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!

Jane was way ahead of me on repairing little household annoyances. See her comment  here.

Mark talks about his organising concept that he calls RESET read about it here.

Sanna tells us how having less stuff around encourages her to make quick repairs in this comment.

Jen tells us how she is seeing the benenfits of her decluttering in this comment.

Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!

I watch YouTube videos while I am ironing. It almost makes ironing enjoyable and at least it seems to get finished quicker. Anyway this video is one I stumbled upon that I thought you would all enjoy.

Here is an interesting post from mnmlist.com - Minimalism isn’t just for the affluent

I likes this post so I thought I would throw it in here to see if you could find a way to apply it to your decluttering decision making.

Here is some good advice from Leo at Zen Habits on starting new good habits.

And here is another video that I really enjoyed. Although it isn’t directly related to clutter, the basis of the talk could certainly relate to putting off decluttering even though you would feel better for it. I think I will have to come up with a blog post that relates one to the other.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something purely kept for memory’s sake ~ Perhaps a souvenir or some other sentimental item.

Today’s Declutter Item

This flour sifter had more sentimental value than use. It used to be my grandmothers but that wasn’t reason enough to keep it. It was donated to the thrift store. And just to make a point on how people evolve while they are decluttering take a look at this blog post I wrote on day 258 of my original declutter challenge.

Flour Sifter

Eco Tip for the Day

When sending parcels do your best to use recycled packaging. Retail stores are great places to pick up boxes and packing materials for free. My hardware store has big cages full of boxes right at the check out. I go there when I need boxes to mail eBay sales.

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

Following on from Tuesday’s post I have another idea to put to you.

Imagine for a moment that you are a prisoner of war and the enemy are attempting to pry information from you. They use inhumane torture methods on you to extract this information. Nothing painful like burning or lashing but more insidious kinds of cruelty like water torture, sleep deprivation or solitude. Things that, taken in small doses, don’t seem so harmful but can drive you completely crazy over continuous and long periods of time.

After serval months the enemy decides that they just aren’t going to get you to give up your secrets or come to the conclusion that perhaps you just don’t have any so they cease the torture. They release you to some menial labour task instead. How relieved would you feel. Labour is certainly more tolerable than torture right?

So here is my question. Why do we insist on torturing ourselves with the constant thorn in our side that is clutter.  We inflict this insidious burden on ourselves for months even years when we know that a much shorter period of physical labour and maybe some slightly unpleasant decision making would relieve us of our torment.

Here is another analogy  that Jane put forward yesterday ~ “…once we started tackling all those “little pesky’s” it felt as if we had made the biggest leaps in our decluttering as those kinda things are like a pebble in your shoes. Sure you can try to ignore it or even try to tolerate it, but ultimately getting rid of the irritation is the only solution. It’s just how long are you willing to “ignore” the pebble in your shoe.”

So explain to me why anyone would want to keep torturing themselves when the solution is relatively straight forward. How long are you prepared to keep torturing yourself for the sake of avoiding a little work.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a decor item ~ Perhaps excess cushions on beds or sofas, or one of too many adornments collecting dust.

Today’s Declutter Item

Here is something that has been a pebble in my shoe for a while. There have been a box of books in my garage since 2007 that have been kept for sentimental reasons. By me but at my daughter’s request. I would like to rid myself of them but she wishes to keep them but can’t collect them until she is settled. I thought that perhaps by now they had just become out of sight out of mind so I recently asked her if she wouldn’t mind me letting these Harry Potter books go to a good home. She consented to this proposal without hesitation so now I am one large step closer to emptying one more box. I will run the rest of the box by her on her next visit home in a couple of weeks.

The young boy that I gave them to was very happy indeed.

Harry Potter Books

Eco Tip for the Day

Food takes a lot of resources to produce so never let it go to waste. Have a few recipes handy that are great for using up left over bits and pieces, like curry, quiche or bubble & squeak.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

Backsliding. What a dreadful word! Are you a decluttering backslider? Recently I have been.

