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.

This week we are going to do Quick Look mini missions. That is each day we are going to walk into a different room in the house take a quick look, spy a piece of clutter and remove it to either the bin, the recycling, the donation pile or set aside to sell. While you are at it if you spy something out of place also rehouse that item. If you can’t see anything on the surface, so to speak, look a little deeper in a cupboard or closet. This is pretty much how I declutter all the time.

Monday – The kitchen

Tuesday – The living room, lounge room or whatever you call it in your part of the world.

Wednesday – The master bedroom.

Thursday – The bathroom.

Friday – The garage.

Saturday – The dining space in your home.

Sunday – The den/office or another bedroom.

Once you have accomplished this weeks mini mission you will realise how easy decluttering can be. It doesn’t have to be a major upheaval just a quick look, swoop and achieve.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

I love my Microplane graters but I only tend to use the smaller versions so I decided to sell this big chunky one on eBay. I only got $10 for it but better that than nothing.

Microplane Grater

Something I Am Grateful For Today

The weather held out long enough to 1. Go for a walk 2. Get the washing dry 3. My son to enjoy the skate park for a while 4. Make the day bright and perky for a while 5. Warm the house up nicely.

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

For 14 years my decluttering was punctuated by 6 monthly bursts, and after each phase was completed i felt a feeling of calmness wash over me. I was left completly bewildered as to how my house got so full of clutter!! Then 18 months ago, fed up with the usual six monthly ritual i decided enough is enough!! I had to declutter and keep it that way, we had a major cull and as drawers were emptied the furniture was sent to the charity shop. I sent what felt like a thousand storage ‘solutions’ packing too. We remoddelled our kitchen and delibretly installed no drawers. I felt happy and calm at my sparse home, the rest of the family enjoyed it too!! Friends would ask ‘Where’s your stuff’.

One day I Googled minimalism and stumbled across some blogs, including this one, I finally felt at home!!! I read about 5 blogs, but 365 Less Things is the one that is updated daily, therefore it is my daily inspiration!!! Thank you Colleen & Cindy!! I totally realised that this was the way I wanted to take our family of 6, 2 cats and 2 dogs. A light bulb had gone off in my head, there was no way I was going back to my 6 monthly ritual. I realised that consumerism was the reason my house got in such a mess and we collectively decided as a family to step of the treadmill. Shopping for leisure was no more, as most of what we decluttered was impulse buys. Sure we still need to shop, and the truth is I enjoy it, but it is more a measured and well thought out process, but it is no longer a focus in our lives.

The photos of our home were taken at 10 am in the morning all the kids were at school and minimal tidying was done, i.e beds made, breakfast dishes done, bathroom cleaned and washing done. It took me 15 minutes for my house to look this way, and I promise you this is a true representation of our home.

Everyone enjoys our home more, we spend less time organizing and cleaning and more time doing things we truly value, and because it is so tidy it becomes obvious for everyone when something is out of place. We all feel that our home truly nourishes us, and this is our prize!! So dear readers this is my advice to you all, keep your eye on the prize, work away at it and believe you can do it, one day , one item at a time. This is our journey so far.

On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my five favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my five favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.

Fave Five Comments. Enjoy!

Wow what a week it has been, so many great conversations going on in comments. Choosing five has been tricky but five it has to be so here goes.

Cindy has chosen this comment form Annabelle in response to her Wednesday Wisdom.

I enjoyed this comment from Lesley even though at first glance it would seem we had opposing idea but in fact I think we actually agree on this topic.

I also enjoyed this exuberant comment from Dizzy a new reader/commenter. I hope she stays involved as she seems to be full of energy and I am sure has plenty to add to our daily conversations.

This comment from Creative Me contains just one of the scenarios I was expecting to elicit when I wrote Tuesdays Post. I knew someone out there would have saved items to hand down to their child and ended up not have the child to match the items. I fully expected that someone might write in with the sad story of not being able to have children at all. Imagine how heart wrenching that would be when you have all those nice things you intended to pass on to them.

