Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

My husband and I were in Sunday School (religous education) recently, and the speaker touched on the topic of the Christian calendar (the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, etc.) that mark the Liturgical (Church)Year. He pointed out that we used to have two main classes of holidays: Holy Days and Patriotic Days. Thus, in the United States, our seasons would be marked by celebrations such as Independence Day and Presidents’ Day, as well as by religious holidays.

Over time, days such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentine’s Day got added into this mix.  More recently, days exclusively for shopping have become holiday-like and deserving of their own names such as “Cyber Monday” (the best deals on-line), “Black Friday” (the day after Thanksgiving and the beginning of the American “Christmas shopping season” and similar to Boxing Day in the UK and Australia.) (You can read more about Black Friday and decluttering here.)

So, is holiday shopping a new phenomena, exclusive to our hyper consumer-oriented culture? It turns out that the answer is: Not so much.

According to Wikipedia, the purpose of the first U.S. Mother’s Days, held in the early 1900s, was to reunited families that had been divided by the American Civil War and were celebrated in church – a combination of patriotic and religious holidays – and mothers wore a white carnation.  However “in part due to the shortage of white carnations, and in part due to the efforts to expand the sales of more types of flowers in Mother’s Day, the florists promoted wearing a red carnation if your mother was living, or a white one if she was dead; this was tirelessly promoted until it made its way into the popular observations at churches.”

Father’s Day was initiated just two years after Mother’s Day, originally in observance of a mining disaster in which many men were killed. It did take longer for it to be officially recognized by Congress – according to Wikipedia because Congress was afraid of it becoming too commercialized!  However, merchandise sales were an important part of the holiday from the beginning. “The Associated Men’s Wear Retailers formed a National Father’s Day Committee in New York City in the 1930s, which was renamed in 1938 to National Council for the Promotion of Father’s Day and incorporated several other trade groups. This council had the goals of legitimizing the holiday in the mind of the people and managing the holiday as a commercial event in a more systematic way, in order to boost the sales during the holiday.”

What did I learn from my research? That the promotion of holidays and shopping is as old as the holidays itself. Yes, I am sure that the intensity of the advertising and promotion has increased. Yes, a diamond necklace for Mother’s Day is a far site different than a white or red carnation, but the association of holidays, religious and secular, with shopping is as old as the holidays itself.

Today’s Declutter Item

Just one more stationary item that has been sitting around unused and needs to be out of here. Another thing for the thrift shop box.

Things that made me happy, made me laugh, made me feel grateful, fascinated me or I thought were just plain awesome.

• Tissues with aloe vera ~ I have had a bad case of hay-fever today but my aloe vera tissues are kinder to my nose that others I have tried.
• A hot cup of tea ~ This is a must when hay-fever is wearing you down.
• That there are no wars in my country ~ I wish there were none anywhere but unfortunately that is not the case.
• Some days it is enough to be just grateful that the day is done and I can sit back and relax for a while. Today is one of those days.
• People who go out of their way to be helpful.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

What is landscape clutter? Well, I’m a big gardener, but I’m not referring to anything you might see in the yard. No, landscape clutter is clutter that you are so accustom to seeing out-of-place that you no longer recognize that it’s out of place. It’s become a part of the landscape of your home.

Here are some examples of things that have been landscape clutter in my house:

• A cocktail dress that hung in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room for 3 or 4 months
• A piece of furniture that we moved out of Clara’s room with the intention of moving it into the attic. It got as far as the hallway, where we left it. It’s not where it belongs, but it’s not in anyone’s way, and there it sits. (At least it hasn’t become a black hole as well as being landscape clutter. Don’t know what a clutter black hole is? Check it out here.)
• The laundry basket and empty 5 gallon paint bucket that the girls used outside in their playhouse and then dumped on the ground. (Ok, this landscape clutter might actually qualify as being part of the landscape.)
• Countless number of things that I put by the front door with the intention of taking to a friend’s house, the thrift store, or work that seemed to grow roots once they were left there.
• A can in the back of my pantry that had only been there “a little while.” When I decided yesterday that it was time to eat those canned plums, I discovered that the “best if used by date” was 2007!

The trouble with landscape clutter is that you’re so used to overlooking it, that it’s hard to notice.