I discovered that if I’m not activitely moving forward in my decluttering, I can go into a holding pattern – for a while – but then I start sliding backwards. Dreadful! I came too far to go back now!

I’ve been decluttering for three years now. It’s a habit and a lifstyle, but just like with any other long-term habit or hobby, sometimes my interested wanes. I don’t go and buy out the store and start recluttering, thank goodness. My backsliding starts a bit more sneakily: the house slowly gets messier and less picked up, until it starts to look…well not all the way cluttered but a lot less lovely than it should.

Here are some examples (my own personal walk of shame)

• A gift bag from Audra’s birthday in August stayed on the coffee table until the end of September.
• I bought a shelving unit in August. I loaded it with books, then took some away to make it look a bit more decorative. The books that I removed from the shelves are still sitting on the coffee table.
• Also in August, we used a big decal from Home Depot to cover a clear window to make it look etched, thereby creating privacy. Half the roll wasn’t use and is still sitting right where I put it when we finished the job.
• I forgot to write my blog two weeks ago – decluttering isn’t on my mind.

What did I do to get myself out of my slide? I started by putting away the gift bag and picking up the tissue paper that the cats had spread around the living room. Then I decluttered the pantry. I know that wasn’t on my list above, but it was messy in there, and it had been bothering me. I only got rid of four things: one trashed, two given to a friend, and one intentionally used up that night. A couple days later I straightened the linen closet, which mostly involved refolding and tidying, but also involved taking four flat pillows, cutting them open, and making them into two. Wow! That felt good! By tackling some large but very easy projets, I was successful, felt energized, and it helped me to get back on track. No more backsliding for me!

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a domestic tool ~ Perhaps an item for working in the kitchen or the garage.

Today’s Declutter Item

Playing Cards

Eco Tip for the Day

Own less things. This way when something breaks you will be more inclined to fix it immediately because you need it rather than just utilising an alternative. Repairing things rather than just throwing them away is obviously better for the environment. (Thank you Sanna for the inspiration for this Eco Tip)

“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

For, I don’t how many, years now there has been a minor irritation in my life in the way of an item that needs a little repair. This items is a small picture frame whose stand falls off every time I lift it to dust underneath. Now you are probably thinking I have finally decided to declutter it and save myself from this grief but no that is not an option. This item is precious to someone else in the family so it is staying.

What I did do today was fix the stupid thing. Now I am sure you are wondering ~ Why didn’t I do this years ago instead of allowing it to irritate me on a weekly basis for so long? And the answer would be ~ Heaven only knows! I suppose that once dusted I continued on with my cleaning process and forgot about it until the next time I lifted it.

The question now is why do we do the same things with clutter items, allowing them to languish in our homes being an irritation to us when one small action will free us from the grief. You may be thinking ~ “Because there is far more than one of them and it is going to take more than one small action to solve the problem.” Well I would suggest in response that the  greater quantity makes it even more important to get started on the task because we are no longer talking about one small irritation. With every object the irritation is increased causing us greater grief.

Equally so with every object removed, even at the pace of one item a day, the irritation is also decreased. For me, with 800+ items removed from my home I feel the weight of irritation lifting off me more and more every single day. So whether you are just at the start of your declutter journey or a long way down the track let it be known that every single object you remove relieves a little more irritation. So get started or keep up the good work, depending on your situation, and enjoy the feeling of the weight lifting from your shoulders.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a fashion item. That could be a piece of clothing, a pair of shoes, a handbag, a scarf…

Today’s Declutter Item

Excess cords in this house come up, as the declutter item of the day, almost as often as baseball souvenirs ~ well maybe not quite that often ( we have had a lot of baseball items) but too often for my liking. This pair sold on ebay. And who wouldn’t want to pick one up secondhand if they needed one because they cost a fortune to buy new.

