We have all seen the magazine articles, books and TV programs on organizing.  They tell us that if  we buy these particular products or use these particular items we will go from a cluttered mess to everything organized in a snap.  The problem is that out of sight doesn’t mean it’s out of mind or make clutter any less clutter.  Making it pretty doesn’t make it go away.

Over and over many of us have bought and used multiple storage solutions trying to make things look like those magazine pictures.  Unfortunately, these solutions are only as good as how good everyone is at putting things back where they belong.  They are only good as long as you can find/remember what you have and where you put it.  I know that for myself.  I have spent hundreds of dollars over the years trying to keep a handle on all the stuff.  I even bought into the idea of a “craft room” with hundreds of “organised” craft supplies is ok so I’d have exactly what I needed when I needed it. But what I ended up having was a lot of stuff I didn’t need and never used.

There is nothing wrong with storage solutions as long as we really need them. When they hold only what we need and aren’t so numerous that we can remember what we have and where it all is.  Storage is not always a solution.  In many cases, it is a mask, a way to not have to deal with the work of making choices and counting the cost of what we have.

I came one day to the point where I realized I needed to stop using storage as that mask for my clutter.  I needed to not only declutter the storage solutions but I needed to declutter the things going in them.  When it came to my creativity why did I need all those excess stickers, stamps, embellishments, tools, etc?  What made me think I needed all of that paper?  Scrapbooking is an industry, with blogs, magazines, and other forms of media to keep crafter informed about all of the products out there and all of the ways “scrapbook artists” can store these supplies.  I came to the realisation that if I do not scrapbook as a career, I do not need to have so many supplies. Supplies that in my case would last for years.  I don’t need to have hundreds of dollars sunk into supplies for my hobby.   

There are numerous reasons we buy storage solutions for our homes. Yours may be quite different to mine. But do you need storage or less stuff. As Colleen always says “Get rid of the clutter and the organising will take care of itself.”  Which means, when the excess is gone what is left will have a logical, easy to access position in your home. Simply because what is left ought to be constantly useful to you so close at hand. No stored away in sealed boxes in hard to reach places. I hope this will help you to count the cost before your next purchase or stuff or storage to keep it in. 

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter old school papers of either the adults or children in the house.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

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.

It is obvious from the title of today’s post that we are going to focus this week’s mini missions on paper clutter. Quite often we keep, generate and ignore this kind of clutter but a large amount can take up a small physical space while weighing heavily on your mind. And the longer you put off dealing with it the more complicated the task can become. So chip away at it this week and then keep up with it on a regular basis in the future.

Monday – Declutter old receipts that are no longer needed for proof of purchase for the sake of returning items.

Tuesday – Declutter expired warranty papers and manuals for items you no longer own or that you can access online.

Wednesday – Declutter old school papers of either the adults or children in the house.

Thursday – Declutter paper keepsakes that no longer mean that much to you.

Friday – Declutter some paper reading matter such as books, magazines, comics…

Saturday – Declutter some account papers that are past needing keeping. Scan them and save them on your computer if you are concerned you may need to refer back to them.

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

Hi Readers, this coming week and possibly into the next week I will be away from my keyboard. I have family business to attend to interstate and will have limited internet access. The mini mission posts are in place and a quest post from Deb J this Wednesday. I can’t promise more than that as I haven’t had time to get ahead. I also won’t be responding to comments but I know you are all very good at chatting among yourself. Cheers, Colleen

Given Moni’s post about gift cards and the fact that I am celebrating my birthday as I write this post I thought I would weigh in on gift giving, receiving and gift cards.

I’ll begin with the gift cards. As Moni briefly stated in her post, my thought was ~ Why is it that we find it hard to part with things we rarely if ever use, while at the same time we idly allow money to go wasted in the form of expired gift cards. It really doesn’t make much sense does it. I guess we see the gift card as something we don’t need right now while we are financially sound as opposed to envisaging a time in the future where we might not be able to afford to replace items that we once let go. The question you must ask yourself about the stuff is ~ “Did I ever really need it?” If not let it go and improvise in the future if necessary.