I’ve written about this topic before. (As I was writing, I knew some of it sounded familiar to me), but the solutions haven’t changed. If you can’t see it, you can’t recognize it, and you need some other way of noticing the clutter. You can become aware of misplaced items by touching each thing and saying the name aloud, asking a friend what they see that’s out of place, developing a need for the item, creating a new strategy for dealing with a category of clutter, or by taking a picture or video and examining the photograph. I’m always stunned by what I see on my counters and such when I look at a photo that I somehow can’t see when I am looking right at them.

Here’s how I got rid of the clutter I mentioned:

• A friend said to me, “You know this dress has been here a while. I thought you might not be seeing it any more.” Well, of course I knew it was there, but that motivated me to actually do something with it.
• I’m embarrassed to admit that the furniture is still sitting right there in the hallway. It’s made of solid wood and is remarkably heavy. I vow to get Dan to help me move it to the attic this weekend, so my strategy is that by admitting publicly that something’s out of place, I am motivated to deal with it.
• The bucket and laundry basket were put away when I needed a laundry basket. While thinking, “What can I use to contain these items?” I noticed the basket sitting on the ground outside, and when I fetched it, I put away the bucket too.
• Items by the front door that get stuck get “unstuck” in a variety of ways but in general, I think the best solution for me is to put things directly into the van, rather than letting them rest by the door. That way, they’re with me when I drive past the thrift store or when I stop by a friend’s house.
• The old canned plums, which went into the compost pile, were spotted when I was a little desperate for lunch ideas on Sunday.  I have a can riser, like stair steps to keep the cans organized and visible. The plums were on the top shelf, far corner. Since they’d worked their way from a lower position to the far back corner (just like clothes you never wear!), that’s a reliable indication that they’d been there a while.

These bits of clutter came to my attention for a variety of reasons, but the key is that because they’d become part of the landscape of my home, I had to have some other stimulus to bring them to my attention. I was so used to just scanning over them with my eyes that just a quick glance around was not going to being them to my attention.

What are you seeing today that you’d been overlooking?

Today’s Declutter Item

A sweater once worn by Liam but has reached the unused in the back of the closet stage. Off to the thrift store with you.

Things that made me happy, made me laugh, made me feel grateful, fascinated me or I thought were just plain awesome.

• Having a lovely morning-tea with my neighbours.
• I thought I was so behind time getting everything ready for the morning tea this morning but then I was finished with ten minutes to spare.
• Finding out by accident that I can actually buy milk at a reasonable price at my local paper shop (Newagency).~ Usually I would choose to go without rather than pay the price the local grocery store charges so this is good to know for future reference.
• Mini caramel tarts ~ I should share this recipe with you all, they are delicious.
• My mum and dad are coming to visit tomorrow.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

At the height of my cluttery mess, a friend and I went to the home of one of her friends. There was not an inch of surface uncovered; the toy bins were bursting; there was stuff on the ground. I was appalled. After we left, I said to my friend, “Tell me my house is not that messy.” There was a long pause before she answered, “They’re about the same.” Ouch!

Fast forward to a month ago. I took my eldest daughter to a pediatric eye doctor. Apparently Dr. Nice was very concerned that patients feel completely at ease because I had never seen so many toys in one place. I had to slide past the four play kitchens and over the rocking cow to sit down. In the exam room, there were stuffed animals, hanging gee-gaws, and toys on the exam table. There were even toys and kid junk mixed in with the patient files in the receptionist’s area. Without a doubt, the office could have outfitted two day care centers. I was uncomfortable surrounded by so much excess.

I was very moved by Small Notebook’s recent blog on this topic. (I highly recommend you read the whole post here.) She wrote that when she and her friends were young adults and making their plans for their lives:

No one of us ever said, “I hope I have a big house full of things that I bought just because they were on sale.”

We never talked about our intentions to own so much stuff that we would spend our free time trying to organize it all.

No one said, “I hope my future kids have so many toys that they can’t pick them up because it’s just so hard.”

The problems of clutter and overconsumption are so widespread. We just have so much. So much too much. I’ve decluttered more than 1600 things, and believe me, no one would call my house minimalist. Sadly, the problem of excess is frequently seen as a problem of insufficient storage, rather than as a problem of an overabundance of things. Why does buying more seem to be the first solution to every problem? The only way to declutter your home and keep it decluttered is to 1) remove excess items and 2) not replace them.