MacBook / iPod Cords

Eco Tip for the Day

Don’t throw away your old electronics cords. There is always someone out there who needs one. Either donate them, offer them to friends, list them on freecycle.org or try to sell them. You may be saving someone from having to buy new.

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 weeks mini mission are quite simple to follow. I have formulated them leaving a wide breadth of opportunity to find something from each category to declutter. Sunday however has been changed up a bit and will be kept this way on a trial basis for a while until you, my readers, decide whether you find it useful of not. So good luck with the missions and get your thinking caps ready for Sunday.

Monday – Declutter a leisure item. That could be anything from a piece of sporting equipment to a deck chair.

Tuesday – Declutter a fashion item. That could be a piece of clothing, a pair of shoes, a handbag, a scarf…

Wednesday – Declutter a domestic tool ~ Perhaps an item for working in the kitchen or the garage.

Thursday – Declutter a decor item ~ Perhaps excess cushions on beds or sofas, or one of too many adornments collecting dust.

Friday – Declutter something purely kept for memory’s sake ~ Perhaps a souvenir or some other sentimental item.

Saturday – Declutter a gadget ~ Gadgets are so alluring but once acquired they often fall short of expectations. Get rid of one of those that has fallen short.

Sunday – On a trial basis ~ for now ~ Sunday will be reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

My husband in provided with a watch through is work. He has come to the decision that he doesn’t need an extra one “just in case”. This one will be off to the thrift store this week.

One Watch is Enough

Eco Tip for the Day

When shopping for groceries try to choose items that come in the least environmentally offensive packaging or preferably no packaging at all. I have mentioned this before regarding soap, I only buy soap loose or in a cardboard box. Individually packaged snack food such a chips and candy bars are also big offenders when it comes to this kind of excessive packaging.

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

The Weekend’s Mini Missions

Saturday – If you have offered something to a friend but they haven’t dropped by to pick it up, take it to them yourself. Better to just have it out of there.

Sunday - Ask another household member if you can declutter something that belongs to them. You may have no luck but I guarantee you won’t know the answer if you don’t ask the question.

“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

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!

Jen shared with us a few techniques that work for her in trying to get rid of clutter items in this comment.

Anna B shares her plans to create a space to collect all her “outgoing things” in this comment.

One of this weeks mini missions has inspired Wendy B to work on her key clutter. Here’s her comment

I like the way Sanna goes about Christmas gift giving and receiving. You can read about it here and in this follow up comment.

Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!

Kim sent through this link that I thought you would all enjoy.

Loretta was also kind enough to send me a link this week. I had my doubts about posting this one because I didn’t like that they made it sound entirely pretentious to eating local, organic and in season foot, because for some that is an environmental choice not a form of snobbery. I really did mostly agree with the rest of the article though so I decided to share it with you anyway so here it is.

Here are a couple of articles that Moni sent with tips on yard/garage sale safety. There are some very sensible tips here and some common sense ones as well. I only hope that you see them as good advice and not let them scare you off having a garage sale altogether. Article 1  Article 2

Mark from markadamdouglass.com has been commenting here just recently so I went over to his blog to do a little exploring. I found this short but simple post that I thought you might enjoy. Take a look around while you are there as I am sure he has plenty more wisdom to impart.

Today’s Mini Mission

Do a small section of a larger decluttering task that you’d rather avoid~ like my photo decluttering task. If you attack this task in small doses it will be eventually be completed without being such a drag.

Today’s Declutter Item

In keeping with today’s mini mission I have weeded out another handful of duplicate, out of focus and just bad photos. That’s one more small step towards getting this task out of the way.

Decluttered Photos

Eco Tip for the Today

Most people have digital cameras these days but some still think “old school” when it comes to printing and insist on hardcopies of everything. Why not save paper and ink and only get the photos printed that you intend to display. Even sending copies to family and friends can be done digitally. No need for waste there either.

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

Last week I wrote a post called Get Set For Success about setting up your opportunities to declutter before actually starting to choose the items. That is, finding a good thrift shop, exploring ebay etc ahead of time so you are set for success. Sometimes however the opportunities for decluttering present themselves without you even having to try.

A couple of months ago we eliminated our home phone line to go completely mobile. The phones we had been using were originally purchased in the US and we still had the US power cables. Although we had purchased new cables when we arrived back in Australia they were not quite right making it difficult to position the smaller docking stations. These phone had been sitting in the transition point in my garage awaiting a solution as to how best to get rid of them.

Then the week before last I received in my mailbox an invitation to a going away party, to be held at the end of November. The party was for one of our neighbouring families who are moving to the US (lucky ducks).

The next link in this chain of events was a social engagement I was attending with a group of people also belonging to my neighbourhood, to which, at the last moment, I didn’t have transport. I posted a request on our community Facebook page for someone to possibly give me a ride. Coincidently enough the lady, let’s call her Kylie, who is moving to the US was the first to offer me a ride and I gladly accepted. The stage was set for a potentially difficult declutter to suddenly become very simple.

On the ride to our destination we had a lovely chat about what preparations she needed for her move. She asked lots of question and I shared with her my knowledge from my time in the US. It then occurred to me to offer her the set of phones and she happily accepted. Mission accomplished, or at least it was last Friday when I dropped them of at her house.

The icing on the cake, when it comes to this story, is that the new phone/internet plan that we signed up for in order to eliminate these phones ended up costing us $60 less than what we were paying a month previously including much more call time.

Today’s Mini Mission

Gather up a group of similar items, decide which ones you really do need/want and declutter the excess. Kitchen items are usually a good target for this type of decluttering.

Today’s Declutter Item

Here are the phones from the story above. I didn’t realise until a went to add this photo that it doesn’t include the power cords and extra docking station. So there was even more clutter than this that left on the day these were passed along to their new home.

My old home phone system

Eco Tip for the Day

When soaking dishes in the kitchen sink ,don’t waste fresh water to fill them. Just leave them in the bottom of the sink and allow them to fill up with water from rinsing the dishcloth and other wet tasks.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

I’ve started stocking up for Christmas. I’m not entirely sure this is a good idea. In the past, when my children were younger, I’d sometimes see something six months before Christmas that I thought would make a good gift. By the time Christmas came ’round, I’d realized that my child was too old / too young / no longer interested in X, so now my gift needed to be re-gifted. (Do you call it re-gifting when it’s never even been gifted once?)

My caution about stocking up is compounded by my once good idea that went bad on me: Having a gift box full of a choice of generic gifts, purchased on sale, for my children to select from when they were invited to parties. The reason this idea went bad wasn’t because I made poor choices. It’s because I had about 10 gifts to choose from, and around 3rd or 4th grade, my children were no longer invited to every party for every child in their classes. Instead, they were only invited to a few select parties a year, meaning two things – 1.) that they’d prefer to pick out a special gift for the special friend and 2.) that they aged out of the gifts I’d stored up because they weren’t using the box so frequently.  (If you have children in preschool and early elementary and a couple of children of mixed ages, I still recommend the gift box; just cut off your buying in 2nd grade or so.)

Buying gifts too far in advance can lead to clutter, incovenience, and an excess of spending, all things we’d like to avoid. So why have I bravely started stocking up this year? Well, for one thing, my children are older and their interests and abilities aren’t changing on a monthly basis. For another, it’s October: Christmas isn’t really that far away. (If you shop at Wal-Mart or Costco, you might think it was next week!) In addition, I’ve decided that the positive aspects of buying in advance outweigh my fear of going wrong.

• Buying in advance allows for slow and careful purchasing. I can shop for the best price or possibly find my items used (for example, a book).
• I can purchase when there’s a sale.
• I will avoid panic shopping at the last minute, which is good for my mental health and prevents rash “grab anything for Aunt Myrtle” gifts: Gifts that are doomed from the beginning to become clutter at Aunt Myrtle’s house.
• I have time to weigh the value of a gift against the cost or other factors without having to make quick decisions.
• When we buy all our gifts at once or in a short time, it’s easy to toss one more or two or ten more last minute items or stocking stuffers into our cart without thinking, wasting money and creating clutter.

The most important task you have to make this successful is to keep a list of what you’ve purchased and ideas for things you might want to purchase (or make).  A list will keep you from getting carried away, will make you aware of how many gifts you’ve already purchased  and prevent you from skewing your gifts too heavily in one direction (like the year Clara got about 10 pair of earrings. By the end, she was less than completely thrilled). Remember that gift cards, tickets to events, or promises to special outings make wonderful clutter-free gifts. (Also, Colleen has a list of un-clutter gifts under “Guides” at the top of the page. These list are definitely worth exploring and considering.)

I’ve started stocking up for Christmas, have you?

Today’s Mini Mission

Take action on something that you want to declutter but aren’t sure how best to move it on. Maybe it’s time you investigated the possibilities.

Today’s Declutter Item

This book was just one small thing my daughter had left behind.

Eco Tip for the Day

Don’t use throw away cleaning wipes. They have them for cleaning wood, kitchen spills, television screens, make-up removal etc etc. You can do all these jobs with a little water and a microfibre cloth that can be washed and used over and over 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

People often say to me “I am surprised you are still finding things to declutter!” Actually even I am surprised at some of the things I find at times. Especially those odd things that appear that make me think  ~ How did that escape my notice for so long?! The egg timer I decluttered last week would be a good example of this.

I think what most people don’t realise is the sheer number of individual items that make up an average modern household. Heaven forbid they should start to divide out and add up all those individual items that really aren’t utilised enough to warrant the space they occupy. Items that although definitely have a use in the household could really be lived without. Which is a part of what keeps me finding one more thing each day to declutter.

Lets add up how many Items of the Day I have decluttered so far since I pledged to remove a thing a day for the year of 2010. At one a day for the first year that’s 365 items. Then one thing every Monday to Friday in the second year is another 260 items. Then there has been one thing every Monday to Friday so far this years which makes about another 212 items. Giving me a total of 837 items so far. That may sound like a lot of stuff and it is especially when you consider there are often daily “items” that are actually multiple items which would increase the number greatly. That is also a big number considering most of these items were sitting unused and unloved. I should imagine, that when I am finally done with my declutter mission, there will still be plenty of individual items left in my home. Though, I would hope, a lot less than the average home.

All that being said I have no idea how many more items I will send out the door before I am finished. I know I still have barely skimmed the surface of photos that need sorting. I have several items I still intend to list on ebay. In my opinion the baseball souvenirs could still do with some more serious culling. I am on a continuous mission to use up craft supplies. As mentioned many times, I have boxes of my daughters things that will leave once she is settled into a more permanent home. And as I have said from the start, I get more ruthless as I go along and that ruthlessness is the main thing that has me finding that next item to declutter every day. 

I have no immediate need to minimise any faster than I am. I am also satisfied that very little enters the house so I am staying well ahead of the game. I experiment as I go alone to see if I can do without certain things and if so they are out of here. And I have to say I am actually enjoying the process. I have learned so much about myself along the ways and also made improvement to the person I was before I began. I am certainly more environmentally conscious that’s for sure.

Sure I could ramp up the pace if I wanted to and be done decluttering but then I would run out of things to write about here at 365 Less Things. Then where would I be without my wonderful community to chat with everyday.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something you have been considering for removal for some time.

Today’s Declutter Item

My husband found these three belts that no longer fit or are just excess to his needs. After all one really only need  one brown leather belt.

Belts

Eco Tip for the Day

Save on note paper by using a whiteboard to leave messages for family members, room mates or yourself for that matter. I have discovered that the front of my stainless steel fridge works just like a whiteboard. Now if I could just stop my wise guy son from leaving cheeky messages. Scoundrel!!

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