And talking about improvising… I did a three way radio interview this week and the other interviewee related a story of how she decluttered her rolling pin because she hadn’t ever used it in twenty years. The very next week she decided to bake something that required rolling, so she used a drinking glass for the task and didn’t waste time regretting letting go of that, next to useless to her, rolling pin. In fact there are a lot of single use household gadgets that can easily be managed without, particularly if used infrequently. The time saved, if in fact time is saved, doesn’t add up to much if these items aren’t in use on a very regular basis. More time is wasted rummaging through these item while trying to find the ones you do use. Because, like car keys in your handbag, the items you need seem to filter to the bottom.

And as one reader pointed out why has it become almost socially unacceptable to give money as a gift. Money that can be spent anywhere, anytime, while many gift cards given are shop specific and have expiry dates. Giving cash for weddings, bar mitzvahs, engagements and for kids birthdays seem to be acceptable so why not adult birthdays, Christmas and the like. Which brings up the thought that why do we insist on giving material gifts anyway. I prefer to give the gift of time and/or experience to my friends and family who live nearby, unless there is something they specific want as a material gift. Fortunately for me my family who live a long way away, were only too willing to give up the gift giving tradition when I suggested the idea. With Facebook, phones and video chatting there are plenty of ways to give the gift of time spent catching up on those special occasions.

During the interview I mentioned above, the question came up of ~”What was the first thing you decluttered when you decided to reduce your belongings.” I wasn’t certain about that but a silver tea set that I had received as a gift came instantly to mind. The only thing I had done with it over twenty plus years was clean it. This brings in the question of gift giving traditions still lingering from times gone by. With many generations existing within family groups there are a lot of old fashioned ideas about gifts and gift giving that don’t necessarily gel with current times. What once was thought of as a generous and fitting gift is now not necessarily going to be well received but is accepted graciously anyway. Which is of course polite behaviour on both sides but can lead to a lot of unwanted stuff.

Then there are people, like myself, who prefer that others not buy them material gifts and yet some people refuse to comply with such wishes. It seems a little absurd that someone should insist on buying another person a gift, to satisfy their need for gift giving, even they know in advance the recipient won’t want it. No doubt this same person would then be offended if they knew the recipient had regifted, sold or donated the item in order to rid themselves of it.

In summary my take on gift giving and receiving is this…

• If someone I love likes to receive gifts on special occasions I either buy something I know they will want or give them a gift of time and/or experience.
• Those who live a long way from me receive a handmade card and usually a phone call depending of the level of the relationship. Some are happy with a Facebook message.
• Anyone who could do with some extra cash and are happy to receive that then I am more than fine with gifting money.
• For myself, regarding love ones who like to buy gifts, I generally let them know in advance of something I would enjoy receiving. Be that a material, time or experience style of gift. Yes, even I don’t mind a little solid matter every now and again.
• For those items that I receive that I have no desire to keep I just donate them to the thrift shop. This is a very rare event because my loved ones know me well.

So I say, when it comes to receiving gifts make up, and let known, your own rules and stick to them. Don’t let anyone clutter up your space with things you don’t want. And when it comes to gift giving, be sensitive to the desires of others, but always try to gift things that aren’t going to become someone else’s unwanted clutter.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a kitchen utensil or two. I decluttered two utensil holders that had served me well in the past. I’d kept them in the back of a cupboard for a while “just in case” but am now satisfied that I have no further need for them.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

Gift giving and receiving can be a touchy subject for 365’ers and their relatives. The best compromise to date, is the gift card or vouchers. However, reports show that $1 billion dollars worth in 2013 weren’t redeemed and $2 billion dollars worth in 2014. No wonder retailers love gift cards! Money for nothing!

This made me consider the gift cards that were floating around my kitchen drawer and decided to use these as part of my decluttering mini-missions. It turns out I had three – one for $25 to a supermarket, one for $20 at the shopping mall and one for $100 dinner at a local restaurant.

