Actually I am not even sure what day I am up to with the Thing A Day mission. I have been so busy with grandparenting this week that I don’t know if I’m coming or going. So lets call it 12, 13 and 14 and I’ll go back and do the count when I get a spare minute. 

Here are the three items for those days and then I want to talk just a little about a non related subject to my items.

Now on that non related topic. The kitchen and all it’s clutter. So while grandparenting I have taken it upon myself to do some decluttering at my son and daughter-in-law’s house. And being that the baby is asleep a lot upstairs, the kitchen, which is downstairs, has been the centre of my attention. So far I have focused on pantry items and have thrown out a far quantity of out of date food stuffs and also began some use it up challenges on things that will expire soon if not eaten.

And once again it has come to my attention that not only are kitchens one of the most likely places for clutter in any home but they are also often so poorly designed. Clutter is bound to accumulate in cabinets of any kind that have deep shelves so why they have so many in the basic kitchen I will never know. This is why I have converted a lot of my shelves to weight bearing drawers. These can be slid out to reveal everything at a quick glance. Unfortunately the home the I am working on is even more poorly designed than most and doesn’t even have a proper pantry, has a very deep corner cupboard where plastic containers, pot and pans are kept and one very tiny thing deep cabinet in an odd shaped corner and way too many high cabinets that are hard to get at.

So I am going to try to come up with some cheap, simple solutions to try to alleviate some of the issues with the kitchen at hand in the hope of making it more functional . Meanwhile I have at least cleared some clutter and identified items that are good for some use it up challenges.

Take a long hard look at your kitchen and see what you can declutter, consider getting it better organised ,maybe reconsider how you stock it, or perhaps all three. Because inefficiency and waste is a hard pill to swallow.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

So it seems that most of the excess in my home is crafting items. Not that that would come as a surprise to most of my long term readers. So once again today my decluttering turns in that direction.

This brings to my attention the problem of acquiring things that end up partly used or, worse still, not used at all. This often happens when one encounters things that they like the look of, and acquire them with the intention of using them in the future when an occasion or inspiration arrives.

Often the compulsion to acquire such things in the moment is the fear that if you don’t take the opportunity, then and there, that the item/s won’t be available in the future. Given we tend to do this over and over and often end up rejecting them at a later date. You would think we would learn from our mistakes. Yes we have success with this occasionally when we actually do use the thing’s but more often we don’t.

So what we need to do is resist the temptation because even if we miss the opportunity, so what! There are far more worthwhile things worth regretting in our lifetimes then whether we didn’t by that pretty dress or that lovely piece of scrapbook paper, etc. Because my experience is that something as good, if not better, will come along in the future to purchase when you actually have a use for it. And hopefully you might never have a need to purchase it at all, saving money and space in your home.

Anyway that is enough about that. Just give it some thought in relation to your stuff.

And here are my decluttering efforts for the last three days.

1. The first batch of Christmas cards I am sending out this year. You may wonder why I would consider them to be decluttering items. That is because I made so many cards to sell last year that not only have I had more than enough for my shop and to fill other orders I still have leftovers at home and expect not to sell all the stock I have. So sending these out reduces that excess just a little.
2. Cheap stamp pads that aren’t good for crafting.
3. Excess ribbon that I put in with the Freecycle giveaway before I delivered it this week.

 

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

So once again I have been into the craft supplies to find some items I am happy to relinquish. I listed them on Freecycle.org and they were claimed and should be collected on Thursday by a lady who is getting them for a friend who loves to scrapbook but lives on a low income. I so love it when my excess stuff goes to those who otherwise could not afford to enjoy them. In fact it makes it easier to let things go that I might otherwise cling on to. I hope to make a connection with this person so that in future I might be able to gift them some more of my crafting supplies. 

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

The item for day three is a batch of cleaning rags etc, from my laundry, that don’t perform very well. What use is a cleaning rag the doesn’t leave you with a perfect finish. So these are going in the bin. I’d donate them but that would only be foisting the problem onto someone else. 

