I spent last Saturday at TEDx Sydney. It was a fabulous day with many great talks. I wouldn’t dare to pick a favourite because they were all good in their own way. But one stood out to me that I could relate to decluttering, or more so as an example of the falsehood of need. It was a lesson in substitution and imagination which is a talent sometimes handy when it comes with living with less.

The talk I am referring to wasn’t so much of a talk as it was an example of ingenuity. Of knowing the mechanics of something and reinventing it with what is on hand. The person in question was Linsey Pollak and his special subject was making musical instruments from unusual objects. I was particularly impressed when he made a clarinet from a sax mouth pieces, a funnel and a carrot.

And where was the connection between this and decluttering. Well my thought was, that we have so many things we think we need but in reality we really we could really manage without them. I though if Linsey can fashion a clarinet from a carrot then not only can I do find a reasonable substitute, should I discover I had a “need” for something I had previously decluttered, but I could have fun with the challenge. In fact I already have done this more than once and been proud of my own ingenuity.

Have you ever found yourself in this situation and figured out a way around it?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter any crockery that you have too many pieces of.

Eco Tip for the Day

Carpool with friends when attending social events. Consider the possibility that you could compromise on when you need to arrive and/or depart. Sometimes we are a little too spoiled when it come to having things completely our way.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

This post is especially for those with lingering impulses to do one, some or all of the following…

1. Impulse shop.
2. Keep things that you once loved or found very useful even though you no longer do.
3. Have a had time resisting stuff you can be creative with, repurpose or revamp.

Let me begin with a little example not related to clutter. I like a good cup of coffee or tea. I will admit I drink far too much of the stuff. This has been going on all my life. It is a regimented habit too, just like my eating.  generally I’ll have a cup, of either, when I first get up in the morning, another after my breakfast then one at morning-tea around 10am, another at lunch, then one at afternoon-tea around 3pm, another with dinner and then another at supper at 9pm. Mostly tea but usually at least two coffees.

All my life these caffeinated beverages have been accompanied with a meal or a small, usually sweet, snack. However, now as I get older snacking isn’t advisable in order to keep a rein on the waistline. So I try to resist the temptation. I have discovered something about this. The lingering impulse to accompany my cup of tea/coffee with a snack is totally imprinted on my brain. I have been doing it for so long now. The trick is not to have snack food in the house but that doesn’t always work because I can always make a snack with ingredients in the house, and when out there are all sorts of temptation.

But here is the good news. I have also discovered that that lingering impulse only exists during the preparation stage of the routine. As I make my cup of tea/coffee I get the urge to acquire the snack. If resisted the impulse disappears the instant I sit down and start drinking my beverage. Gone, just like that.

My husband discovered a similar impulse when driving home from our son’s the other day. As we drove past the street we used to live on he got a sudden brain impulse that he had gone the wrong way.

Here is where the clutter comes in.

Impulse shopping can be hard to resist. You have done it so often in the past and it always feels good to acquire something new and exciting. Therefore your impulse is to ignore common sense and give in to the impulse. However is you can ignore the impulse and walk away you will probably not give the item another thought once you get home. Money saved and clutter avoided.

We have all had trouble parting with things we once loved or found very useful but don’t anymore. When we inspect the item during our decluttering tasks the fond memories and or appreciation for them resurfaces. So we tend to put them back and go in search for something else we would find easier to part with, something more mundane. Instead of giving into the impulse to keep the item try being realistic about it and let it go. I can almost guarantee once it is out of your house you will never give it another thought.

Now if you are like me and have a hard time walking past stuff you think you could use in a creative way, revamp or repurpose, then have faith. That desire in you to create or revive is as ingrained in you as the need to breath. That is regardless of the fact that you may not of participated in such activities for a long time. Seeing the potential in things is a positive trait. And, like all the other situation above, the trick is to resist the impulse in that moment and walk away. It is likely that you will not give it another thought and, if you do, you might also realistically think ~ “I would never have got around to doing something with it anyway.”.

In summary – these impulses are  as fleeting as they are inevitable. They may also never leave you and the best you can do is ignore them in the moment and they will be gone. Do you know of any impulses like this that you have? Share them with us and how you manage to resist them or not.