The restaurant one (received Jan 2014) was due to expire later this week so we made a booking. As for the supermarket gift card (May 2014) – it isn’t my usual supermarket, which is why I didn’t have an arrangement in place to redeem it and the shopping mall one is fairly recent (Nov 2014) but I didn’t have anything in mind for it.

Why do so many gift cards expire?   Why did what amounted to cash sit in the drawer?   Dollar notes wouldn’t lie around for 6-12 months.   Colleen noted that once upon a time such things would have been a gift from heaven for the average family, especially the grocery card.

Colleen brought to my attention an interesting angle.  Why do we keep so many ‘just in case’ items in our house, if we struggle to use up virtual money, surely this proves we don’t need to keep stuff we don’t use.

So how do we avoid expiring gift cards?

Keep gift cards in your wallet, not the kitchen drawer and try to plan purchasing around them.   My usual supermarket sends loyalty vouchers twice a year and I wrap it around my loyalty card so it gets used at first opportunity.  If it isn’t a store that you frequent, note the expiry date and load a reminder into your phone.   There are also sites such as Cardpool.com, Swapagift.comand GiftCardRescue.com to sell or trade, but as I live in New Zealand I checked on Trademe (like eBay) and people are selling their cards there too.

Another idea I feel deserves mention, for small residual amounts left on a card, instead of letting that money expire, use it to make a donation.Websites such as…

Charity Choice ~ www.charitygiftcertificates.org/GCE/default.aspx

and Gift Card Giver ~  http://plywoodpeople.com/projects/gift-card-giver/

…stockpile cards and combine them into higher-value gift cards that are donated to the needy and worthy charities.

Is there something as a gift card giver that I can do to make it easier for the receiver to redeem?   Low end cards got the thumbs up in my research.  A $25 Wendy’s gift card is more ‘do-able’ than a $25 gift card to an expensive fashion store which will require the receivee to spend more than they were gifted to buy anything. Cards that required the receivee to travel out of their way to redeem were listed as the next most likely to expire and ‘unlikely candidate’ also got a mention ie if Grandma isn’t an iPad aficionado, don’t give her an iTunes app card..

So what did I do with my remaining two gift cards?   I don’t actually need anything at the moment but my daughter is off to Tech this year and needed to set up an iCloud account which required her own Apple ID which in turn required some sort of credit card to attach to the account.   As she doesn’t have a Visa card, she was unable to complete the setup.   I had a moment of inspiration, what if I used the two gift cards to purchase iTune gift cards to load against her AppleID? I purchased two $20 cards and a chocolate bar, both of which were gratefully received.

I’m not sure what to call this….re-gifting-gift-cards? Re-purposed-gift-cards? Re-redemption-cards? The gift-card-that-kept-on-giving?

I wasn’t keen on the swapping this bit of plastic for a new bit of plastic, but on the other hand I didn’t receive gifts that I didn’t need and I am grateful as I was able to use them to create a solution and saved me parting with cash.

 As for the restaurant voucher, I’m looking forward to dinner on a balcony overlooking the white sand of our local beach, and even better to express her appreciation my daughter has offered to drive us to and from the restaurant, as long as we don’t mind travelling in her ancient two door small Nissan Pulsar with no air-con and listening to her music. Eminem is a small price to pay compared to a taxi in the holiday season in a beach town and it means my husband and I can both enjoy a bottle of wine that was also a gift.

So 365’ers, what gift cards and vouchers do you have lurking in your home that you could set a goal to use up over the next week or two?   Do you have any clever suggestions for gift cards whether as the giver or the receivee?

Today’s Mini Mission

Wednesday – Declutter and item of clothing. I decluttered a dress, not because I wanted to it simply worn out. Split down the back worn out and not worth repairing because the fabric had worn so thin.

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 missions reflect the kinds of thing that I have decluttered in the last week. Lets see if you can find some similar items to declutter.

Monday – Declutter a small piece of furniture or a storage container. I decluttered two bedside tables that had been storing DVDs.