The items form day four are a selection of greeting cards that I have filled out ready to post for the December birthdays. They may not seem like a declutter item to you but the truth is that I have been so slack at posting birthday cards this year that the stash I have has become like clutter to me as it is so slow moving. So actually getting around to doing this feels like decluttering. I hope to be more organised next year so I reduce my stash to a reasonable amount so it doesn’t take up much room in the house. To explain my slackness in the this area of my life I would like to point out that it takes Australia post about a week to get anything anywhere these day and my Google calendar has been set to remind me a week in advance about upcoming events. When it comes to sending cards one needs a two week reminder in order to fill out the card and get to a postal box in order to mail it and then there is the procrastination factor. Well that’s my pathetic excuse anyway.

It has concerned me for a while that my posting here at 365 Less Things has been very sporadic, and that even has begun to occur with the Monday Mini Mission posts. I put this down to a couple of things. One is personal commitments that seem to take up so much of my time of late. And the other is that my interest in writing about decluttering has waned with my lack of a decluttering goal. 

This goal concept has always been a thing here at 365 Less Things but I didn’t realise how much of an encouragement it was for me until recently. With the lack of an actual goal to work towards when it comes to decluttering I have become a little bored of the task. That isn’t to say that I haven’t been decluttering at all, because with my constant decluttering of craft supplies the task certainly seems to be continuous. However sometimes it is so continuous that it seems never ending which becomes both tedious and feels futile. A problem which I have encouraged so many other readers to overcome by focusing on the one thing a day method. Ironic right?

So, I have decided to start to declutter one thing a day again. My goal at this point will be 30 days in duration and we shall see where it goes from there. I will be going to Japan just after Christmas for a couple of weeks over which time I will be taking a break but I dare say I will commence again on my return.

My intention is to go back to my original format of post my thing a day. Perhaps not every day but at least more often that my pathetic effort of late. But we shall see how that works out.

Join me in my quest if you please by also committing to the goal of one thing a day for a period of time. It gives you two goals, firstly the thing each day and also the long term goal of whatever period you choose to stick to it for. You might be surprised as to how inspiring that turns out to be.

So my thing for today is an evening gown that has been in my closet since before my original challenge began over seven years ago. I guess I thought I would eventually use it but since I have another gown, that also hasn’t been used in quite a while, I most certainly don’t need two of them for those very rare special special occasions. So here it is and out it goes.

Going through and decluttering your filing cabinet can be a nightmare when it has been neglected for a long time. So I have written a set of guidelines below that I use to declutter my files and to avoid paperwork buildup in the first place.

1. Don’t file anything you don’t need to keep. By “need” I mean absolutely should keep. Don’t allow anxiety to force you to keep documents that aren’t really important. Only keep tax papers for the government prescribed length of time then declutter them.
2. Switch to as many digital documents (bills, newsletters, school notes etc) as possible so the paper has less chance to invade your home and to build up.
3. Once a bill is paid, and the next statement comes through that confirms that, declutter the previous statement.
4. Pay bills by cheque or bank deposit so you have a permanent digital bank record of the transaction. This way you can be secure in decluttering paper statements.
5. Scan documents you declutter if you feel the need, rather than being worrying that you shouldn’t have parted with them.
6. Every time you file a paper under it’s specific label check that file to see if there is an older document that could be decluttered.
7. Use the smallest document/file holder necessary for your needs. This way you are forced to declutter it regularly or there won’t be room to add to it.

I hope you find this list of guidelines useful and that you will end up with a big reduction of paper in your file drawers and ultimately reduce the number of drawers you need.

I often get comments from people contradicting my suggestions regarding what to declutter and pleading their case on why they keep certain items or collections of things. Avid readers love their books, baking enthusiasts love a good range of pans and utensils, crafters, like myself, will cater to their craft, perhaps even over cater. There are also shoe lovers out there, fashionistas, modellers, family history caretakers, plant enthusiasts, collectors of all sorts of things…

The purpose of my blog is not to insist that we all live a completely minimalist lifestyle. I don’t, so it would be totally hypocritical of me to suggest such a thing. My intention here is simply to draw your attention to areas of your homes that may need considering when it comes to culling of unused and unloved items. And I am sure your intention here is to consider that advice in a bit to declutter your homes, which is why you read my blog in the first place. I don’t explain this in every article I write because I presume my readers are all aware of this however it doesn’t hurt for me to reinforce this, every now and again, in a post like this.

