I know this is getting a little off subject and I had my doubts whether I should go down this path but it was just a thought I had the other day and I decided to run it by you all.

My thinking was that this slow and steady approach would probably work with changing a persons eating habits. The problem with most diets is the slap you in the face cold turkey approach where you change too much too soon and all you feel is deprivation. Couple this with the theory that it only takes two weeks of removing yourself from a certain temptation before the cravings start to disappear I believe a person could slowly eliminate bad foods from their diet with less difficulty and with a higher success rate of sticking with the changes.

Here is what I propose:-

Remove one bad food from your diet today. ***Do not eat any of that particular food item for two weeks by this time the craving for this item should be starting to subside. At the end of the two week period remove another bad food item from your diet. Repeat from *** until you are satisfied that your diet has improved to a degree that you are happy with. By this time you should be eating a much healthier diet and your weight should be improving.

Below is a list of the kind it items I had in mind…

• Soda / softdrink / pop
• Candy / lollies
• Chocolate
• Chips / crisps
• Ice-cream
• Butter
• Full cream milk
• Cookies
• Sugar laden cereal
• White Bread
• Beer
• I am sure you know what your own weakness is so I wont elaborate any more.

Replace these bad foods with a healthy alternative such as fruit if you are truly feeling hungry.

I would also suggest that you could still indulge in these foods in moderation as a treat occasionally so you don’t feel deprived causing you to give up.

Instead of choosing a particular food  item in a  two week period you could choose one of the following…

• Lower the portion sizes of your meals
• Cut out one snack a day
• Replace one beverage (tea, coffee, milk drink) with water
• Replace a heavy breakfast with a wholemeal cereal with low fat milk
• Start cutting back on the size of your coffee (from venti (20 oz/625ml )to grande (16 oz/500ml) to tall (12 oz/375ml)
• If you are a fast food junkie try replacing one meal a day or every other day (depending on how much of a junkie you are) with a healthy alternative such a lean meat and steamed veggies or salad (no dressing).
• Replace white bread and regular pasta with wholemeal alternatives. More info.

If anyone is game and gives this a try please keep me informed of your progress or lack there of if this idea was a complete dud.

Here is some inspiration for Tiny Buddha to get you thinking about making a change of anything in your life.

ITEM 151 OF 365 LESS THINGS

A book my husband sold on eBay for $5.00

A comment arrived from Donna just as I had finished writing yesterdays blog and it expanded on that subject so well that I got her permission to share it with you.

Here is what Donna wrote…

It really is liberating when you can go to the mall or elsewhere and browse around knowing you can like something without wanting to take it home with you. I had a baby 18 months ago, and my formerly organized and manageable house literally seemed to explode with stuff overnight. Since then I’ve been on a serious mission to declutter and streamline my life so I can spend more time with my daughter and husband. Now everything I own (or consider purchasing) gets the test:

• Do I want to clean you?
  
• Do I want to store you?
  
• Do I want to move you out of the way when looking for something else?
  
• Do you have a real purpose other than looking pretty?
  
• Will I be tired of you in six months?
  
• Do I want to pack you and unpack you when we move in a couple years?
  

An item that manages to sneak past the first few questions usually fails miserably on the pack and move question. Those questions are even working on things I thought I’d never get rid of – my book collection and crafting (sewing, jewelry making, and needlework) supplies. Yay for more space and less cluttered life!

I have added this list of decision making question to the ones I wrote in my post and made a page out of them. If in doubt use this page as a guide when working on your decluttering projects or better still when deciding if something you are considering buying truly fits within your requirements.

If you have any other suggestions to add to this guide please leave a comment or contact me through “Contact Colleen” under the “Page” Heading in the RH column of my Blog.

ITEM 150 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This turntable has had it’s day my husband has owned it for 27 years. He still managed to sell it on eBay for only mere $5 but at least it is being reused.