Tuesday – Declutter some digital media, CDs, DVDs, CDRoms, old VHS tapes… . Due to the bedside table declutter some DVDs also were decluttered.

Wednesday – Declutter and item of clothing. I decluttered a dress, not because I wanted to it simply worn out. Split down the back worn out and not worth repairing because the fabric had worn so thin.

Thursday – Declutter an item of jewellery. I decluttered a necklace that I had put aside to deconstruct for craft purposes but never have.

Friday – Declutter a kitchen utensil or two. I decluttered two utensil holders that had served me well in the past. I’d kept them in the back of a cupboard for a while “just in case” but am now satisfied that I have no further need for them.

Saturday – Declutter a couple of toys. I let go of two largish plastic animals, once again kept for craft purposes. Due to the reshuffle that inspired the decluttering of the bedside tables some things had to be fitted in elsewhere. The obvious choice to look and use was my craft storage area, so some things had to go.

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

Go digital for as many paper items as you can ~ Bills, reading material, recipes, communication…

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

I was reading through the posts from my friends on Facebook and came across one where the poster said, “I think I can truthfully say that I kept every award, essay, art project, homemade book, concert/performance program, birthday/graduation card, sheet music, script, report card, club photo, and every other piece of information regarding my K-12 experience.  So…I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it.”  She also commented that it all only took up one big storage tub. 

My first thought was, “Why is she keeping all of that stuff?”  Why would she even want to?  There seems to be three types of people, those who are sentimental about everything, those who want to keep some items but not all and those who see no need to hold onto things like this.  After some thought I commented back that I thought she should go through it all and figure out exactly what was really important to her. Once that was done, she should take pictures of those things and, since she is a scrapbooker, create some layouts for those pictures. 

All of this started me thinking about people with children and what they need to do with all of the “keepsakes” that come into the home on a daily basis.  Say you have a toddler who frequently draws/colors a masterpiece.  What do you do?  Maybe you have a school age child who comes home often with essays, returned test/quiz papers, award certificates, and numerous other paper based “keepsakes.”  What do you do? 

I decided to see if I could discover some solutions that would preserve these without taking up space somewhere in the home.  Here are some of the solutions I came up with.

Create a website with a page devoted to each child’s life.  You could make this a private website that only a select few could see.  On it you could post pictures of their artwork, etc.  Not only is it a permanent record of your child’s life but it can be shared with anyone you choose. 

After displaying a child’s work in a prominent place for a week or so take pictures of the best of the work and at the end of the year create a few pages of their life that year for a scrapbook about them. 

Set up an account on a site like Flickr where you can display pictures.  Again, you can secure this so only those you select can see what has been placed in your folders. 

Declutter all but the most significant awards, etc.  What is left place in page protectors and then into a binder. 

While many years ago I let go of my numerous childhood keepsakes, I found that I still have some things that I really have no need to keep.  It is interesting how easy it is to let things like this build up because I have the room for it.  I plan to scan some things before decluttering it all.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter, by recycling old plastic plant pots. I recycled a few of these last week.

My friend Wendy sent me a photo the other day of a box of magazines she was decluttering. Wendy is very practiced at decluttering, having been reading 365 Less Things for many years. It is how we met in fact. So I was a little surprised at how many magazines she had to declutter. She has been renovating for some time, which is now about finished, and these were home decor magazines for inspiration.  As it turned out she didn’t reference then at all for the reno so out they went while she was decluttering her bookcase.

I am glad she sent me the photo because it inspired me to write this post on my opinion of magazines in general and why I  feel they are such an insidious form of clutter.

My first thought on this subject, judging from past experience, is that magazines are expensive to purchase and usually contain more advertising than actual interesting articles. Once you also eliminate the articles you aren’t interested in, all you are left with is about one third of a magazine that you paid good money for. And then I doubt there is anything in that one third that you couldn’t have sourced free on the internet. And that advertising I mentioned is there to tempt you to acquire stuff that is likely to later end up on your declutter list

Then there is the futile exercise of saving magazines for those few articles that you might want to refer back to later on. Or cutting them out and filing then in plastic sleeves in a folder somewhere. My experience of this is, without proper, time consuming indexing, it is difficult to find those articles again when, or if, you ever do want to reference them. This is another form or aspirational clutter. And once again it is so much easier to find this information on the internet, with a few key words typed into your computers search bar.