Today’s Mini Mission

Eco Tip for the Day

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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.

I’ve said it before and I say it again… One of the most cluttered areas of a home is the kitchen. In our never pending desire to make work as simple as possible we acquire gadget after gadget ~ Of which there are an infinite number of ~ for our kitchens. Not to mention all the paraphernalia required to use these so called simplifying gadgets. Also enough crockery, cutlery, glassware and utensils so that we don’t run out while we fill the dishwasher to capacity. So this week lets see if we can find six items to declutter from this area of our homes.

Monday – Declutter one electric kitchen gadget that wasn’t so time saving or was completely pointless in the first place.

Tuesday – Declutter any crockery that you have too many pieces of.

Wednesday – Declutter any glassware you have more of than you need.

Thursday – Declutter one hand powered kitchen gadget you don’t use enough to warrant wasting the space.

Friday – Declutter utensils that you have multiples of but never need more than one at a time.

Saturday – Declutter kitchen related linen that is surplus to your needs.

Sunday - Sunday is 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

Eco Tip for the Day

Send all your unused stuff out into the world where it can save someone else from buying new.

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

Deb J

I think it was two years ago when I talked about all the jewelry we have.  We went through it all and got rid of about half.  We still have too much in my mind.  Most of it is never used.  Some because we have nothing it really looks good with and some because it just isn’t stuff I like.  I’ve thought about suggesting to Mom that as we find new clothes we make sure they will go with those pieces we really like.  

The jewelry in question

Part of the problem is that in Indiana we had real winter and we wore sweaters and turtle necked shirts that many of the necklaces went with.  We also wore suits or dresses where a broach was a finishing touch.  Now we have warmer temps here in Arizona in the “winter” and seldom wear a sweater or turtle neck.  Many of the necklaces aren’t shown off if worn against bare skin.  Putting one of the broaches on any of our blouses would look silly because they are too heavy for the materials.  

Here we are with all of this nice jewelry and no place to wear it.  I say get rid of it.  Mom’s says we might want it someday.  What do you think?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter old keys that you no longer remember what they belonged to.

Eco Tip for the Day

This tip was something that Wendy F brought to my attention. Use the fabric from old mens’ shirts to make handkerchiefs. You will be repurposing the fabric in the shirt and saving paper used to make tissues.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

I catch the train a lot and love nosing at the back of people’s homes that we pass en route.

Doodle

I can’t help myself from thinking over some of them, that half an hour of putting things away at the onset of autumn would make such a difference to the look of a garden that never look their best during the wet dull days of winter. Of course, fortunately loads of strangers can’t see my back garden from a train 😀

We only have a small back garden – a very typical Victorian ‘backyard’ with high 8ft walls.

The History Bit

In the UK, the Victorian period is so named after the period that Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 – 1901. (Great Great Grandmother to our current Queen Elizabeth II).

This was a period of mass movement to urban living. In the town I live in, the population quadrupled during that period and there are many many streets of terrace housing, back to back (where gardens back on to the terrace behind you with no other access other than through your own back door.)

You can often find traces of the old outdoor privy and in our’s also the original brick floor of the coal house.

*

Our backyard is a fairly typical 10ft x 16 feet wide (the width of the house) and doesn’t have any soil, just paving.

When I first moved here, on my own 12 years ago, this was my first garden and I fondly imaged that I would prove to be a keen gardener, despite never having shown a flicker of interest before. In fact I remember on first meeting the people who were eventually to become my in-laws, shortly after I moved, proudly talking about my ‘interest’ in gardening, lol.

My Garden Clutter

Over the years I seemed to have collected a lot of pots (as the only means of growing plants), in part from my now in-laws full of plants but also my own annual spring burst of enthusiasm: a triumph of hope over realism.

Most died due to a combination of summer neglect and a massive snail and slug problem. I finally admitted to my self that the idea of me being a gardener   and collecting all the paraphernalia that comes with such an interest was typical aspirational hording!

I’ve stopped pretending.

Fortunately, my husband seems to have developed an interest in the garden in the last year or two but he has bought all his own pots to suit his fruit tree passions. So we’re left with a plethora of spare pots that won’t get reused.