That’s such an important ingredient to success, I’m going to say it again: The only way to declutter your home and keep it decluttered is to 1) remove excess items and 2) not replace them.

In the land of plenty, it’s easy to have plenty too much.

Today’s Declutter Item

All of the items that make up todays declutter effort come from my bathroom cabinet. They were either out of date, never used or rusty. these items all went in the trash as they were not suitable for recycling or rehousing.

Things that made me happy, made me laugh, made me feel grateful, fascinated me or I thought were just plain awesome.

• I am glad that I am married to a good man who is neither physically or mentally abusive. Some women aren’t that fortunate.
• Bruschetta ~ You gotta love the Italians for their contribution to great cuisine.
• The workmen have finally come back to finish the job they started on our balcony.
• Making plans to host a morning-tea for the neighbours.
• Finding just the right thing to say at the right moment. Especially if it is funny.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

My husband surprised me this morning by telling me that a recruiter from Microsoft had contacted him about a job. I think I surprised him even more by saying, “In Washington State? Go for it.” Truth be told, I surprised myself. I have lived in Austin, Texas for almost 30 years, virtually all of my adult life. I like my life here, but the summers are brutal, my husband is terribly allergic to pecan trees for six weeks every spring, and the statewide politics make me grind my teeth in frustration.  Washington is cool and rainy with no pecans, and the politics are much more to my liking. I happily whiled away my chore time fantasizing about how different life would be if we moved from the Southern Central United States 2200 miles (35oo Km) to the Pacific Northwest. (Believe me, I only imaged the good stuff and ignored all the negatives.)

It wasn’t long at all before I started dreaming about the packing, and you’ll be happy to know that these thoughts didn’t terrify me. (Thanks to decluttering, of course.) What I started thinking of was how much more stuff I would unload if the alternative was to haul it across the country. I imagined sorting through everything, considering everything. Frayed underwear – out. The plastic pitcher with the almost cracked handle – out. The living room sofas and on the one on the screen porch – definitely out.  So then I started thinking, “If these things aren’t valuable enough for me to take across the country, are they valuable enough for me to hang onto right now?” I’m not a minimalist by any means, but stuff that you don’t value is stuff that you don’t need, right? I wondered: In a perfectly decluttered house, would you be able to move without decluttering more as you packed?

I talked to Dan about this. His conclusion was that moving is an extreme event and that requires more scrutiny than day-to-day life.  I think he’s right, but I also think that if you’re stuck on something, asking yourself, “Would I be happy to move this across the country?” is a helpful criterion.

I want to know what you think: Is the ideally decluttered house ready to be packed and moved at any moment, or does moving realistically necessitate a deeper level of decluttering?

Today’s Declutter Item

As insane as this may sound this is an empty box. At some point we decluttered the broken amplifier but the box was still wasting space in the garage.

Things that made me happy, made me laugh, made me feel grateful, fascinated me or I thought were just plain awesome.

Cindy’s post reminded me of the wonderful years we spend in Seattle and I have dedicated this gratitude list the that experience.

• The opportunity to get to know the real Americans – Who were quite different from the stupid prejudice opinions we had been lead to believe.
• Living in a different country and all that has to offer – Like driving on the other side of the road.
• Enjoying our first winter Christmas.
• Cinnabon, garlic fries, Taco Bell, soft pretzels, brownie mix (Ghirardelli of course), toaster strudels, the endless variety of ice-cream … – Not Hershies though because they have no business calling the chocolate.
• Baseball

This list could go on and on these are just a few of the things that came very quickly to mind.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

I was in church one Sunday, sitting behind K. When I stood and bowed my head to pray, I could see right into K’s large, open purse, and what I saw in there shocked me. K had six items in her purse. It was as clean as a whistle besides those six items. Her bag contained a pen, wallet, glasses case, full size tape measure, box of mints, and a folded piece of paper. There was one pocket on the side of the bag with looked like it had her keys zipped into it. That’s it. K has three children in elementary and middle school and a husband. How does she do it?

