Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

This week we are going to do some reluctant decluttering. That is, to declutter some things that you don’t really want or use but you keep avoiding letting go off for one reason or another. Don’t allow them to waste space in your home any longer.

Monday – Declutter an unwanted gift that you have been keeping out of obligation.

Tuesday – Declutter a spare thing-a-me-jig that you have been keeping just in case.

Wednesday – Declutter an item of clothing that no longer fits but you have kept just in case you return to that size.

Thursday – Declutter something you have kept just because you have the room for it but don’t love it or use it.

Friday – Declutter something you have set aside to sell but haven’t gotten around to it. Either sell it now or give it away.

Saturday – Declutter a portion of your hobby supplies that you haven’t utilised on a project but have owned for 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

Don’t wash your hair any more than you need too. This leads to wasted product and possibly isn’t good for your hair either.

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

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

Favourite Comments. Enjoy!

I enjoyed this comment form Vicki K and the responses to it by other readers including myself. Read the whole conversation from here.

I love the attention to detail that Diana is deploying while following this weeks mini mission. Read about it here. Well done Diana.

Angela give an example here that just because you like something and use it doesn’t mean it isn’t excess to your needs.

Angela also left this comment. Perhaps you, her fellow readers, can give her some extra advice on how to keep the clutter down when you have children.

This comment from Creative Me puts into a nutshell the situation I am likely to find myself in real soon if our acquisition of this latest apartment goes through as planned.

Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!

Here is an oldie but a goodie from Becoming Minimalist ~ Dont-just-declutter-de-own.

And this post from The Other Side Of Complexity, is helpful for those of you who work in an office, have an unorganised home office or perhaps work from home. How I maintain a clutter-free work space.

Here is a recent post from Midway Simplicity that I rather enjoyed. Share more own less, I think condenses down what is suggested in this post.

With Halloween just around the corner here is a post from Unclutterer.com that gives suggests to both avoid the candy clutter and distribute any excess acquired during the celebration.

Today’s Mini Mission

Choose another drawer in this weeks chosen room and declutter it. If you have no drawers choose a small area that is out of sight. A box under a bed, a shelf or a small cabinet.

Eco Tip For The Day

Don’t grab handfuls of paper napkins when dining out. One per person should be adequate. Take more only if you need them.

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

…and it is way too late to return them for your money back, what do you do?

When our lodger left in the summer, I took the opportunity to revamp the room and change how I furnished it as things were getting shabby after 10 years. I dithered for ages over the best storage solutions for the range of people we tended to attract. My dithering drove me mad so in the end I just went for it, but then ended up with some pieces that were not the best solution.

So I got it wrong, despite lots of thought. So, after more re thinking I did get the right pieces for maximum space and storage, but had an armchair and brand new storage cupboard left over.

I had 3 choices:

• keep them (only available space would be the attic) as ‘they may come in useful sometime”
• keep them as “I can’t get rid of them; that would be so wasteful”
• sell on/give away at a loss to get them out of our small house.

I chose to attempt to sell rather than beat my self up for my mistake and hang on to them for ages as:

• keeping them, unused, would not compensate me for the money I had spent anymore than giving them away for nothing would.
• keeping them in our small house would compound my error by their constantly getting in the way, forever reminding me of the money I had wasted.
• someone else could be making good use of it.

It took 5 weeks of trying to sell the chair until I realised I would have to give it away to get rid of it. But the woman who collected it was delighted with it and her bargain made her day. It was great being the source of someone else’s good luck.

The cupboard has just been put on our local online selling forum. I’ve put it on for nearly half what I paid for it and know I may have to drop it in price. I’d like to keep it – I love nice wooden storage, but we have a small house that I have already maxed out with good suitable storage solutions.

Getting things out of the house did put me in the mood to try and sell a food dehydrator I bought a few years ago that is enormous and takes up a third of our kitchen counter space and I have only used 3 times. That did sell well for over £200 (close to my original purchase price). So win some, lose some.

What do you have lurking in your home that you can’t face getting rid of because it would be a waste of the money you spent on it, even though:

• you never use it,
• it gets in the way
• maybe you don’t actually like it any more either
• it reminds you of your ‘mistake’ in a way that always annoys you a bit?

This post was written by Doodle one of your fellow 365ers.

Today’s Mini Mission

Choose a drawer in this room and declutter it. If you have no drawers choose a small area that is out of sight. A box under a bed, a shelf or a small cabinet.

Eco Tip for the Day

Sweep your outdoor areas rather than hosing them down.

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

Well hello folks, it’s nice to be back to chat with you all again. My vacation was wonderful and as usual on my return my house seems so big. After living in B&Bs, AirBnBs and motel rooms for seven weeks having all this space around me seems a little excessive.

I have to say that after wearing the same limited items of clothing for that length of time I am glad to see my closet again. And it is a whole new season here so a whole different set of clothing is called for. Thank the heavens for that because I am so over the ones I took with me. They did serve me well though and I chose well when I packed. Even with only one backpack weighing less than 7kgs (15.5lb) I was never hot, cold, wet, uncomfortable or short of clothing. I did get close to falling short of garments at times when laundromats were few and far between but a little hand washing took care of that issue.

I have confirmed one thing for sure from my time away, and that is that I could easily live in a smaller space with less stuff. Life is complicated enough at times without cluttering it up with unnecessary responsibility. Responsibilities like cleaning and keeping tidy space one doesn’t even need and working long hours in order to afford to buy stuff one also doesn’t need.