A few weeks ago, we had a typical British trigger for de-cluttering the garden – a weekend of spring sunshine! While he happily tackled vigorous pruning I felt the urge to declutter.

Pots gone via Freecycle

My husband is never keen on de-cluttering and seemed resistant at first to the idea, but I was greatly surprised how many he was able to let go of: I did my usual, “you c
an keep as many as you like, but let’s go through them one by one and just give me a quick yes or no as to whether you can let it go”.

By removing the stress by ensuring he understood I wouldn’t be pressuring him or disapproving of his choices he said “yes it can go” to nearly every one.

To the right is a picture of many of the pots we got rid of via freecycle that weekend

How’s the clutter in your garden?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a purse, wallet, handbag, carry bag or backpack.

I catch the train a lot and love nosing at the back of people’s homes that we pass en route.

Doodle

I can’t help myself from thinking over some of them, that half an hour of putting things away at the onset of autumn would make such a difference to the look of a garden that never look their best during the wet dull days of winter. Of course, fortunately loads of strangers can’t see my back garden from a train 😀

We only have a small back garden – a very typical Victorian ‘backyard’ with high 8ft walls.

The History Bit

In the UK, the Victorian period is so named after the period that Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 – 1901. (Great Great Grandmother to our current Queen Elizabeth II).

This was a period of mass movement to urban living. In the town I live in, the population quadrupled during that period and there are many many streets of terrace housing, back to back (where gardens back on to the terrace behind you with no other access other than through your own back door.)

You can often find traces of the old outdoor privy and in our’s also the original brick floor of the coal house.

*

Our backyard is a fairly typical 10ft x 16 feet wide (the width of the house) and doesn’t have any soil, just paving.

When I first moved here, on my own 12 years ago, this was my first garden and I fondly imaged that I would prove to be a keen gardener, despite never having shown a flicker of interest before. In fact I remember on first meeting the people who were eventually to become my in-laws, shortly after I moved, proudly talking about my ‘interest’ in gardening, lol.

My Garden Clutter

Over the years I seemed to have collected a lot of pots (as the only means of growing plants), in part from my now in-laws full of plants but also my own annual spring burst of enthusiasm: a triumph of hope over realism.

Most died due to a combination of summer neglect and a massive snail and slug problem. I finally admitted to my self that the idea of me being a gardener   and collecting all the paraphernalia that comes with such an interest was typical aspirational hording!

I’ve stopped pretending.

Fortunately, my husband seems to have developed an interest in the garden in the last year or two but he has bought all his own pots to suit his fruit tree passions. So we’re left with a plethora of spare pots that won’t get reused.

A few weeks ago, we had a typical British trigger for de-cluttering the garden – a weekend of spring sunshine! While he happily tackled vigorous pruning I felt the urge to declutter.

Pots gone via Freecycle

My husband is never keen on de-cluttering and seemed resistant at first to the idea, but I was greatly surprised how many he was able to let go of: I did my usual, “you c
an keep as many as you like, but let’s go through them one by one and just give me a quick yes or no as to whether you can let it go”.

By removing the stress by ensuring he understood I wouldn’t be pressuring him or disapproving of his choices he said “yes it can go” to nearly every one.

To the right is a picture of many of the pots we got rid of via freecycle that weekend

How’s the clutter in your garden?

Way back in the early days of my decluttering mission I wrote a post about keeping it simple. I stand by those words to this day and have pasted them below for you to study again. Here they are…

• Do SIMPLE things to improve your way of life.
• Keep your spending SIMPLE .buy what you need not things that just clutter up your space.
• Eat a more SIMPLE diet choose fresh ingredients that aren’t enveloped in wasteful packaging. Choose recipes that are SIMPLE to create using ingredients that can be used in subsequent meals so nothing goes to waste.
• Enjoy SIMPLE pleasures like a walk in the park, a coffee with a friend or a wander through a museum instead of spending all your free time shopping.
• Keep your decluttering efforts SIMPLE by concentrating on one SIMPLE task at a time so you aren’t overwhelmed.
• Keep the decision making SIMPLE so you don’t waste time and energy agonising over what stays and what goes. My Declutter Decision Making Guide can help with this.
• Make housecleaning SIMPLE, the less stuff you own the less work there is involved in maintaining a clean and tidy home.

And where am I at today April 22, 2014?

I have done simple things to improve my way of life.

I have kept my spending simple by not buying stuff I won’t use.

My grocery cart is evidence of how I have kept my diet simple. Simple in its ingredients. You won’t find much in it other than fresh food.

Every day, whether pending, I enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Going for walks with my husband, riding my bike, going up to the roof of my apartment and enjoying the views of the harbour, having coffee with friends…

And as you know I have always kept my decluttering simple by mostly adhering to my average of a thing a day for the first 365 days and then at a slightly slower pace after that. And yet even at that pace my husband and I smoothly moved our belongings into a two bedroom apartment. And the decision making actually got easier as I went along even though I thought I was doing the easy stuff first. It just so happened that as I realised the joy of living with less I found it easier to part with stuff.

Oh, and I can vouch for the fact that being decluttered has sure made housecleaning easier. Also many other tasks around the house have simplified too because I can quickly get at what I need for them. No more overstuffed cupboards making it hard to get at stuff.

Choices have become easy because there is simply less stuff to choose between.

Being eco friendly has even become simple because now it is just habit. It is also a fun challenge to find other ways to be so.

During the decluttering process we also started the search for a home to live in. The one we finally found has also simplified our lives. I hardly use the car because nearly everything I need is within walking distance. Exercising is a joy because of the sights along the way. Our home is much small making housework simpler.

I love my new simpler life and I would recommend it to anyone. And if you would like your life simpler to just make that one first step today, then another tomorrow and another the next day and before you know it your life will be simpler too. For those of you well into your journey remember that you can take it as far as you want.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter some out of date paperwork.

Eco Tip for the Day

Encourage family, friends and anyone who will listen to refuse, reuse, recycle and reduce.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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.

Monday is here again and we all know what that means, mini missions. When I sat down to write this post I racked my brain for something original but I have put together so many mini mission posts by now that there can’t possibly be anything I have missed. So I decided to be specific instead. You won’t need to think of anything other than ~ Do I have too many of these?

Monday – Declutter a pair of shoes.

Tuesday – Declutter some out of date paperwork.

Wednesday – Declutter a purse, wallet, handbag, carry bag or backpack.

Thursday – Declutter old keys that you no longer remember what they belonged to.

Friday – Declutter excess hotel toiletries you have accumulated from vacations or business trips.

Saturday – Declutter a piece of jewellery you haven’t worn in a long time.

Sunday - Sunday is 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

Eco Tip for the Day

If you only need a little light to find your way in your dark home, turn on the switch that connects to the least amount of globes. When I sit in on my bed to type my blog posts I turn on my walk-through wardrobe light. It only has one globe while my bedroom has two.

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

I was chatting with an acquaintance recently about clutter and being environmentally friendly and she chose to share a story with me. Below is my rendition of the story as I remember it.

The hot water system at her home went on the fritz and had to be replaced. Her husband, being a bit of a handyman, insisted that they buy one and he would install it. Being a busy fellow the weeks went by and he hadn’t got around to doing the job.

This acquaintance was born and raised in the Philippines where, for her family, the bathing routine consisted of a bucket of water and a cake of soap. One would wet themselves by splashing water over themselves from the bucket, then soaping up and finally rinsing off with the remaining water. So boiling the kettle to warm a bucket of water and bathing in this way was no big deal to her. I guess her husband also happily complied because a year later the hot water system still hasn’t been installed and they are still bathing this way. Needless to say they have made great savings on electricity and water.

So where does the perspective on need come into this story. Just think of how important a hot water system is to you. Then consider how much less important some of those other things cluttering up your home are in comparison. Use this example as a guide to tip you over the edge on those items you are on the fence about.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter at least one fabric item that just sits on or drapes over furniture or hangs on a wall. Cushions, throw rugs, curtains, embroideries etc fall into this category. If they aren’t being used chances are they are collecting dust and slowly perishing.