I am speaking from experience here. I once used to save every issue of several paper crafting magazines and save clippings from catalogues etc. Now I find all the inspiration or information I need with the tap of a few keys. No, heavy lifting, no allergy issues from the dust when dragged out after long periods, no having to dust them in between times, no big bulky bookcase to store them in, no wasted money, no wasted trees, no frustrating advertising, no agonising over if and when to declutter them, and no constant aspiration of actually doing something with the information in those articles I once thought I couldn’t live without.

So tell me why is it that you buy and save magazines, though I doubt you will tempt me to return to my old habit.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter, by recycling, some old plastic containers you kept aside for storage but find they are building up over time and you now have too many. This used to be a mission I carried out on a regular basis but I don’t seem to buy as much takeout anymore so the containers get used until the wear out.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

Eco Tip for the Day

Think twice about buying paper products. Natural old growth forest is better for the environment than cutting them down to make way for fast growing trees for paper pulp. Even the recycling of paper is a water and power intensive process.  Mind you this tip is a bit hypocritical of me being as I am a paper crafter.

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.

When beginning this post I didn’t have a theme so I thought I would just begin making up random missions. However the very first mission yielded me a theme so I ran with it in the hope I could come up with six missions to match. As it turned out this was an easy set of missions to come up with. Good luck finding your examples of these and happy decluttering.

Monday – Declutter, by recycling, some old magazines that you no longer reference. I don’t have this problem because I find magazines to be a complete waste of money these days. You can read about that in a later post this week.

Tuesday – Declutter, by recycling,  some glass bottles or jars that you thought might come in useful some day. I found several of these building up in one of my upper kitchen cupboards last week.

Wednesday – Declutter, by recycling, some old plastic containers you kept aside for storage but find they are building up over time and you now have too many. This used to be a mission I carried out on a regular basis but I don’t seem to buy as much takeout anymore so the containers get used until the wear out.

Thursday – Declutter, by recycling, packaging materials that you haven’t got around to using for a long time. My hubby took care of this mission last weekend.

Friday – Declutter, by recycling old plastic plant pots. I recycled a few of these last week.

Saturday – Declutter, by recycling, old papers from your filing system or keepsake box that no longer need to be kept. Be ruthless about this because paper is one of the most insidious kinds of clutter that can be a pain to deal with if you don’t stay on top of the task by eliminating on a regular basis.

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

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

As a teenager in the late 80’s, the tape cassette was the revolutionary step up from record albums and allowed music to go mobile for the first time.  Next CD’s arrived on the scene and digital music saw in the age of the MP3 and the rise of Apple Industries.  The other day my 17 year old commented that today’s toddlers will probably not know what CD’s are.  There are two things I love about digital music, one: no CD’s to declutter and two: playlists!

I love being able to compile a playlist.   I have a road trip playlist, a ‘lift my spirits’ playlist for Monday-itis and a playlist for walking.  A couple of years ago when I was tackling big decluttering projects I wrote a post which mentioned I was doing my warm up for the task ahead to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ from the Rocky movies.  As 365’ers do, some other songs were suggested and this formed the basis of my decluttering playlist.

Recently after a visit to the computer tech for an upgrade my music was safe but my playlist menu was gone.   As I am helping a couple of friends declutter their houses, can you recommend your favourite decluttering songs so I can compile a new playlist?

 The songs don’t have to be current top 100 nor do they have to be or not be any particular genre or generation.  What songs do you like to work to?

**********

Before I go ~ From Colleen

One avid reader (who doesn’t comment) was inspired by 365 Less Things to start her own declutter challenge and begin a blog about it. Here is a link to the post she wrote about her big purge.

Today’s Mini Mission

Find something to declutter in your laundry or linen cupboard.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown