Looking at this huge collection of stuff one would think my house would be empty by now but it isn’t. Where on earth was I keeping all that stuff? Better question still ~ Why was I keeping all that stuff?

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

Favourite Comments. Enjoy!

There is an important message in this comment from Joanna especially if you are not coping with issues on your own. Whatever they may be.

I had to add this comment from Becky in the hope that those of you who have had success convincing spouses to declutter might give her some advice.

Karen hit the nail on the head with one short sentence in this comment ~ “I has changed my brain.” I like that because it really somes up what needs to be done in order to do a proper declutter. You have to realign your thinking from being materialistic to being content with less. And who wouldn’t want to be content, right?

Like Karen above Nurchamiel has got to the point where she is letting go of book. To non-prolific readers that may not be a big deal but to book lovers it sure it. When they have honed their decluttering desire to include books they know they have reached a huge milestone. Read full comment here.

This comment from Calico ginger sums up the best of what slow and steady decluttering is all about.

I also liked what Ideealistin had to say in this comment. It shows that the best method of decluttering is an individual thing. Whatever it is that keeps you motivated to continue is a good thing.

Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!

lifehacker.com ~ How to dig yourself out from leftover holiday clutter. Of course I think it is wiser to avoid the excess by requesting moderation during the holiday season but not everyone finds that option acceptable.

Alison sent me this link. Those of you who live in America might be interested in sending your cards on to be recycled ~ Ann’s Christmas Card Project

This link is to the blog of one of your fellow 365 readers, Joanna. The difficulty level of Joanna’s mission far excedes mine. Please give her some support. 365declutterchallenge ~ Moving out of a hoarders home, what does and doesn’t work. 

My husband has been reading this blog recently and although I feel I ought to be a little insulted it ha inspired him to purge stuff I have been hoping he would get rid of for a long time. So thank you ~ www.theminimalists.com and I particularly liked this post ~ Failure but I think the one that spurred my hubby on was this one.

Today’s Declutter Item

This necklace was given to me by someone who had received it from someone else and now I have given it to the thrift shop. I wonder if someone will eventually wear it. I found it among my craft supplies.

Handed on Clutter

Something I Am Grateful For Today

There has been a birthday in the household today (not mine) and it has been a very pleasant day. I may have gained a pound though after cooking Raisin Bread French Toast for breakfast, lunch out at a café, cooking nice fat steaks with sweet potato fries and sweet corn for dinner followed by sweet sticky syrup dumplings with lashings of cream. Mmmmmm.

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

Being as this is the first week of the new year I have decided to put together a basic everyday decluttering post for those who have stumbled onto my blog looking for help with their New Year’s resolution to minimise their possessions. So without further adieu I present you with the basics of decluttering your home with the slow and steady approach.

Keep it simple ~ Everyday decluttering is about decluttering slowly and deliberately one item at a time. There is no need to disrupt your household by pulling everything out of a large area causing a huge mess, making rash decisions on what to get rid of and taking hours to regain control of the area.

Pledge to remove, on average, at least one item a day ~ Simply walk into a room spy something that you not longer need, use or care about and remove it to your departure point. If it is not convenient to do this immediately, make a note of the potential clutter items for later removal.

The departure point ~ Designate an out of the way area to place your decluttered items until you are ready to take the next step. The next step might be to through it in the bin, recycle it, sell it or donate it.

Start with the easy stuff ~ A surefire way to deter yourself and give up early in this mission is the make it too hard on yourself to begin with. So start by getting rid of the stuff that you care the least about and is easy to part with. As you get more excited about your progress you will become more ruthless.

Don’t reclutter while you declutter or ever again for that matter. Learning to let go is one thing learning not to acquire potential clutter is a whole other kettle of fish. It may take a little more willpower to achieve this status quo. I would suggest banning yourself from all other shopping except the essentials for at least three weeks. Read my Alternatives to Shopping post for ideas on how to keep yourself out of the shops. Hopefully after three weeks you will have strengthened your resistance enough to at least reduce recreational shopping if not eradication it as a pastime altogether. If you find yourself weakening and considering buying things you don’t need use the advice in this post by Cindy to make yourself think twice about a potential purchase.

There is no speed limit ~ If one thing a day is too slow for you declutter as many things as you like just be sure to keep within your comfort limit. Don’t set a pace too difficult to maintain or it will all get too hard. Speed up and slow down whenever it suits you but be constant in regularity. Try to do something everyday to maintain your momentum.

Be mindful about your decision making ~ Don’t declutter items just for the sake of getting rid of things. Give each item careful consideration you. You don’t want to find you are replacing items a month or two down the track because you got over zealous. Similarly don’t keep items for the wrong reason’s either. I have a declutter decision making guide to help you with this process so use it if you feel the need. You want this decluttering effort to be a lifestyle change not a mad dash to the finish line only to find yourself back at the starting point in another six months.

Be responsible about disposal ~ Please dispose of your decluttered items responsibly. Sell, donate or give away everything that is still usable, recycle the things you can and only put in the trash items that are no good for anything. Yes this can complicate the process but consider that your penance for accumulating stuff environmentally irresponsibly in the first place.

So that is it in a nut shell. In summary everyday decluttering is about reducing your belongings slowly but surely without the mess and back breaking drudgery. As little as one item a day will make a huge difference in the long run and is a lot less stressful than disrupting your entire household with one of those week long possession purging marathons that are a one off event rather than a lifestyle change.

(We will return to the normal routine of Mini Mission Monday next week.)

Today’s Declutter Item

This treasure chest has been around my house since Christmas 2000 it has escaped decluttering up until this point due to sentimental reasons. Yes I can still be a little sentimental about things at times. My husband purchased this box in which he secreted away my Christmas gifts during our first exciting winter Christmas in Seattle. He would go shopping on the weekends leading up to the big day, tell me to close my eyes of I was nearby when he returned with the latest addition and place it in the box. He even had the cheek to padlock it. Up until recently it contained keepsake clutter but now I have reduced that to a more reasonable level and this box is no longer justified. It has been sitting in my clutter collection point awaiting the final verdict to actually declutter it. I am ready to let it go. Now I wonder what took me so long, it is just a box after all and I still have my husband and my memories.

Treasure Chest / Sentimental Clutter

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Welcome to my first post of 2012. I assume we have a crop of new readers and people who have vowed that this is the year they’ll get organized. Welcome, I say! If you’re new here, I highly recommend that you read Colleen’s guidelines for decluttering.

Typically I write a long post, but today I just want to give you hope on your decluttering journey. No matter what your circumstances, no matter who you live with, no matter how many children or pets or elderly parents you have, you can declutter a thing a day, one day at a time.

In 2011, I decluttered 1888 things, and I made $1126.75 plus another $1000 I bartered in repairs for my van when we decluttered (and did not replace) my husband’s car. As you can see, the benefits of decluttering are many.

For inspiration, I present to you photos of my daugther’s room. These first photos are just about as horrible as anything you can imagine, right? They were taken in September 2009, just before I hired a professional organizer for 3 hours to help me tackle the room.

These second photos were taken on December 26, 2011. I did nothing to prepare her room for the photos; this is how I found it.

To read more about the process of getting her room from chaos to control, you can read my post about it here. But, as you can seeing if you compare the “after” photos there to the “after” photos here, she has cleaned and decluttered her room even further in the subsequent 27 months.

My daughter is only 9 years old. If she can do it, you can too!

Here’s to our continued decluttering success in 2012!

Today’s Declutter Item

Since I no longer have a Christmas tree I won’t need a skirt for it. This declutter wasn’t as easy as you might think though. My mother made this tree skirt for me some years back so there was a little sentimental attachment. When I really thought about it, it was more of a guilt feeling of decluttering something that my mother put effort into making for me. Guilt isn’t a good reason to keep something as I am sure my mother would agree so I donated it to the thrift store.