So lets talk a little about what decluttering is to each individual, because I would hate for people to spend time regretting decluttering items that they loved or were still useful to them, just because I suggested it in a post.  So here are a few examples to explain the concept of what is clutter and what isn’t to the individual.

I have one bottle of perfume is that too few? Some women would think so because they like to mix it up a little, something floral one day, something oriental the next. Some may even think I am very unsophisticated for this. I care little about their opinion because one is enough for me. I am sure also that they would have the same opinion of me because I only use one handbag and it doesn’t match all my shoes. Once again, I don’t care. I find life simpler with less choice.

On the other hand I have a plethora of craft supplies. And although I have way less than I did prior to my decluttering journey there is still an overabundance. To the less creative person my collection would seem ridiculous but to me they are a good variety that allows me to achieve the creativity I desire. It really is my only vice so I am happy to live with that. And I continue to use up supplies that I have no intention of ever replacing.

Someone else may only have two towels, two pair of shoes, one set of sheets but a display cabinet full of china handed down from a relative long passed. So what, minimalism is one thing to one person and something else to another. It is not up to anyone to decide what you care about and what you don’t, what is too much and what is too few.

Anyone reading my blog is here because they want to reduce what they own in order to free themselves of the restrictions that clutter can cause. Space restrictions, time restrictions, cash flow restrictions etc. Having the intention to declutter will set you in the right direction, then I am sure you are all capable of deciding in what areas you want to reduce and by how much. As momentum takes over you may get more adventurous but that is up to you. Be an individual and do it your way.

At the same time, if you are here reading my blog and defending every little thing you own as precious to you, while you home is cluttered to the rafters, then perhaps you need more help than I can give. Hoarding can be a serious issue and professional help is require to overcome such an issue. And in that case I would strongly suggest you seek medical help. Your GP is the first person to turn to and they will refer you on to the professional that can help you best.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

As you may have guessed, due to the lack of them, I struggle to come up with new posts these days, mostly because I declutter much less now, therefore the inspiration for posts isn’t constantly forthcoming. Today it occurred to me that I have been blogging about this subject for over six years now, so why not repost some of my old articles. They are still as relevant as they ever were, not everyone has read through all the archives and we could all do with a refresher of information previously disseminated. So without further adieu here is todays revisited post.

Take a look around your home to find items that you have been using constantly for many years. Items that you would never part with although maybe are outdated, getting a little shabby or just aren’t particularly aesthetically pleasing in any way. These items will likely have to reach natural attrition before they leave your home. Of course they don’t have to be shabby, they may be standing the test of time amazingly well. And thank goodness for that if they are items that are useful and/or beautiful to you. Think about what is unique about this item that causes you to appreciate it so much.

Think about what led you to acquire these items in the first place. Perhaps it was that you had a need for the items. Perhaps the beauty of the object was what attracted you to it. Perhaps you searched and bided your time until just the right items came along to suit your need or desire. Perhaps it was a combination of all three. Maybe someone you knew had one similar and you decided it was so useful or beautiful that you wanted one for yourself. Or maybe it was sheer fluke that brought you and the object together.

I know I certainly have objects in my home that fit my needs so well that I have owned them for many many years. Among them are items that fit all of the reasons for acquiring them that I stated above. But one thing that is similar in each case is my appreciation for these objects. Every time I see them or use them I feel pleased not only with the objects but for my “clever’ choice of them in the first place.

