Day 327 Not too many not too few ~ 23 Nov 2010

Each person’s goal when it come to minimalism is very individual. I, for one, cannot ever see myself living with only 100 things as some minimalists suggest. In fact at this point in my journey I have no idea how many more items will leave my home before I am satisfied with the end result. It may be that as time goes by my embrace on this lifestyle could strengthen and I may detach myself  from even more of my belongings than I ever considered when I started. Who knows?

Being comfortable in the here and now with what is too many and what is too few is all I concern myself with. I want to keep working on weeding out the things in the too many category while not getting carried away and ending up with too few for my needs.

Find you own balance

Just as we may have ended up with too much stuff while trying to keep up with the “Have all” Joneses. We could now take it to the opposite extreme by trying to outdo the minimalist Joneses. My advice is to gather all the wisdom you can from all the sources you subscribe to on the subject of  minimalism, simplicity and decluttering but keep true to yourself. Don’t look at it as some kind of competition or feel obliged to get rid of your treasured possessions. Just learn as you go and evolve naturally to the level you are comfortable with. No one is keeping score.

* * * * * * *

A year and a half has gome by since I started my declutter mission and seven months since I wrote the above post and yet every word written there stays true for me. I still am by no means what you would consider a minimalist but I sure am enjoying my much decluttered home and am still not to a point where I am satisfied that my home is as decluttered as I would like. I don’t think either that I have moved the goal posts because really there never were any. My intension was to learn as I go and declutter certain items when I was ready to let go and that is still happening. It is not only happening for me but also for my family members which makes this job even easier and more satisfying.

I still have some areas of my home that have been on my radar right from the start that I either need to revisit or I haven’t even touched yet. I am quite content with that because it has been a continuous effort and I will get to them or back to them when I am good and ready. The changes in my home have been wonderful and I will continue to enjoy the process and the progress.

Today’s Declutter Item

The only time I ever use this electric knife is at Christmas when we buy a leg of ham. I am sure we could manage the task with an ordinary carving knife that doesn’t take up this much room. Off to the thrift store with you old faithful once a year clutter.

Electric Knife

Something To Be Grateful For

When decluttering your home never look back. Be grateful that you had the means by which to accumulate all the clutter you have, think how much money you will save in the future by adopting better spending habits and be happy with each items that leaves your home. Guilt and sadness are of no use to you except maybe to remind you to be more selective in the future, just be grateful of the new beginning.

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

As I am going to be away visiting for a couple of weeks I have had to get my posts together in advance. This is not an easy task as I already have a post to write nearly every day plus my daily decluttering and then or course real life just keeps happening whether I have the time for it or not.

Therefore I decided to do a little digging in the archives to find some of my favourite blog posts and then elaborate as to how I am still feeling about what I wrote in said posts. Whether I have changed my way of thinking or if I still stand by what I thought at the time. So without further adieu here is the first of my reminiscences. This post was one in a series of 100 words or less posts I wrote back in December.

key #6 – Don’t over think it

Sometimes when we are faced with what seems like a mammoth task we tend to over think the situation. For my decluttering effort each day I just walk into a room take a look around, peek in a cupboard or too and just find something to declutter. Or I might just spy something on my daily meandering throughout the house. Over thinking can cause procrastination or worse scare you off the task altogether. If you find yourself hyperventilating at the mere thought of decluttering, STOP, and take 5 slow deep breaths clear your mind and start over the easy way.

* * * * * * *

Now that was short but straight to the point and I still stand by everything I have to say here. Being six months on from that point in my journey I have come to a stage where I am having to face some of the more complex decluttering if you like. However, I am still finding ways to break it down into bite size chunks that aren’t likely to induce the hyperventilation I mentioned above. A perfect example of that is the task of sorting and decluttering our old photographs. When I decided it was time to take on this task I soon found myself thinking “My God where do I begin?” and “How did this get in such a mess?” and “I don’t want to deal with this, it’s too hard!” but then I shook of these thoughts and wrote a blog post about how to go about the task. This helped me see how I can deal with it one step at a time and, I am now working on the task as it suits my time frame in a relaxed fashion and I am confident I will get the job done without having a nervous breakdown in the attempt. It’s not as thought there is a deadline.