And I couldn’t let this comment from Jo slide into obscurity without it being noticed. It is true what she says which is evident from this post I wrote back in march, even though at times I probably come off as the clutter Nazi. Contrary to popular belief I am not a minimalist I just like to encourage people to declutter their excesses, shop responsible and recycle/rehouse what they can.

Fave Five Web Finds. Happy reading!

Lena thought we might all enjoy this link ~ The Burninghouse 

This post from Miss Minimalist ~ One less thing fashion trends shows the fashion industry in a certain light that some may not have given much thought to.

This is just a short post from Happy Shiny Me ~ Handing over reins . I like the strategy she is going deploy to try to break her attachment to some of her clutter. It is not a new strategy but I like how she is enlisting her sister’s help to pull it off.

I loved this simple post for Bea at Zero Waste Home ~ Happy Spooning . I would love my local favourite curry takeout joint to give their customers the option to purchase Tiffin Carriers to collect their curry orders home in rather than waste plastic every time we eat there.

www.abc.net.au ~ Anti-consumerism is the new democracy

Today’s Declutter Item

These declutter items would have been appropriate for yesterday’s post. They were stray hand towels left over from bath towel sets gone by. I bet Deb J would like to get her hands on them, literally. I donated them to the thrift store for someone to get use out of because it could be another ten years before I ever needed them.

Excess Hand Towels

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I got to have a furry friend accompany me on my walk today. I was pet sitting a friends dog for the day because he had a little incident over the weekend and she just wanted me to make sure he was OK throughout the day while she was at work. I know she is probably more grateful than me but he is such good company I just had to take him for a walk. He seemed pretty grateful too. One favour, three happy individuals.

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

Think about all the everyday items in your home, do you have more of them than you really need at any given time?

Clothes ~ Towels ~ Sheets ~ Food ~ Stationary Items ~ Small Hardware Items ~ Cutlery ~ Crockery ~ Glassware ~ Toiletries ~ Cleaning Supplies ~ Storage Containers and the list could go on.

What advantage is there to having more of any of these things than you need…

• Having enough to cater to guests ~ But do you have enough for yourselves and your guess with still plenty to spare.
• Stocking up when on sale ~ If they are on sale now they will be again.
• Variety is the spice of life ~ Too much variety is a waste of space in your cupboards and in some cases the items may even perish before they are used.
• I won’t ever run out and need to dash to the store ~ How often do you grocery shop, perhaps once a week or every two weeks. So there is no need to have a back stock of anything that is likely to last more than that length of time. Therefore you don’t need a six month supplie of toilet paper.
• I won’t run out before the dishwasher finishes its cycle ~ That is a fine reason except if you own enough to fill three dishwashers.

Here is a little exercise to help you see this another way. Make a list of items in your home that go over an above what you really need. Use the list above as a simple guide but then add in anything you think of that I didn’t include. Now guess the cost of each item and calculate the  value of your hoard of stuff sitting there not appreciating in value. Now think of how many years the long lasting items will sit in your cupboards before they will every wear out and add 5% to their value for every year they are likely to be around. I am sure that I already have your head reeling so don’t bother to add in the rental cost of the square footage of the space they are wasting in your home.

Lastly, think about how that money could be sitting in a long term investment account accumulating interest. Or perhaps paid off the credit card debt that you never should have racked up in the first place buying all this unnecessary stuff. No matter how justified these purchases seemed at the time you would have been far better off to put the money aside for a rainy day.

The moral of this post is ~ Don’t buy more than you need. Don’t buy things just because you like shiny new stuff. Don’t cater 350 days of the year to the larger population that may inhabit your home for the other 15 days a year. Don’t waste money now (regardless of the sale price) on things you don’t need when it could be invested and growing for your future needs.

If you suddenly find yourself catering to a large crowd that your reasonable excess allows borrow from a friend or relative to make up the deficit of what you require. Do the same for them when they need it and all will be even.

Today’s Declutter Item

These Tupperware containers were excess to my needs now that I store less ingredients and there are less people at home to feel. They spent most of the time empty on the top shelf of my pantry. I sold them on eBay on the weekend for $25.00. I was glad to recoup some of the money spent on them.