I think that I have a tidy and organized purse, but here’s what I have in it: cell phone, iPod touch, 2 pens, a nail file, keys, reading glasses, sun glasses, a package of baby wipes, my file of coupons (you can read about my system here), wallet, package of gum, glucogan (for diabetic emergencies), glucose tabs (same), and a reusable bag for trips to the store. In addition, I have a zippered pocket in the middle of my purse that contains lip gloss, lip balm, a pocket knife, a miniature tape measure and a small bag with medicines and personal items.

You purse goes with you everywhere, every day.  It’s your portable life! Take a look at it. Does it look nice? Is it clean on the outside? What about the inside? Is your wallet clear of receipts, unnecessary credit cards, and frequent shopper cards to stores you do not frequent? Do you have duplicates of useful items? Two lip balms is one too many; four pens is surely an excess. Are there things in your bag that aren’t even yours? Legos and your husband’s sunglasses need to be stored elsewhere. And what about trash? Are there candy or gun wrappers, phone number to who knows what, and long-lost dry cleaner receipts? Get rid of them too.  If you load it up for an extended day out with the kids, unload it when you come home. Clean out the receipts when you get home, just like you put away your purchases.

Your purse should be an attractive and functional item.  It’s not a moving van, and it’s not a trash receptacle. It’s an extension of your fabulously decluttered life. If it’s not, I have a mini-mission for you!

Today’s Declutter Item

At one point we were running to screens from the one computer. A little excessive I know. We have gotten past that craziness so we no longer need this support arm.

I am grateful from anything that brings me joy. Below are five things that gave me joy today.

• I found out today that my mum and dad are coming to visit me next week.
• Taste.com.au – now that I have found this site I don’t need recipe books.
• Cindy’s weekly wisdom – It is nice to hand the reins to someone else for one day a week.
• Hearing the children having fun in the pool over my back fence – even though they can be loud and obnoxious at times it is good to hear their joy. Sometimes back yard pools can become useless clutter but not this one they use it from the first warm day of the year to the last.
• Being left alone to watch a nature show on TV – Like my dad I love nature shows.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

According to my mother, a successful and busy real estate agent for 28 years who has looked in thousands of closets, my husband and I are an anomaly: he has far, far more clothes than I do. He’s not a clothes horse; he’s gentle with his clothes (unlike me, I’m sorry to say), so they last and last. He wears a standard American working guy wardrobe: khakis, Dockers, button down shirts, polos, and t-shirts on Friday and the weekends.  He gets a couple new dress shirts a year and a ridiculous number of new t-shirts (his work, conferences, and other people’s vacations [never our own]), so the clothes really build up.

When I began decluttering, he had 100 t-shirts and a generous number of shirts for work. I got him to give up six t-shirts at once. Then my daughter got 10 out of him for a project. I was sure that he could do with even less, started Operation No Brainer. I turned all the hangers in his closet around the wrong way, and then I waited.

Where we live, we pretty much only have two seasons: cool and various degrees of hot.  I waited through the end of the hot season and the whole cool season before I went back into his closet.  Not surprisingly, the clothes that were turned around had been moved to the outside. We looked at them together and turned three around: a red shirt that he wears once a year to church on Pentecost, and two concert t-shirts from his younger days.  There were only ten  things to take out! I have to say, I was surprised by how much of his wardrobe he wore. I was also surprised at how much of his wardrobe had disappeared because of this exercise, not at the end, but along the way. Having the hangers backwards made him more aware of what was in his closet. Some of the things he decided to unload before the end.

Was it worth it? Absolutely! I learned that most of Dan’s clothes are in rotation. Dan liked the ease of not having to make any real decisions, and he didn’t have to defend himself against  me trying to get rid of things he wanted to keep. Almost imperceptibly, his t-shirt wardrobe decreased by about 40 shirts and his dress shirts by about a dozen. We also eliminated a number of pairs of pants that no longer fit. (One was visibly dusty where it folded over the hanger!) Without a doubt, this was the easiest decluttering ever… you might even call it a No-Brainer!

Today’s Declutter Item

This box of tarot cards was another item decluttered from Liam’s room. Maybe he decided that he had a better chance of becoming an artist than a fortune teller.

I am grateful from anything that brings me joy. Below are five things that gave me joy today.