Eco Tip for the Day

Challenge yourself to put every piece of recyclable material in the recycling bin no matter how small.. It is easy to be blasé about small pieces of paper or plastic but so long as they can be recycled they are best kept out of landfill.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

I received an email some time ago from an online magazine, called Get Organized, asking if they could publish an article that they had seen on my blog. The article was written by Moni, one of our regular readers and commenters. She has been a big part of our discussions here at 365 Less Things for quite a while now and has written an article for us every now and again. She was happy for them to publish the article in their magazine and I received a follow up email last week saying that it had gone to print.

Below is a copy of the article in the magazine and I have also included the original article for you to reread. I figured if the magazine thought it was worth printing then it sure was worth republishing here. Perhaps you would also like to take a look at Get Organized for yourself. Enjoy.

KEEPING THE STANGEST OF THEINGS by Moni Gilbert

I shudder at the idea of going back to my old ways of having stuff, more stuff, stored stuff, collected stuff and yet more stuff…..and then being very surprised that the house is full of stuff!

But in spite of all that, I still keep the strangest of things. I don’t know why, there is no logic to it, but I have difficulties getting rid of empty cardboard boxes and shopping bags, especially if they are from particularly nice clothes store or from a surf wear shop.

There is a wee corner of my brain that insists cardboard boxes are useful. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but I can get as many as I want any time that I want from my local Pak’n’Save. I have no plans to store anything and no need to carry anything in the foreseeable future but I faithfully stack a small pile of them in the garage until finally the rational part of my brain turns up a few days later and breaks them down for recycling.

Shopping bags. I’m not talking about supermarket bags or ones from the mainstream stores, but the rather nice looking ones. I carefully fold them and place them inside a bag in my craft cupboard. There is only ever 5-10 sitting there and every so often I decide that today is the day I will declutter them, but it just doesn’t happen. The only reason I can think of is that when I was a girl my mum used to do the same thing.

At the time the economy was suffering under high inflation, extreme interest rates and a government introduced compulsary car-less day once a week to combat fuel costs. Our town was small and this was before the era of cheap ‘Made In China’ clothing, so mum sewed what she could of our clothing and we accepted and donated hand-me-down clothes, it didn’t bother us and was widely acceptable in our community.

So a pretty shopping bag represented luxury and they were probably still a new thing as I recall a drawer full of folded up paper bags used for everything from lining baking tins to art projects to lighting the fire to holding rubbish. Wherever possible, we passed on our hand-me-down clothes in a nice plastic carrier bag with a shop logo on it. Why I don’t know, as it was only being carried from house to car and car to house and wouldn’t actually be seen by the greater public, but it seemed to be the tradition.

I mentioned this story to a friend over the weekend and she got a smile on her face and told me that she keeps the paper flour sacks, to line baking tins for making fruit cake. The thing is that she has never made a fruit cake. Her mother and grandmother were fruit cake legends but the baking gene completely skipped her, but she still feels a need to keep these paper flour sacks.

Another friend religiously saves seeds from pumpkins and dries them on the kitchen window sill as her mother used to dry hers for planting, but my friend lives in an apartment block and has never had a garden.

So why do we carry on these little traditions from yester year? Who knows? Strangely I feel more of an attachment to these pretty plastic carrier bags than I do towards many other items that I haven’t thought twice about getting rid of.

So what is my strategy to deal with this? Well, the first step is to make sure that no more come into the house, although this is fairly easy as I am not the shopping fiend that I used to be but also to politely decline a plastic carrier bag or if on a shopping trip to utilise one bag for all purchases. Colleen will also advocate that this is good for the environment. I actually had to decline one yesterday – shopping for a school bag – yes, a bag for the bag!

And as for the existing bags? Well, I have a number of items on trademe (like ebay) at the moment, and I will honour my mum’s tradition of passing on clothes and use these for packaging rather than buying postal bags. Ironically this isn’t a cheaper option but it will save me from buying another plastic bag, while these hide in the cupboard.

So does anyone else out there find themselves keeping the strangest of things and if so do you know why?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a couple of trinkets, knick knacks or whatever you like to call them.

Eco Tip for the Day

Choose to live in a walkable neighbourhood with conveniences close by so you don’t have to resort to taking your car out when you need something. I can attest to the fact that this is a fuel and money saver.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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