Questions to ask yourself when you are deciding what stays and what goes when decluttering

• How long since I last used this:- If you are keeping an item just because maybe you might need it some day then it is probably clutter.
  
• Is it still useful to me:- Do I still use this item or even participate in the activity that this item is used for if not then it’s clutter.
  
• Is it in working condition:- If an item is broken and you do not have the expertise to repair it or you are not prepared to pay the price to have it fixed then it is clutter.
  
• How many do I have and how many do I need:- If you have multiples of a certain item but only ever need one then it is most likely clutter.
• Do I need this item for the information it contains:- So much information is right at your finger tips these days on your computer and it is constantly updated do you really need to keep a library of books whose information may or may not stand the test of time.
  

• Do I like it:– If you are keeping something that was given to you even though you do not like it, it is definitely clutter

• Do I really need this item in order to remember good times or lost loves:- If it is an item that has purely sentimental value yet you never get it out and look at it then there is a good chance you don’t need it to remind you of the good times you had and the wonderful people you have known. If it means so much to you put it out where you can see it if not let it go.
• Am I keeping this item out of guilt:- I paid a lot of money for this so I hope one day I will get my money’s worth out of it (old hobbies, sporting equipment, expensive clothing all fall into this category). These are the items you need to cash in on now and sell while they are still useful to someone else.

ITEM 149 OF 365 LESS THINGS

As you can see we have been very busy in eBay lately this camera case was free with the camera used to take this photo with. We did not need it. It sold for $25.00

My husband had a short business trip this week and I decided to go with him. We spent half a day travelling, enjoyed a leisurely lunch then spent the remainder of the day admiring the art at the National Galleries. It is nice to just wind down and enjoy each others company with no commitments or need for hurrying.

On the second day while he was attending his business conference I spent the day in the town centre of Canberra. I met my sister-in-law for lunch which was lovely but the rest of the time I spent just brousing around the shops.

I very soon discovered that I have very little or no interest in shopping any more and was really quite bored for most of the time. The only shop that really caught my eye was a local handmade crafts store at which I bought nothing but had a nice time checking out the handy work.

These days unless there is something specific I am on a mission to buy I have absolutely no interest what-so-ever in looking at mechandise I neither need nor admire. I feel liberated  both spiritually and financially. Decluttering your home is far more effective if there is little chance that it is just going to get filled up again with a fresh round of un-needed items.

I have found there are so many bonuses that I wasn’t expecting by doing this 365 day challenge. It has given me time to evolve and grow as a person as I have learned along the way not only from experience but from those who are on a similar journey like Joshua at Becoming Mininalist, contributers from over at Unclutter Forum, Megan at Sanity In Simplicity, leo at Zen Habits and many more. So thanks folks you have all been a great help as I hope I am being to others.

ITEM 148  OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another eBay item that sold for $20.00

When we first returned to Australia after living overseas for some years there were a few household appliances that need replacing. As luck would have there was a Homemakers Expo on in our new location soon after we arrived so we attended hoping to get educated on what were the best appliances to suit our needs. To cut a long story short the only thing we came out of it with was a membership to the Wine Selectors Club.

As a result every three months a dozen bottles of wine, six red and six white, would appear on our doorstep. this isn’t a large quantity to keep up with but we don’t drink much only on social occasions and maybe a bottle every now and again together just as a treat. Then my husband moved 500km away for eleven months due to work commitments. Needless to say the wine started to build up with only one person at home to drink it and less social events to attend at weekends because we took the time to enjoy each others company as it was in short supply.

We decided to cancel our membership but at that point we had accumulated at least a few dozen bottles mostly red. Life being as it is my husband then went to work overseas for four months and that just left me at home to take care of things. When I decided to make a start on the decluttering quest one of the things that soon caught my eye was this stash of wine. So I took it upon myself to make an effort to slowly but surely reduce the number.

There was the odd social events to attend to which I took along a bottle or two and I gave a few bottles as gifts. However the stockpile was still quite large so I felt it was my duty to make the sacrifice to polish off several myself all in the line of duty of course. Yes I know, it’s was a tough job but someone had to do it. Sometimes decluttering is far from being a chore and in my defence I didn’t include any of the wine in the 365 less things.

Now there are just four bottles in the cabinet, quite a manageable number and when they run out we will just buy wine as we want it so it doesn’t accumulate again.

ITEM 147 OF 365 LESS THINGS

We dug up another snowboard from the murky depths of the garage cupboard and sold it on eBay for $33.00. Our son was very happy as we gave him the proceeds because it was his board and he is a poor art student.

Today I thought I would just make up a list of items that will likely perish when left unused for a long period of time.

• Elastic:- Found in webbing in sofas and chairs – Clothing items particularly underwear – Fitted Sheets – Bandages – Hair Bands
• Electrical Appliances:- Especially anything with a heating element
• Foam linings or filters:-As in Ski Goggles – Some Vacuum Cleaners
• Plastics:-Some soft plastics go sticky and some hard plastics go brittle.
• Rubber:- Seals on washing machines etc – Rubber Bands – erasers
• Leather Goods: Leather items need cleaning and conditioning on a regular basic and can go stiff when not taken care of and also mouldy if not stored properly
• Photographic Gear:- If not stored properly mould can grow and eat into camera lenses leaving permanent scars. Films will perish and colour slides and photos can loose their colour and clarity over time.
• First Aid Supplies & Medications: Medications and ointments go out of date and bandages perish – Eye Droppers (rubber)
• Drive belts: Both times my clothes drier has gone into storage the drive belt froze into a D shape and made an awful clonking noise and had to be replaced
• Glue: Items that are glued together such as shoes
• Pens: The ink dries up and/or the ball gets stiff and scratchy
• Batteries: Remember to remove batteries from toys and gadgets if they aren’t being used as the batteries can ooze acid and ruin the item.
• Food: This one is a no-brainer
• Wine: some are meant to be stored some aren’t.
• Make-up: The oils in them can go rancid and smell bad.
• Textiles: Clothing or afghans made from acrylic or polyester – Baby clothes,  yarn, jackets and other woolens may become moth eaten if not stored properly. (Submitted by Willow @ willowscottage.blogspot.com )

I might consider making a page out of this list so if anyone has other items that experience has shown  suffer from being unused please let me know.

ITEM 146 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here is one of the items on the list above. When sorting through the ski gear to sell on eBay I found that the foam lining on these goggles had perished making them unsellable.

Ingredients:

1 Kitchen cupboard                                   40 Recipe Books

1 plastic crate                                               1 Pinch of Common Sense

Method:

1. Open the kitchen cupboard where you keep you recipe books.
2. Take all of the recipe books out of the cupboard.
3. Use your common sense to determine whether you actually ever use these books or are ever likely to. Keep in mind that you can Google any recipe you could possible want and or borrow recipe books from the library.
4. Take the plastic crate and load all the books you have determined you don’t need into it.
5. Put the crate into your car and take it to your local charity.
6. Celebrate the space you have just liberated in your kitchen cupboard.

I still have about a dozen books that I want to take a closer look at before adding them to the 365 less things but once again that can wait for another day after all there are still 220 left.

ITEM 145 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here is the pile of cookbooks that I ruthlessly decluttered and I don’t imagine I will ever miss them.

From when I was quite a young child I was responsible for minor repairs to my own clothing even my school uniforms. This included  mending tasks such as sewing on buttons and stitching up  dropped hems.

My mother was a private dress maker who worked from home and I will always be grateful that she taught me to sew. I don’t use that skill to make clothes for myself or my family anymore but it is a skill that comes in very handy when an item of clothing needs repair.