Now take a look around your home and identify other objects that you neither use nor find aesthetically pleasing. Ask yourself why do you keep each items. Was it an unwanted gift? Can you not afford to replace it? Do you feel guilty for wasting your hard earned cash on it, so are determined to get some use out of it? It is a family heirloom that you don’t really wish to be the caretaker of? Perhaps these items cause too much upkeep. Or worse still you have given up maintaining them and they are sitting idle and dusty. Whatever the reason, if an item brings forth negative feelings when you encounter it then this a something you should consider decluttering.

Your home is your fortress, your place of tranquility, or at least it should be. There are many thing that lower the level of tranquility in a person’s home. One of them is being surrounded by objects that evoke negativity. Another is the feeling of obligation to keep stuff the causes you work. There are only so many hours in the day, house that are better spent doing things you enjoy with people that you love. It is a shame to waste that time taking care of stuff.

So as you encounter these items that cause negativity ask yourself what is more important to you..

• The compulsion to keep them regardless or..
• To heighten the level of tranquility in your home.

Share a story about such an item you encounter in the comments below. Tell us what your decision is for keeping it or letting it go.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

Clutter isn’t about what we have, it is about why we have it. 

We acquire stuff for many reasons, aesthetics, functionality, sentimental, recreation and entertainment and even societal, just to name a few. In fact those few reasons just about account for most of the excess stuff in our lives. So lets just take a closer look at them.

Aesthetics ~ The stuff we enjoy mostly because it is pleasing to the eye such as art and décor items, fashion accessories, jewellery.

Functionality ~ These are items we acquire that are useful to us in some way, generally to make our lives simpler or more comfortable.

Sentimental ~ Things we acquire because they bring back fond memories

Recreation & Entertainment ~ The stuff accumulated under this topic is many and varied, CDs, DVD’s, sporting equipment, toys and the list goes on.

Societal ~ This accounts for those items that we acquire because of the culture we live in. And of course they aren’t always necessities and as members of society we just end up falling in line with the trend and acquire them whether we need them or not.

So let’s now have a look at some very typical items that fall into one, or even several, of these categories…

Clothing ~ This falls into every category. Western society dictates that we don’t get around in public naked. So we wear clothing for its function of covering us up. And while choice of what we acquire is partly dictated by the situation the particular garments are required for (recreation, work, evening functions etc) a big part of what we choose is driven by our aesthetic preferences. Where this gets out of hand is when we desire an abundance of variety in that aesthetic and buy way more clothing than we really need. Also aesthetics gets us into trouble when we disregard what suits our “particular kind of beauty” and buy items because they just look good. These items often end up rarely if ever used. And then there can also be clothing items that we relate to special occasions that we keep for sentimental reasons long after they are useful to us.

Kitchen Gadgets ~ These of course have a function, the question is whether or not we actually have a “need” for that function. Once again Western Society tends to dictate that life is easier if we have a tool that speeds up performing every little task required of us. And it is the job of advertisers to convince us that such items can actually do this for us by only showing us the upside, imagined or not, of owning such items. Hence we end up with a gazillion single-use kitchen gadgets that we only “require” once in a blue moon that don’t really save us enough time to warrant the amount of room they take up, the time wasted trying to find the one you “need”  among all the others or the money wasted on acquiring them.

Entertainment Items ~ For a society of people who seem to work endlessly to “make ends meet” we sure do seem to acquire and require an lot of stuff to fill the spare time we are always complaining we don’t have. I often wonder how many of the dollars we earn from those hours spent working are used to acquire stuff we don’t really even need and sometimes don’t even use much before the novelty wears off. Although rest, recreation and entertainment are essential to a healthy lifestyle it seems counterproductive to work our butts off in the first place to cater too it excessively. Fortunately music, movies and games can be enjoyed digitally these days so we don’t actually have to clutter our homes with them. And although televisions screens seem to be getting bigger and bigger they are also getting slimmer and slimmer so they don’t really take up that much room. Computers, phones and also music players have also shrunk over the last 3o years however where once we used to have one of each of these things we, in Western Society, now usually have at least one for every person in the house. And then there is also the variety of of sport and exercise equipment available to us, the clothing to go along with that. And then there are the bags etc required to tote all this stuff around ~ laptop, tablet and phone cases, sports bags, handbags, backpacks… Yikes!