• My baby (19 year old Liam) went off to his first day of his second year of university today – It kind of felt like driving him to his first day of school when he was little because four months ago we had our doubts he would ever come home never mind be back at university so soon. I think we will celebrate with donuts at the mall after I pick him up.
• Catching a fleeting glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and having a giggle about what I thought it looked like – Needless to say there was not a kiwi bird on the footpath in Australia.
• Discovering the nectarines taste almost as good as figs do when you heat them up in the microwave with honey and they eat them with a dollop of thickened cream.
• Hot cinnamon donuts
• Finding out that I can do just a spin cycle with my front loading washer- If in doubt read the instructions

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Back on November 13, 2010, Eve commented on Colleen’s post about selling your decluttered goods. She said:

I do have an opinion on this, which is — just give it away. I picked up this attitude when I used to read the American decluttering/cleaning website called Flylady. She advised we just give our stuff to the Goodwill or other charity instead of burdening ourselves with starting a new project/hobby/part-time career of trying to earn back some money on the items we no longer want. . . It’s hard to face the fact that I may have wasted money on these items, but wasting my time in a pursuit that I hate won’t put that right. And I’ll think long and hard before buying stuff in the future that may just add to the clutter cycle. So I say — lesson learned, money has been lost, move on and try to do better in future.

I’ve trimmed Eve’s comments a bit; she definitely isn’t telling others not to sell, just saying it’s not for her.  I’ve thought a lot about her comment since then. Is selling on Ebay or Craigslist just cluttering my life with another hobby? Sometimes it feels that way.

Selling on Craigslist has a much higher hassle-factor than selling on Ebay.

Ebay involves taking photos, writing a listing, figuring out what you’ll ship in and how much shipping will cost, waiting for payment, and then shipping. Sometimes people don’t pay, and that can be a real inconvenience.  (Also, make sure you thoroughly investigate shipping charges. The quickest way to lose your earnings is to underestimate shipping.)

At first glance, selling on Craigslist seems easier, but successful selling actually takes more time.  You have to take photos and write a listing. Easier, so far. Unfortuntely, Craigslist is the land of ridiculous scams, people whose entire correspondence with you will be “Do you still have it?” and people who think they want it, tell you they want it, but really don’t. (On Ebay, these people would be “watchers” and never buyers, but there’s no such mechanism on Craigslist.) Craigslist items frequently need to be re-listed, because your listing can get buried so quickly. Austin, Texas where I live has 300 – 500 new furniture items listed daily, for example.  When someone does want to purchase, there can also be bargaining, which a lot of people despise, and of course, the inconvenience of arranging to meet someone at your home or another location. I get around this potential annoyance by rarely agreeing to meet elsewhere. My home is easy to find, I’m not concerned about being robbed, and I figure the item is a bargain enough without me investing extra to go to them. Also, if my item is $10 or less, I’ll just leave it on the porch and instruct the buyer to leave the money under the mat. This method has never gone wrong, and everyone appreciates the increased convenience.

Nonetheless,  both avenues have a place. Bulky or heavy items, for example, are better candidates for Craigslist, as are items with enough value to make them worth selling, but not for enough value that people would be willing to buy them and ship them for a price that makes your efforts worthwhile.

Then there’s selling books and CDs on Amazon.com. Without a doubt, this is the easiest listing service available. You can only sell what they’re already selling, and you can’t make sets of things (i.e. 20 CDs from the 1980s), so those are disadvantages, but you don’t take photos, writing the description is easy, and Amazon determines the shipping for you. The big disadvantage is the bite that Amazon takes out of your profits – about $3 per item.

So, circling back to Eve’s comment: Is selling a hobby for me? I guess it is. Am I OK with that? Yes, I am. In my eight months of decluttering (also a hobby), I have shed over 1600 items and I have made $1361.70, which is an average of 80 cents made on every item out. The vast majority of those items have been donated – a blessing to others, as the FlyLady calls it – but those that I have sold have been a blessing to others and to me.

Today’s Declutter Item

These were a great pair of shoes and they got a lot of wear in three years. After walking to work in the rain one day I soon worked out why me sock was getting wet. I checked if they were repairable but it would have cost three times their worth. So unfortunately this pair had to go in the bin.