Something I Am Grateful For Today

At the post office today one of my eBay parcels was 8g over the 500g pushing it into the next price bracket which I hadn’t budgeted for. The lovely man behind the counter manually keyed in the weight at 500g for me which saved me $5. That’s what I call customer service. :) 

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

I believe strongly in storing things where you use them. I think that failure to store things where they are used leads to clutter, and it’s certainly less convenient. While your first thought may be “Of course I store things where I use them,” I bet you will be able to find examples in your house where this isn’t true, especially after we walk through my morning.

Let’s think of how you begin your day. You get up, probably make your bed, use the toilet, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed, and everything you need for those tasks is probably close at hand. Then you head to the kitchen. Are the coffee cups stored by the coffee or tea maker? Is the sweetener or creamer in easy reach? Mine are. The coffee pot is next to the refrigerator, and the coffee and little containers of sweetener are kept in the cabinet above, next to the tea bags and coffee. The mugs are in the cabinet right next door. All these frequently used items are on the lowest shelves, so I don’t have to stand on tip-toe to access them every morning.

The next thing I do is make breakfast and, simultaneously, pack my daughters’ lunches. My daughters take some medications and vitamins with their breakfast, which I store in a drawer that I frequently access during this procedure. Like a lot of parents, I am better at remembering my children’s needs than my own, so I moved my medication from my bathroom to the same drawer. Now I remember it every day.

The Medicine Drawer

I keep everything I need for lunches, which either three or four people take every day, in one drawer: lunch boxes, small storage containers, and sandwich containers are stored together. (Same drawer as the medications and vitamins.) Larger plastic containers are stored in a separate drawer. Although it might seem logical to keep all the containers together, I use the larger sizes only for leftovers after meals. I use the little ones only for lunches. They aren’t used at the same time and don’t need to be stored together. To keep the drawer from getting out of control, all the small containers are confined in a box. I also try to only have matching containers. Almost all the tops match almost all the bottoms. Over time, I’ve gotten a couple different sorts, but I don’t really like that. It’s easier if I can reach right in and grab any lid, knowing it will match the bottom.

Handy drawer for many uses

Because Clara has diabetes, a lot of her food needs to be weighed and measured. I keep all the measuring cups and spoons in the same drawer along with her scale, the list of food codes for the scale, and the carbohydrate book for anything the scale doesn’t cover. I can use the scale without even taking it out of the drawer. How handy is that? Initially, I stored it by the stove, but that wasn’t where it was used, so I ended up dragging it around the kitchen and often not putting it back. Instant clutter. What else is in this drawer? A pizza cutter and ice cream scoop. You might be thinking that I’ve lost my mind. Don’t they belong in the drawer with the wooden spoons, spatulas, and other similar tools under the cooktop? Nope. We frequently have ice cream for dessert. I can stand at this drawer, pivot 180 degrees, and grab the ice cream from the freezer. The ice cream bowls are close by too. (We use little bitty bowls for our ice cream. A serving, which is 47 grams (1/2 cup), looks like plenty in a little bowl, but it looks oh-so sad and lonely in a big cereal bowl.) It makes sense to keep the scooper right by the ice cream and the bowls. The same with the pizza cutter. We have pizza once a week – Sunday night is pizza and movie night. The pizza comes out of the oven and lands right here to be cut, so why not keep the cutter here too?

Most mornings, Clara tests her blood sugar for the first time at the kitchen island. Her extra supplies are in a cabinet just a few steps from the island, not in the bathroom. When she tests, she can check her supplies. Anything that need replenishing is just behind her.

Then it’s time to go. We grab our lunches and head toward the door. Backpacks, jackets, and instruments are stored on a bench by the front door. I keep a schedule for each girl on the wall by the bench, so we can quickly check and make sure that instruments or tennis shoes for PE (physical education) classes leave with the girls. Nothing that goes to school is stored in their rooms. That way it doesn’t get scattered about, and no one has to run back to her room. We grab them and head out.

My friend Holly’s daughters check and brush their hair before leaving the house. Rather than going back to the bathroom, or dragging hair brushes and hair ties with them from the bathroom to the front door, Holly keeps a basket of hair things by a mirror by the front door. Having the hair things at their point of use makes leaving the house easier, and it prevents clutter. Another friend lives in a unique three story house on a sharp cliff. Rather than having kids climbing back down three flights of stairs, one set of children’s toothbrushes are kept  small upstairs bathroom by the kitchen (top floor). They have another set downstairs in their bathroom closest to their bedrooms (lowest floor).

Anything that is kept where it is used prevents you from scurrying around to find it and lessens the risk that it will be left out of place, abandoned where ever you used it. Sometimes this means that you may have duplicate items. A hairbrush by the front door and one in the bathroom may make perfect sense, and that’s okay. As you go through your days this week, I encourage you to think about your routines. Notice when you backtrack to get something or observe that certain items always seem to be left out. These are probably the items that need a new home, by their point of use.

Today’s Declutter Item

It has taken me a while to decide to let this cabinet go. It is a great piece of furniture but the truth is I don’t use it any more. I don’t sew often enough to warrant the amount of space it takes up. I sold it on eBay on the weekend for $200. It made another young lady very happy and I am sure she is going to get a lot more use out of than I have of late.

Horn Sewing Cabinet

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Yesterday I got to have afternoon tea with a friend I mine that I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with. It was unexpected but very pleasant. My son enjoyed talking photography with her too.

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

I have had a few encounters lately with people lamenting the “disappearance” of childhood “treasures”.

Example 1: I was at an afternoon tea party with some young women one of which had a baby daughter. The subject got around to children’s toys and one of the young women was somewhat befuddled as to what had happened to her childhood collection of Strawberry Shortcake toys. “I wonder what happened to them, I suppose my mother got rid of them, I really don’t remember, I wish I still had them!”.

Example 2: On a separate occasion there was some mention of the that a relative in my family never saved her daughters toys to give to her children. I am not sure how this subject came up or where it went but it was lost on me.

Example 3: While talking to a friend of mine and her grown daughter the subject came up about Lego. I told them that my son had sold his Lego to a family friend because he no longer wanted it but needed the money to save for a trip to America. These women were horrified that I would allow him to part with these toys because ~ “When he has children of his own the sets that he had will no longer be available!” And to be honest, among the Lego he sold were two sets that were his fathers, given to him by his grandmother who had saved them.

The question is, am I the strange one or do many people fill their attics, basements, closets and garages with boxes of old toys of their own or their children in the hope that they can share the experience with their children/grandchildren some day. Where does one draw the line when it comes to these toys. I must confess even as I write this I remember that there is a box of Star Wars action toys and a box of Thomas the Tank Engine toys in the top of my son’s cupboard and I have saved a couple of my daughter’s old teddy bears but I do periodically give them the choice to keep them or pass them on. Of course these are the toys that were the most special to them or in my son’s case are not only toys but collectors items.

I remember the toys of my childhood that were, for many years, the focus of our vacation entertainment. Aside from some board games there was an old construction set, my brothers Meccano Set, our electric train set, the dolls my sister and I had, some cubby house items and my brothers old adjustable rollerskates. Aside from that we made up own fun. These items, like I said, were around for almost all of our childhood years but I never once thought to berate my mother for disposing of them when we had all grew up. I didn’t ever think, why didn’t she save them for our children.

Is it just a case for some people of, I don’t have it any more therefore I want it. Which sounds an awful lot like the same motivation for shopping constantly for things people don’t need. If in fact a person does have children of their own (and that is not guaranteed) the children aren’t likely to feel like they are missing out on the experience their parents had unless it is instilled in them that they should be. I say “There is no use crying over spilled milk if the toys are gone they are gone.”. And also be selective about what you save if you must insist on doing so. Only keep the very special items and when the time come to share them with your child or grandchildren don’t be disappointed if they are unimpressed.

I remember when I was a young teenager in my first job at a book store. During break times I would sit at the desk in the back room reading whatever was on hand while I ate my snack. One day there was a kiddies book called Monty Mouse which I found most entertaining due to the fact that instead of drawn illustrations the book had photos of a taxidermic mouse posed in many different scenes of adventure. By sheer chance many years later when my children were young I happened upon a copy of this very book at a second hand stall at a railway station. I was so excited to buy it to share with my children. I have to say they were a lot less impressed than I was and it never did become one of their favourite books like I expected it would.

