most part, the need to move took these families somewhat by surprise.

Back in March, when my husband was unexpectedly presented with a new job possibility, I asked if we should have our houses decluttered enough to move at the drop of the hat.  (You can refresh your memory here.) As a group we decided that there was decluttering for everyday life, and even more severe decluttering for moving.

Now I’m reflecting on this again. None of these families saw the move coming more than a month or two in advance.  When Dan and I got married we did have a fair amount of time to plan our move. Later when we moved to our current house, it happened more suddenly. I was pregnant with our second child and thought we needed an additional bedroom. Also, we lived very close to the freeway, and there was talk of expanding the freeway two additional lanes. Dan still says my thinking was addled by hormones, but when I decided we were moving, it happened pretty fast.

You don’t need to add “have a garage sale and get rid of 20 years worth of stuff” to your to-do list if life throws you a curve or a great opportunity.  Getting rid of things that you no longer need, want, or value will allow you to negotiate the still and rough waters of life with more ease and grace.

Today’s Declutter Item

I am not sure why it took so long for this calculator to come to my notice but I am sure glad it did because it fetched a nice $41.00 on eBay.  

Scientific Calculator sold on eBay for $41.00

Something I Am Grateful For Today

My little boy turned 20 today which reminds me how grateful I am that he recovered so well from his accident last year. I am also grateful for how close he and his sister are. They have a lot to bind them together both as sibling and as friends.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

• having more space
• ease of finding things
• freedom from the shame of a messy environment
• freedom from buying duplicates (or triplicates!) of an item because you can’t locate it
• feeling of accomplishment for achieving something that was difficult for you
• pride in reselling your goods (I have started sending every penny I make reselling to my mortgage company, and each item out of the house gives me an extra feeling of satisfaction now.)
• knowing that you are donating your goods to charity where both the charity and the next owner will benefit from your generosity
• realizing that you are learning new habits that will help you manage your money more successfully in the future
• realizing that you are learning new habits that are beneficial to the environment
• freeing yourself of the uncomfortable feeling that having too many projects that you’ll “get to some day”
• learning new shopping habits
• spending less time cleaning will allow you to spend more time on more valuable pursuits
• having the encouragement of a team of fellow declutterers here at 365 Less Things

Thermos Flask

Something I Am Grateful For Today

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

The spare room ~ Always ready for guests

Why bother to declutter? What is it really going to do for me? How is it going to make my life better? I am sure these are the first questions people ask when they begin on the journey of decluttering and/or minimalism.

I know we have discussed this topic many times before but we can always do with a refresher course especially if we have lost momentum. So today I will share with you this chapter from my free ebook as it covers some great benefits of living a decluttered life.

The Joys Of Clutter Reduction

I would like to point out the joy that can be found in reducing the clutter in your home. This joy can be appreciated from day one, not just at the end of the journey. See if you can identify with the joy of:

• A Fresh Start ~ It is never too late to begin a new phase in your life. Cut yourself some slack and do not dwell on the past. Acknowledge the things you got right and learn the lesson of your follies but either way do not dwell on regrets, just enjoy the fresh start you are making.
• More Space ~ It really does feel good as the clutter starts to disappear and you begin to feel the freedom of empty space growing around you. This feeling can be appreciated from the very first item and increases over time. Take a moment to focus on that freedom with every little piece of clutter you choose to remove and fill the process with joy rather than dread.
• Less Maintenance ~ It stands to reason that the fewer items cluttering up your home, the easier it is to keep your surroundings clean and tidy. Every item you remove is one less thing you need to maintain in any way whether dusting, cleaning or storing. Also house cleaning will be simpler if there are fewer items to be moved in order to access the surface under them such as benches and floors. And you gotta love that!
• Guilt Relief ~ We generally carry a burden of guilt for every item associated with the waste of money or lack of use. For every one of these items that leaves our home there is a relief from that guilt so long as we learned the lesson of needless waste.
• Giving Back ~ Whether we sell items to grateful buyers on eBay, donate items to charity, give items away to friends and family or recycle them, there is a good feeling that accompanies each action. Focus on those good feelings and it will spur you on in your quest.
• Appreciation ~ You will find that you have a higher appreciation for the items you choose to keep and their role in your household.
• Being Environmentally Responsible ~ The key to decluttering is not to reclutter. For every unnecessary item you do not purchase, and every item that you give to someone in need, you are doing a small deed to save the environment. For every item that is manufactured there is a cost whether in natural resources or carbon emissions, so the less you contribute to the supply and demand of these products the better hope there is for our planet’s survival.
• Simplifying -There is more to this topic than the title implies, having an uncluttered home and embracing the principles of staying uncluttered can simplify your life. I have discovered the freedom that clutter reduction has added to my life and that has allowed me to enjoy the present and foresee a better future.

Now I will share with you a very short story on my most recent joy of clutter reduction…

I received a call from my parents Tuesday to let me know they are coming to visit me on Wednesday and will be staying for a week. Now my parents don’t live around the corner they live 900 kms away so it isn’t as though they drop in all the time. So you may think there has been a mad scramble overnight to get prepared for this visit. I have made a list below to show you what was involved in this mad scramble so you will understand the joys of decluttering…

• Put clean sheets on the spare bed.

No I didn’t forget to finish the list, that’s it! The spare room is spotless, the house is spotless, I don’t have to clear anything out of the way and I am ready to take visitors anytime at the drop of a hat. Now if that isn’t a huge benefit of decluttering I don’t know what is.

I now need to add this paragraph to my ebook…

Less Embarrassment ~ Being able to welcome visitors into your home at any given time, without a moments notice and without feeling ashamed about the appearance of you home is a big plus. If you have so much stuff that it can’t be stored away neatly the oposite situation can be a real possibility for you.

Today’s Declutter Item

Things that made me happy, made me laugh, made me feel grateful, fascinated me or I thought were just plain awesome.

• Not having to prepare my house for quests.
• A nice sunny day to get the sheets dry on the clothesline.
• Having the car to run errands with. ~ I finally got that load of stuff to the thrift shop.
• The friendly staff at my local hardware store. ~ They were extra friendly and extra helpful today and I appreciate that.
• Reading the book my daughter wrote about me. ~ Here is one of the things she wrote. I’ve never known anyone who is so loved by all of the people in their life. You almost glow with a personality that is impossible to deny. There should be so many more people like you in the world. ~ I don’t know if all that’s true but if she believes it then that is pretty special and I am a very lucky mum.

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