I am grateful from anything that brings me joy. Below are five things that gave me joy today.

• I got plenty of exercise walking to pick up my car from the mechanic, walking to the store to buy an avocado and then going on my evening walk with Steve.
  
• Finally doing a few jobs I had been avoiding. It feels good to get them out of the way.
• Receiving a letter from an old friend from America. It was wonderful to hear from her.
• The little things you notice when you walk instead of taking the car.
• I love it when I write a blog and in the process inspire myself.
  

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Perhaps if you’re like my mother – always organized, always together, the focused Energizer Bunny – you won’t understand this post, this post about why my house fell into complete disarray and stayed there for about 8 years. Well, perhaps not why it fell into disarray, but why it stayed that way, year after hateful year.

Our house was almost literally always under construction, with my husband and I as the main worker bees. I had two young children. I find housework boring. All those reasons are true. But plenty of people offered to dig me out of my hole, and I had a housekeeper every other week for several years. It would take me hours to “clean” before Ellie came to clean – mostly I was stacking things and tucking them away before her arrival so she could find the floor and the counters.

My reason, in part, why nothing stayed clean was anxiety, unease, discomfort. When I cleaned, I knew without a doubt, that the mess would come right back, right away. I felt uncomfortable and almost unhappy when the house surfaces were clean and the junk was piled up tidily. It was like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I knew, as sure as I know that water rolls downhill, that all that stuff was going to re-emerge, and sooner rather than later. It felt useless and hopeless to bother to tidy up – so why bother at all? I wasn’t working then, and once both of the kids were in school, I carried a secret fear that my husband might “fire” me as a homemaker and send me back to work because I was doing such a lousy job. Truth be told, I would have fired myself!

Besides my defeatist attitude, another thing that kept the house from being clean and staying clean was that I never organized or decluttered all the way. I would load the dishwasher but not wipe the counter. I would pay the bills but leave the stamps and envelopes out. We joked that no one in our house understood the word “away” as in “I’ll put that away.” 90% of the job done was 100% good enough for me. Why did I only go part of the way – laziness, habit, the feeling of wasted time I got from completing the job?

How did I overcome my cleaning anxiety? The kids getting older and the remodelling finally being finished both helped, that’s for sure. I became determined to know where everything was supposed to go. I decided that I wanted to be extremely familiar with the word “away.” And if I didn’t know where something’s “away” was, I would figure it out.

Although I was already on my way toward cleanliness and organization, I really started my decluttering on June 1, which is when I found 365lessthings. Since then, I have decluttered over 1,600 things. I could really see a difference after a couple of months, and so could the rest of the family. My husband, who had been secretly and not-so-secretly longing for a lovely home was praising. When one child’s room would look great, the other girl would ask for help with her room too. The ease of decluttering – and the reward – became exponential. Now when I look at the island (my black hole) and think, “That looks awful,” I know that it will take me 10 minutes to completely tidy it, and I remember that every surface in the house, plus half the furniture, used to look that way.

So remember there is hope for all of us no matter how deep in the quagmire of clutter we have sunk. You can claw your way out one item at a time, one day at a time one area at a time no matter how you got there. If I can do it so can you, you just have to get started. Good luck and happy decluttering.

Today’s Declutter Item

If I remember correctly this was a stocking filler one Christmas. Just the words stocking filler suggests that it is stuff you don’t need.

I am grateful from anything that brings me joy. Below are five things that gave me joy today.

• I love it when a sentence comes together – Often when I write my posts I am a little too rushed to edit them to my satisfaction or the best of my ability. Not good enough I know. So I do love it when a sentence just comes together and sounds good from the first draft
• The string of cooler days and rain we are having. It is so nice to keep the covers on at night and today I even put my dressing gown on when I got up.
• Knowing I have an entire day at home today – I have quite a few tasks and some unfinished business I need to take care of around here.
• Birthdays that keep repeating themselves – Several of my family got my birthday card out too late to arrive on time while other cards arrived early. The result is that my birthday is lasting for a whole week. I love it!
• Being there for one of my friends when she needed a sanity break.
  