I have always given my children the choice of what to do with their toys. I think it is good to include them in the decision making process so they don’t think they have been deprived of anything. I have never forced them to part with them but they usually decide to donate them or sell them in order to make way for the next best thing that is suitable for their new age group. I suppose that because they have been raised with me decluttering things it is a natural progress for them to do the same when they outgrow their stuff. I suppose it is therefore true that for children who have been raised with the idea that things possess unfathomable sentimental value they will likely forever have a problem with parting with things.

Today’s Declutter Item

The item today is an example of my children making their own choices when it comes to their toys. These plates were a part of my son’s Snoopy collection that started when he was about three years old. It has grown and followed us around for 17 years but he decided some time back that he had outgrown it and was happy to pass it on. I have been trying to sell parts of it for him in the hope of earning him a little cash. These plates sold on eBay last weekend for $25.oo. Mission accomplished. Some of it has also been Freecycled and the rest I think will be donated. 

Part of my Son's old Snoopy Collection

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I had a very successful eBay weekend and you will soon be able to see photos of the items that were sold in the Item Of The Day section over the next week or so. I netted about $370 and sold some items I have been wanted to part with for some time. As us Aussies say, I am a happy little Vegemite and so is my son and my daughter will be when she finds out I sold her keyboard for $80.

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.

This week we are going to attack those areas where fiddly bit accumulate. So many aspects of our lives involve tiny objects like pens, keys, kids toys, gadgets and the list goes on. The spaces where these things are stored need a good going over once in a while to keep them under control and that is the goal for this week’s mini missions.

Monday – Time to go through the jewellery box again and declutter any items that you no longer wear or love.

Tuesday – Small stationary items such as pens, staples, erasers, paperclips, post-it note pads etc can become perished with disuse or soiled and damaged in the scuffle. Declutter these victims of neglect today.

Wednesday – We all know that make-up has a certain shelf life and should be discarded after that time frame. Today is a good day to reassess this situation and throw out any old make-up items you now longer use or have been around too long.

Thursday – I recently went though our old games and game pieces to declutter what we aren’t likely to use again. Perhaps you need to do the same. I suggest using Snaplock bags to keep your pieces together especially jigsaw pieces because it isn’t hard for them to escape their boxes and render the whole game/puzzle useless.

Friday – If you have ignored all my previous advice and still have a dreaded junk drawer today would be a good day to sort it out again and return items to their proper homes. Perhaps there are some game pieces in there that will render one of the items from yesterdays mini mission 100% reusable again.

Saturday – Ah the utensils drawer, a place of redundant items if ever there was one. Often the home of single use gadgets that waste more time cleaning than they save using. Do yourself a favour today and free up the space in this drawer making the truly useful items easier to find.

Sunday – Anyone who has children will know that small toys, like game pieces, can be difficult to keep together. Not because there aren’t simple solutions to resolve this problem but because kids will be kids and they don’t usually care as much as adults do. Sort through the tiny toys today and declutter any broken, grown-out-of, or things with missing parts toys. I have to admit this probably is a not-so-mini mission but it needs to be done periodically nonetheless.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

I still love to play games but alas my family aren’t so keen anymore now that the kids are grown. I have kept some items but these ones are certainly excess to our needs and are off to the thrift shop. I was then able to move the remainder into a smaller container freeing up more space in the closet in my daughters room. Funny how we still consider it her room even though she hasn’t lived her for four years.

Games and Game Pieces

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I am grateful I haven’t gone to the football grand final with my sister-in-law and nephew. It is raining cats and dogs out there but my garden is getting well watered for which I am also grateful. Sometimes rainy days can really cramp your style but in reality we can’t live without them so there is no use complaining we should be rejoicing instead. 

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

In an endeavour to keep reducing until there is nothing but useful and loved things in my home I continue to revisit areas where I have decluttered previously. This week I decided to take another look under the laundry tubs and here are my before and after shots.

And Yes, that effort did only take ten minutes.