Keepsakes and souvenirs ~ Although these have a function, to remind us of special occasions, good times and loved ones, collections of them can often get out of hand. We even find ourselves accumulating them against our own better judgement because they are another one of those things that society tends to dictate that we should be passionate about. We go on vacation so we “should” get a souvenir from every place we visit. We go to a funeral or wedding and isn’t it respectful to keep the service booklet? Wouldn’t it be wrong to throw out even one picture your child brought home from school, their report cards or any of those band concert programs with your child’s name in it? The answer is no it is neither disrespectful, heartless to dispose of these things nor necessary to have a physical reminder of every vacation or event you ever attended. Sure keep some reminders, the most treasured ones, but not all. It is possible to be sentimental without being cluttered.

Décor items ~ A bed is a functional item that assists us in having a good night sleep. A pillow makes us that bit more comfortable and blankets keep us warm in the cold times. However that is where the functionality of the bed ends, throw rugs and cushions are décor items. Trinkets, art, artificial plants, etc, etc are also just aesthetic items we can either chose or not to adorn our homes. If they didn’t exist we wouldn’t care but once again society and advertising comes into play very much when it comes to the plethora of choice there is out there. And again, they cost money, they require maintenance and the novelty of them tends to wear off over time at which we spend more money switching them out for something new.

Today’s Mini Mission

I starting out writing this post to point out all those things in our lives that we think we need but really don’t and why we acquire them. And sure most of them do add to the enjoyment and comfort in our lives. However there is always a point where enough is enough and beyond that we are just working too hard to be able to afford all this excess and spending too much time maintaining stuff. Not to mention the detrimental effort that producing all this excess has on the environment.

So think twice about continuing to acquire at such a pace for your own wellbeing as well as that of the planet you occupy. And also pass on some of that excess while it is still useful to someone else so they don’t go out buying new. And I will leave you with a great quote I unexpectedly stumbled upon this week just to get life into perspective…

“We are not made rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” Immanuel Kant

I received a comment from Bernadette on the 365 Less Things Facebook page this week that said…

“I enjoy getting rid of things. It is so liberating. Got rid of a bunch of old photos today.” 

And that is a great example of the key to getting anything done, which is enjoying the process. If you can get yourself to that point, with any challenge, then how can you fail. After all, who won’t do whatever they can to find some time in their day to do the things they enjoy doing.

I have always enjoyed my decluttering which was what made it such a success for me. Even when it also required rearranging things which can be physically taxing. The key to getting to that point for me was deciding to do it slowly and effortlessly. Just those two words make it sound like something that could therefore be enjoyable. And it was. As Bernadette said “It is so liberating.”

Liberating because the less stuff you have the less maintenance is required to keep it all in good shape. Liberating because the more you let go the more you realise how little you really need, therefore you don’t shop so much anymore. That liberates you from the desire to acquire which, for me, was certainly a big bonus of the process of decluttering. And shopping is very time consuming, just getting to the shops generally takes longer than the ten minutes a day I subscribe for your daily decluttering effort. So how hard can it be.

Some of my readers find the mini missions to be enjoyable. Rising to the challenge of finding something to match each days mission and then sharing that achievement with their fellow 365 Less Things readers is very inspiring for them. Some readers have enjoyed their ongoing involvement in Nicole’s post ~ Decluttering With Friends… . Others just rise to the challenge of finding that one thing in their homes each day.

Even now, that my home is how I wanted it to be, I still enjoy finding things to declutter, or using up things I have had for a while that I have no intention of replacing.

So if you are still procrastinating about starting you decluttering journey then I would suggest that you…

1. Have an open mind to the idea that it could actually be enjoyable.
2. Fight against the resistance and just make a start by finding one simple thing each day.
3. Share your achievements with your fellow declutterers here at 365 less things.
4. Seek their advice if necessary and soak up the encouragement I am sure they will give you.
5. Do that for about a month and I am sure you too will find the enjoyment that decluttering can bring.

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