The moral of this story is that there is usually a way to break down a large task into manageable steps. Once you have worked out your strategy just tackle one step at a time and the task won’t seem quite so intimidating.

Today’s Declutter Item

I came to the conclusion that we don’t need a special bowl to eat soup out of. Any old cereal bowl will do and they stack better than this bowl does. Of to the thrift store with you.

Something to be Grateful For

All the people who have passed through our lives, whether they are still with us or not, whether they were cherished or not there are always lessons to be learned, experiences to be remembered and sometimes love gifted to us by these relationships.

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.

Although I have called this post ~ The keepsake box ~ it could apply to any box of hidden clutter/treasures you have in your home. So use your imagination if you don’t have a keepsake box or yours has recently been decluttered. Some other suggestion to apply this post to would be moving boxes you haven’t empties after your last move, any box of stuff you don’t require often but does need the occasional declutter or even your junk drawer again if nothing else applies.

Monday – Locate the box/container you are going to declutter then choose a space in your home that you can spread out the contents of this container and happily work on it for the week without it disrupting your household. Perhaps a spare room, a formal dining room that isn’t used so much etc.

Tuesday – Remove all the items from the box and spread them out in the area you have chosen. Pay attention to each item as you remove it from the box and then once all the items are spread out take a little time to review them the leave it to deal with tomorrow. In the meantime whenever you have a spare minute give some thought to the items and assess them in your mind.

Wednesday – Return to your items and sort them into KEEP ~ DONATE ~ SELL ~ THROW AWAY ~ RECYCLE. Then leave them until tomorrow.

Thursday – Today, you will 1. throw out the rubbish items, 2. put the recyclable items in your recycle bin or set aside to be sent to the appropriate place to be recycled and 3. return the items you wish to keep to their rightful place whether that be back in the box or to a new keeping place.

Friday – Sort through the items you intend to donate and make sure they are clean and in good enough condition to donate to someone else. Then put these items in your donation area for the next time you make a drop off or for when you see the people you intend to give them to.

Saturday – Go through you sell pile and once again make sure they are clean and in a good enough condition to sell. Make the necessary notes you will need about each item in order to put them up for sale. Follow your normal selling procedure from here whether that be advertising them immediately or like me setting them aside for when it suits you better.

Sunday – I guess this exercise is already complete so you can rest up today and be ready for the next set of mini mission tomorrow.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

My husband is very good at this declutter thing. He decided this denim jacket wasn’t warm, double denim is just bad taste dressing and he just didn’t wear it so off to the thrift store with it.

Denim Jacket

Something I Am Grateful For Today

At the moment, regardless of the three days I didn’t have access to the internet, I am making great progress at getting my blog up to day. The writing juices are flowing and, although slow still, the internet is working. I am sure grateful for this because I had serious doubts I was going to get it all together before going away.

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

Finally I have internet service again just in time to get my posts up to date for the next fortnight while I am away. Sheer ego indulgence on my behalf makes me say I hope you all missed me while I was off line.

Oddly enough, things have the strangest way of happening while a person has their back turned. In the midst of my forced silence from the net the interview I did for ABC radio way back so many months ago I can’t remember when, aired. So today for my Simple Saturday post and for your listening pleasure or amusement, whatever the case may end up being, I will add the link for you all to listen to. I hope there are no restrictions stopping anyone overseas from linking, please let me know if you have any difficulties and I will try to find another way around it for you.

Here is the link…

Future Tense ~ Minimalism the cult of less

I have noticed a marked increase in new email subscribers since the interview aired and I would like to send out a special welcome to those new readers out there who have dropped in to check out my blog. I wish you could have come at a better time as I am going to has limited access to the internet for the next two weeks while I am in Queensland visiting family. I will be unable to leave many responses to comments but there should be a blog post to read Monday to Friday though, so don’t run away. I hope you enjoy what you read and there are plenty of posts in the archives to keep you busy if you run out of new stuff and are thirsty for more. Feel free to engage with the other comments and Cindy, who writes for me on Wednesdays. is often dropping in with some responses and I will chime in when I can.