Christmas Tree Skirt

Something I Am Grateful For Today

All the new subscriber that have signed up recently. I hope that my blog will give them the advice and encouragement they need to met their decluttering goals. 

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

When I first took on the challenge to declutter an item a day for an entire year I had my doubts whether we would even have enough items to last a year of decluttering. Two years later I am still at it.

Now don’t think for one minute that I am frustated with the idea that I am still decluttering after such a long time, far from it. Back at the start of 2010 there were many items I would not have even considered decluttering that are now long gone form my home. Items that someone in the home was not ready to part with for one reason or another whether that be sentimental or otherwise. The longer we keep at this the more ruthless we become, the more we are willing to part with and the less we own. The desire to own less has far overtaken the desire to acquire stuff.

Some items that seemed so useful at one point have proved to be more space wasters than anything else. Things that we thought were time savers by design turned out not to save enough time to warrant the space they take up. Other items worth selling were sitting idle so they were sold on ebay. Some items especially furniture items were no longer necessary once all the clutter that they contained was gone. Many items, once believed to be personal treasures, never saw the light of day. We soon realised the items weren’t necessary in order for the memories to stay in tact so out they went.

And here we are two years down the track and approximately 630 items less and I still keep finding things to declutter. So if you look at something today and think “I’ll never declutter that” don’t forget to take another look at it in a couple of months because your attitude may have changed towards it as you hone your minimalist tendencies. Pay close attention to everything in your home so you can make informed choices as to whether the things you think you use and can’t live without really are as essential as you first thought. Chances are the less you have the less you find you “need” or want.

Today’s Declutter Item

This coffee table was one of those items that wasn’t even in within the scope of our declutter radar when we first started decluttering. But it became redundant as the number of items requiring storage in our living room diminished. I wasn’t going to list it here because we had actually replaced it with a storage ottoman more in keeping with our needs and the size of the room. Unfortunately the ottoman arrived damaged and or not well made so it was returned for a refund. It really annoys me when I have taken the time to make a well considered purchase and I end up with a product that has added to the supply chain but turns out not being of the same quality as the display item in the store. For now I have no plans to replace the faulty piece of furniture we will just use the small ottoman we already own.

Coffee Table

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I have been slacking over the holiday season and although my home has been tidy its cleanliness has left a lot to be desired. Today I gave a good once over and it feels good to know it is spick-n-span again. 

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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 declutter things we thought we loved. Well let’s face it all clutter could fall into that category. In this case though I am talking about things we acquired because we thought they were great or kept for sentimental reasons but have since become emotionally detached from.

Monday – There is usually at least one make-up item among the others that we once thought suited our peculiar kind of beauty but now wonder where we got that idea. If you have such an item but haven’t had the sense to throw it away yet, today is the day.

Tuesday – How many handbags do you have and how many of them do you actually use. Declutter one that that you haven’t used in a long time because you don’t love it like you once did.

Wednesday – Declutter one of those once favourite outfits that you never wear any more. Chances are it is now way out of fashion.

Thursday – Check your keepsake box for something you kept but now wonder why. Declutter anything that you feel this way about.

Friday - What is on your walls? Is there something hanging there simply out of habit that you don’t really want or even particularly like? Now is the time to declutter it.

Saturday - Have a look in your display cabinet there is bound to be something lingering in there that you long ago lost interest in. Time to send it to the thrift shop.

Sunday - Look in your jewellery box – Are you really going to wear all of those earrings again or that ring your old boyfriend gave you? Time to cull a few things in there don’t you think?

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

What is the use of keeping items that just don’t work any more. In the case of these circlip pliers none what-so-ever. I used them for stretching sliver jump rings for making jewellery chains but they broke soon after buying. Needless to say I was not impressed. I hate shoddy products.

Broken beyond repair

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I am grateful for what was a restful Christmas and now it is time to get back into some serious decluttering. The craft supplies are first on the list. I have some ebaying to do.

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