I read an article this week from a woman who works in a thrift store who was astounded by the amount of clothing that comes through the store simply because people seem to have lost the skills or the will to do minor repairs. Hopefully these items are bought by someone willing to do the repair but at the same time the person who gave up this item of clothing would have gone out to a store buying a new item to take its place creating a supply and demand that the environment is struggling to keep up with.

In an attempt to help rectify this situation in my own small way today I am posting some links showing basic sewing skills and one that offers a large assortment of on-line sewing classes.

• How to sew a button
• How-to-turn-up-trousers
• E Sewing Workshop

You may wonder what this has to do with decluttering. To me decluttering isn’t just about getting stuff out of my house it is about choosing wisely about what you put into your house in the first place and getting the maximum amount of use out of those items. If that requires me to do the odd repair job along the way then it is well worth the effort.

ITEM 144 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Software that sold on eBay for $20

Decluttering is a much easier task when it is a team effort. I can’t imagine what it is like when the effort is one sided or worse sabotaged with one person doing all the work while the other is under-minding their efforts by bringing more clutter into the home.

That said, I want to take the opportunity today to give credit to my husband for the way he has embraced my resolution to remove 365 items of clutter from our home this year. This would be a much more difficult quest if I had to do it alone and especially if he was not prepared to co-operate because the clutter is not all mine

It was his idea to start the blog in fact and he reads and edits it everyday. I am glad of that because I am guilty of a lot of typo and spelling mistake clutter and he is very good at removing it for me. I had no idea how to go about starting the blog which is why it was day 67 before it got underway as he was overseas due to work commitments.

This week I actually told him he needed to slow down a little as I am the one who has to come up with something to write about each day and it is not easy when I am not exposed to subject inspiration because he is doing all the decluttering. He took it in good humour as it was meant to be – but really love,  slow down!

He is very good at revisiting areas that he has worked on before and being more ruthless at each pass. This is especially so with the sentimental items. He is also having some success with eBay having sold numerous items that would otherwise have gone in the trash or been hard to part with had there not been some monetary gain.

So thanks Love you are doing a great job. XXX

ITEM 143 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This robotics kit was one of those items I am sure my husband would have had a hard time parting with if he could not have sold it on eBay. He only got $105.00 for it but that was better than having sit in the garage where wasn’t being used.

Here is a section of an inspiring email I received from one of my readers last week.

Deborah Hayden writes….

Your blog inspired me to start what I call a Rathole a Day. Every day I take one area – a drawer, a shelf, a box, the refrigerator—whatever pops up and I declutter it. The rule is I take everything out, clean the space and put everything back. In the process, I throw away (recycle, donate) what is obvious but I don’t make myself crazy deciding about everything. This is a blitz first pass. When I have done everything once, I’ll go into Phase 2 and make more refined decisions, but in the meantime, I will have demystified all those ratholes and dark corners full of objects and everything will be clean. So far I’m up to Day 15– I started May 1 — and I’ve made amazing progress. Where will I be in 365 days I wonder? I’m keeping it simple.

Along the way, my mantra is if I have it in my space, it must be beautiful or useful. That means sometimes upgrading instead of just getting rid of.

I was so happy to receive this email as I am to receive any encouraging feedback and stories of people who have been inspired to make their homes simply comfortable, peaceful places to be. Deb is well on her way to doing this and I look forward to hearing more about her progress as she continues in her quest.

I very much agree with Deborah’s mantra. My husband and I have been making great progress with the decluttering but every now and again we come across an item that has for one reason or another become not quite right for us and rather than getting rid of altogether needs upgrading or downsizing. We are comfortable to do this as they are usually items that are used constantly but are outdated or not fulfilling our needs anymore. Examples of this are the stereo from Day 73 and the today’s item.

ITEM 142 OF 365 LESS THINGS

A computer tower and monitor which we sold on eBay for a mere $30.00. The tower was replaced with an Apple Mac Mini which measures 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 inches a considerable bit smaller that this tower.