Today’s Declutter Item

Since I missed a couple of days worth of items I will add two now to make up for it. Today we have a pile of socks and some clothes that my son Liam decided to declutter recently. He is getting quite good at this whole declutter thing and I am very pleased about that. To top it off he said to me today the he wants to go through his keepsake box in the garage ~I have mentioned before about his T-Shirt collection ~ because he doesn’t want most of that stuff any more. Yahoo!!!!

Liam’s decluttering efforts

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Well naturally todays gratitude item has to be having the internet back but also my son and I got to attend a ceremony for my husbands recent promotion at work. Add those two things to the news about Liam and his eminent decluttering and I have to say it has turned out to be a pretty good day for me.

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

Just a quick announcement before we get started

I have lost my ADSL connection at home and am throwing this post up quickly at the McDonald’s restaurant near my house. I don’t much like the insecurity of using these types of networks so this will be the last post I do until my service is restored at home. They promise me this will happen within the next 72 hours. We’ll see. Thanks for your patience.

While taking a walk Yesterday I stopped to look at the For Sale sign on the house up the street. I notice the shed in the back yard as I walked away or more to the point I noticed the metal shelves with stuff on them outside of the shed and it got me wondering. If that stuff was so important or useful why in just left out in the weather.

My mind started to meander as it often does about what the other members of the family think about this stuff in full view or the world or what the neighbours think about it for that matter. I wondered, if the stuff belonged to the husband does the wife wish he would just use it or get rid of it. Then that idea sent me on another tangent.

I gave a little advice once about enlisting help from your friends when it came to decluttering your closet. Giving them permission to be completely honest about what you wear and more to the point what you shouldn’t wear without them having to worry about retaliation for their honesty. Friends see you from day to day and have a fair idea of what is in your closet that you wear, what you don’t and what you shouldn’t so I thought they would be good help in this area.

The intention behind these two ideas brings me to the point behind this post. If you are humming and haing about what to get rid of and what to keep when it comes to your household items maybe it would be a good idea to seek the opinion of the other members of the household, be that husband, wife, partner, friend, flatmate, mother, father… about what they think you don’t use or in fact what you own that they would be happy to see the back of.

The people who spend the most time with us ought to have the best idea of what things we use and what we don’t. I for one would be glad to get rid of any baseball souvenirs in this house that aren’t worthy to be out on display. While I am sure my husband would be glad if my craft area was to be half the size it is. Maybe with a little encouragement from our loved ones we could be realistic about what is worthy of the space it takes up in our lives even if we can’t admit it to ourselves.

If you fear that an all out war will break out or at best you will become offended should you dare to pursue this idea maybe to just imagine the other person’s response will give you fare judgement of the situation.

The equation looks like this ~ If you are on the fence about getting rid of something but your fellow householder says I am 100% certain you don’t use it or they hate the thing and want it our of here ~ then that really tips the scales towards getting rid of the item according to my mathematical knowledge and decluttering sensibilities.

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Do you feel rich in your possessions or poor? Feeling poor makes it difficult to get rid of things that are no longer needed, wanted or valued. It induces hoarding and the suspicion that you really might need that someday.

Might you really?

Feeling rich in your possessions allows you to let things go. It allows you to feel sure that there’s no lack of items in the world, and there’s certainly not, at least not in the world of anyone who’s reading this blog. Certainly our fortunes may change, but it’s unlikely that anything you may declutter today would mean the difference between salvation and poverty in the future.

My husband told a joke about engineers who like to tinker. The punchline is that none of them ever uses the stuff they collect, and when they get rid of it, they pass it to another engineer to store in their garage.

He went on to tell me what I already believe: That there are few items so unique and so precious that they cannot be replaced if you find you really cannot live without them. While that exact item may be difficult to find, something very similar will surely be available, perhaps at the thrift store, perhaps on Ebay, perhaps in your friend’s garage.

I’m sure most of you read my post commemorating my 365th day of decluttering. I said that the only thing I regretted getting rid of was the cracking lid to a 13×9 metal pan. Amazingly enough, in the Lost and Found cleaned up, there was a perfect 13×9 pan with a lid. My friend Jennifer has one just like it, and she takes delicious mint brownies to all the school functions in it, so I called her to confirm it wasn’t hers. It wasn’t, and now it’s mine. All I needed was 1) to want something and 2) to wait. Everything you need is available to you, and you just have to wait for it to appear.

Jennifer’s Delicious Mint Brownies

Brownies

• 4 squares of unsweetened bakers chocolate
• 1 C butter
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 2 C sugar
• 1/2 t mint extract
• 1 C flour, sifted
• 1/4 t of salt

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Cool and add remaining ingredients. Pour batter into a well greased 13×9 pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes. Let your brownies cool.

Frosting

• 2 T butter
• 2 C powdered sugar
• 2 T milk
• 1 t mint extract
• green food coloring (optional)

Cream the butter, gradually add the powdered sugar. Add the milk, mint and food coloring. Frost the brownies and refrigerate.

Glaze

• 2 square unsweetened baker’s chocolate
• 2 T butter

Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Mix well and pour over frosting, spreading until the brownies are completely covered. Cool and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

(For my diabetic friends, I figured these have 775 carbohydrates for the entire pan.)

Today’s Declutter Item

I used to use this file/book all of the time but in reality it is another one of those poor designs that are inflicted on the unsuspecting public. It has a pocket for each month in which you place birthday cards etc for upcoming occasions in order to be ready in advance. The problem is that the spine of the book isn’t large enough to allow for the expansion of the book when the cards are in place. As a result up until about October this file/book is a very awkward shape. After doing a little reshuffling and repurposing I have found a new home for my stock of pre-made handmade greeting cards so this can go to the thrift shop.

Greeting Card File

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Oddly enough I am grateful for the rare but interesting readers comments that have a vehemently opposing opinion to mine. After the initial shock of the passionate attack, for want of a better word, on what I wrote and in some circumstances on my character as well, I find it an interesting challenge to 1. Not be offended and 2. Use it as an exercise in character building.

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

Finding the will to get started on your declutter journey can be far more difficult than finding the excuses not to start. Below I have written a list of excuses that may be holding you back from getting started or continuing on your journey as the case may be.

• Needing to enlist someone else’s help.
• Not knowing how to responsibly dispose of the items.
• Can’t bare the thought of how big the job is.
• Are not sure where to begin.
• Your perfectionist tendencies cause you to give up before you begin.
• There are not enough hours in the day.
• You would prefer to tackle the task in peace but there is always someone in the house to interrupt you.
• You get too sentimental about items you try to declutter.
• You want to get rid of things but feel obligated to keep them so why bother trying.

Here is my advice to combat most of these issues

Never hesitate to ask for help even if you know you may encounter resistance, better that than making no progress at all. You might be surprised by how quickly people will come to your aid when you make it clear how important it is to you to get the job done. Enlisting help may include getting someone to sort through their stuff, cooperation on sorting joint possessions or maybe even getting someone to amuse the children for a day while you attack the task.

No matter how big or how small the task, it can be done by working away at it in as little as ten minute intervals. Just get started with one small session at a time. There is no right or wrong time to declutter. I sometimes do five minutes while I am waiting for the kettle to boil, there is no point in getting comfortable in that five minutes so why not do something useful. And intervals as short as ten minutes can be found before the children wake up in the morning or after they go to bed at night.

Forget perfect there is no such thing concentrate instead on BETTER. If you can’t get past perfect make a game of what kind of perfect little declutter mission you can accomplish in under half an hour. With each effort you get that little bit closer to all over perfect.

Decide what is more important to you, keeping things you don’t really want or freeing up the space in your home, in your time and in your mind. Start on the easy things to part with and then the more progress you make the higher decluttering will become on your priority list which may then usurp the once important desire to keep certain things.

Today’s Declutter Item

I actually sold these Kiss dolls for my son some time back but I just hadn’t got around to learning how to make collages out of photos that I want to include as a group. Making collages is a bit like decluttering, if I had known how easy it could be I would have started doing it a long time ago.

Kiss Dolls

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I went for a walk today but had no real destination in mind or even direction in which I was heading until I got the idea to go for a coffee while I was out. Then I thought ~ I have been out for coffee so many times over the last week perhaps I should abstain. That was went I remembered I had a frequent buyers reward card in my purse that I was due a free coffee on. Now that was something I was grateful for, a no guilt coffee, I love it when a plan I didn’t even have comes together.

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

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.

Today we are not going to concentrate on getting rid of stuff but tidying up clutter that is simply out of place. After all, according to most of the online dictionaries I have looked at, clutter is never referred to as, excessive possessions but as a disorderly array of stuff or noise. So this week we will concentrate on putting in order some stuff we have no intension, at least for the moment, of getting rid of. As per the intent of “Mini Mission Mondays” we will concentrate on one area and break the task down into simple steps that will not only make the task more bearable but make you think about why this area constantly gets disorderly and how to stop the cycle.

Monday – Pick an area of your house that you are in control of that you use every day. What I mean by that is an area that is disorderly and you are mostly responsible for that. So we aren’t talking about a child’s bedroom or the garage or a shared shoe closet. Maybe your sock drawer, your car, your side of the bathroom cabinet or maybe  your closet would be a good target. This will be an easier choice if you live alone of course. Try to choose and area that isn’t too big a task for this exercise because we want to keep it relatively simple and stress free. Today I just want you to observe that area for ten minutes or so and try to analyze what you think the cause fo the disarray might be.

Tuesday – Today I would like you to spend ten minutes tidying in this area and returning things to their proper homes elsewhere, should that be necessary. Hopefully ten minutes will just about whip it into shape, if not spend another ten minutes tomorrow.

Wednesday – Finish tidying this area if you haven’t already done so and then continue to use it as usual.

Thursday – Go back to your chosen area and see if it is still as tidy as you left it yesterday. If it isn’t stop and observe what is out of place and why you think it has gotten that way. Tidy the area again but this time utilise what ever you have on hand in the home that will help keep the area tidier (Think outside the box if you have to). Perhaps the problem isn’t that the area is not organised properly but that you are not making the effort to put things away properly as you go. Think about this and consider what you need to do to improve the situation and start acting on that.

Friday – Once again just use the area as normal but be always observing the practicality of the space and the set up. Make any adjustment you think may improve the system already in place.

Saturday – Are you seeing an improvement on the way this area is shaping up each day. If so stop and think has it really taken that much extra effort or has it just been a matter of making the right choices in arrangement and or behaviour.

Sunday - Keep tweaking and observing and analysing your habits. Studies show that it takes about twenty one days to form a new behaviour or start to break an old one so keep focusing on this area until you feel sure you have broken your bad habits and replaced them with new more organised ones. If you feel successful with this area of your home maybe once the twenty one days are up you may want to begin to work on a new area.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

This is a group of sewing things that have been sitting in a drawer not being used and if they aren’t being used I don’t need to keep them. One more donation off to the thrift shop.

Sewing Stuff

Something I Am Grateful For Today

What isn’t there to be grateful for today. It is Sunday so I got up leisurely, only did what I felt like doing, spent the afternoon with a friend and had a bottle of wine with a dinner that was delicious but took minimal effort. If my husband was here the day would be perfect but close to perfect is good enough for me.

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

Family Car Stickers

I realise that these Family Car Decals have been very popular for some time in the USA, I remember seeing them when I lived there and I have to say I never was a fan. They always had a bit of an obnoxious status symbol quality about them for me, one degree less sickening than the My Daughter is a 4.0 student type bumper stickers. Some people even get so irresponsible as to put the family members names on them.  God forbid some pedophile driving the streets might see this and follow you home. Oddly enough that is not what I find the most annoying about these stickers…

…this is!

Shopping Mama!

These family-status-stickers have now become popular in Australia. Yes, unfortunately we caught on to the trend eventually. The most irritating result of this is that literally every second car I see adorned with these decals has the mother figure depicted as in the picture above. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Sadly, that must be the way they see themselves, their greatest talent or favourite pastime is shopping. Quite frankly I would rather see her depicted as a pole dancer. Actually that would be quite funny and I would probably enjoy a good laugh at that. Which got me thinking about the other amusing possibilities that should be available. That was when I found this little Gem…

I know I am naughty but at least the mother is “smart” in this one and her full name is more in keeping with my personality. 😉