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

These are pictures from Audra’s room (7 years old then). Her room had gotten so bad, that I felt overwhelmed by the sight of it. I’m sure she did to. The room was decluttered and cleaned in 3 hours by myself and a decluttering professional. (Yes, I was so afraid, I had to call in the big guns.) Since then, Audra and I have decluttered much, much more; it’s a lot easier when everything can be seen.

The Before Shots of Audra’s Room

The After Shots of Audra’s Room

It is easy to see from these shots the advantages to decluttering. It is now much easier for Audra and Cindy to keep things under control in this room simply because there is less to control.

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Today’s column is an answer to an email I received from my friend Jennifer:

As I look around and see stuff just overwhelming me, I am working on paring down what I own.  My question is that much of the stuff becomes clutter because I am interrupted and do not get to complete a project (or I under estimate how long it will take me to complete said project).  How are you managing not to continue to have things out of place?  I have gone through and organized things only to find 6 months or a year later that they are disorganized again.

Although Jennifer has posed this as one question, I see two problems here 1) she is interrupted while decluttering or underestimates the commitment, so the project is not completed and 2) things fall back into disorder.

Problem 1: Biting off more than you can chew

Any large-scale decluttering and organizing adventure can fall into this category. When you pull everything out of a closet, you’ve just made a commitment. Here at 365lessthings, we advocate decluttering one thing at a time, one day at time, because it’s a lot harder to get overwhelmed and in over your head that way, but I know that reality isn’t so simple. I often declutter a large amount one day, and “credit” myself for the rest of the week. In fact, in my 8 months of decluttering, I have eliminated more than 1600 things, clearly more than one item a day.

Nonetheless, if you’re feeling unsuccessful after repeated starts and stop, I recommend trying just one or two things a day. When there’s less to dig through and make decisions about, it will be easier. And go ahead and get it out of your house. Jennifer, like a lot of people, lives in the country and does a lot of errands at once when she sets out. Putting the now-decluttered items directly into the car allows them to be dropped at the thrift store while erranding and eliminates the possibility of them being reincorporated into the household mix.

Another technique for the overwhelmed is to do just one shelf, drawer, or basket at a time. If you’re working on the bathroom towels and you find things that don’t belong there, drop them in the corner, and finish the towels. Then put all other items where they belong (or where you best estimate that they should belong) and leave them there. Do not feel obligated to tidy these areas too. Remember, for this day, keep your eyes on the prize of the towels. Run out of time even to put the misplaced items away today? Fine, make that your chore for the following day.

When you’ve completed every shelf in the bathroom closet, go back through the whole thing and refine it. Now that the obviously misplaced and no longer needed items are gone, you can see what remains more clearly. Maybe you have too many towels or duplicates of useful items. The second time through is when you’ll really get the cabinet into shape.

Problem #2) Falling to disorder

The fewer things you have, the less disorder there will be. I’ve definitely seen this in my own home. In addition, the most important rule for keeping your home clutter free is to give serious consideration before you buy something new. The less you bring into the house, the easier it is to keep it from being junked up. This is Colleen’s Key #4 to successful decluttering:

Decluttering is a complete waste of time if there is as much stuff entering your house as there is going out. Limit your purchases to the things you really have put a lot of thought into, whether you will get good use out of it, or if it really suits your needs. Don’t wonder aimlessly through the stores looking for stuff you didn’t know you wanted. And try to convince your friends and family not to buy you gifts unless they are consumable in some way -  Fresh flowers, chocolates, beauty treatments and the like.

Finally, it’s important to realize that no decluttering job lasts forever. Like housekeeping and tidying, it’s an on-going process. The children grow, hobbies change, people knock things over when they reach for something else, duplicates are accidentally purchased or discovered. Maintenance is inevitable, but remember, the less you have, the easier it is.

Today’s Declutter Item

I am making headway with natural decluttering of the paper craft supplies. Slowly but surely the myriad of adhesives are starting to dwindle down to a manageable few.

I am grateful from anything that brings me joy. Below are five things that gave me joy today.

• Joining the last fragment of soap to the new cake – I love to use things up completely.
• A day out with the kids – I think we took in about 500,000 calories between the Max Brenner Chocolate  Bar and the fish and ship shop.
• My daughters plane was on time.
• I went for a brisk early morning walk with a friend and her dog Max.
• That it was cool enough again today to enjoy a warm shower after my walk.
  

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