Today’s Mini Mission

Return to your chosen room again and pick another elevated surface to clear off and declutter. Once again put everything away in its proper home and move any unwanted clutter to your clutter departure points. 

Eco Tip for the Day

Eat more whole foods. That is food that has received no or very little processing such as raw fresh fruit and vegetables.

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.

This week we are going to do something a little different with our mini missions. I want you to pick a room in your home that has a clutter issue, and this room is going to be the focus of your mini missions this week. Make a vow to yourself that you are not going to add any extra clutter to this room. Anything you use from or in it during the week you are going to put away immediately after use. Choose departure points for your decluttered items, some will go in the trash some will end up in the recycling bin while others will be donated. Make sure your donation departure point is in an out of the way place, preferably in the garage where you can load them into the car at the end of the week. If you have the opportunity to dispose of them as you go along that is all the better because then you won’t be tempted to keep them. Lets get started.

Monday – Tidy off and declutter one elevated surface in your focus room putting everything away in its proper home.

Tuesday – Go back to your chosen room again and pick another elevated surface to clear off and declutter. Once again put everything away in its proper home and move any unwanted clutter to your clutter departure points. 

Wednesday – Today you are going to clear off and declutter the floor in your chosen room. Pick up anything that doesn’t belong on the floor and find a home for it. Once again move any unwanted clutter to its departure point.

Thursday – Choose a drawer in this room and declutter it. If you have no drawers choose a small area that is out of sight. A box under a bed, a shelf or a small cabinet.

Friday – Repeat the same task as Thursday.

Saturday – Declutter an area of your own choosing in the room today. By now the room should be in pretty good shape.

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

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

Deb J

I have never been very sentimental toward things. I have had a few collections over the years and they kept mostly because I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of those who had given them to me. I found myself attaching to people. I never wanted to let go of anyone once they had been in my life. I wrote letters for years to many of the people who had come and gone in my life. When email came along I switched to emailing them and then later to Facebook (FB) if they had an account.

In mid May someone made a comment on 365 Less Things that set me to thinking. I wish I could remember who and could quote the comment. I just know I suddenly realized that I had a clutter area that I needed to work on. It was my email list and FB list. I realized that I had a lot of people on both and that I was spending a lot of time reading status reports and sending emails. I also realized that I had a pretty long list of people I sent homemade birthday or anniversary cards to. With some of the other changes I am making in my life I had to examine these areas to see why I was so dutifully engaged in this.

One of the first things I realized was that many of the people I emailed or send cards to never responded back. Oh, they seemed to like reading my messages but I never heard anything about their lives. I had the same thing going on when it came to FB. Many of them would have all of these pictures, jokes, etc. they posted but little about themselves and their actual lives. I sat down with these lists and began to set some priorities and guidelines. I began to delete friends and addresses.

On FB I had 93 friends when I started this process. I now have about 40. I am part of a FB group for our church so anyone who is in that group is no longer a FB friend in the regular friend area. I don’t need them in two places. It’s the important stuff they put on the church group page that is what I want not the games, likes, jokes, political stuff, etc. In the regular area I have kept my few family members who have FB accounts, some close friends who I hear from all the time, and a few friends who only post on a occasional basis but who are very important to me. I read FB once a day now.

In my address book I removed everyone who I have not heard from in a long time. As I went through that book I realized I had 20+ names of people who I had been sending a Christmas card to plus quarterly emails and not once had I received more than maybe a Christmas card with nothing but their name signed. Hmmm! I don’t seem to be important to them. That’s okay. Things change in our lives and that means we even lose some friends we cared about and were close to at one time. I took those names out of my Outlook address book. I also went through and deleted a number of email addresses for this same reason.

The last thing I went through was my list of birthdays and anniversaries. I realized that only a few of them really cared about receiving a homemade card (or any card). These were mostly family. So I took all those names and listed most of them either FB or email birthday/anniversary greetings. Less postage was a bonus benefit, and better for the environment

Does this sound unfriendly to you? Do you have the same dilemma? Have you even considered this as a place to declutter? I have to tell you that it was a huge change for me. It took lots of consideration. I was so used to making the effort to keep up with people. I had all of this done near the beginning of June. It’s been quite feeling of freedom since then. I expected guilt or something to overtake me. It hasn’t. I feel like this was long overdue. I don’t think anyone will notice.

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

Way way back on Day 258 of my decluttering journey I wrote this post on five items I won’t declutter. Today I am writing an update on that post. Pictured below are the five items in question.

So which of these items do I still own that I would never part with.

The Flour Sifter ~ As I have mentioned previously was decluttered. It left on the 19th Oct, 2012. As I mentioned in this post I decided I no longer needed it, either for practical or sentimental reasons.

The Can Opener ~  This I still have. It serves me well and I have no need to replace it with some new fancy modern equivalent. This old fashioned type is good enough for me.

The Peg Bag ~ Natural progression finally took hold of this item. It got very old and even rattier than it looks in the photo. I used it to make a pattern to sew a similar one for my daughter but I chose not to replace mine. Instead I began using a plastic basket I already owned. This substitution started out as a trial separation, knowing that I could make another if I wished, but I have not as yet bothered to do so. A part of it still remains, the coat hanger within it was used in my daughters new version. Hers is made from a luscious rich red corded velour fabric remnant that I got cheap at a craft shop.

The Laptop ~ This was replaced long ago. It was over six years old and not cooperating well. So in essence it wasn’t decluttered just substituted. It was sold on eBay and hopefully some tech savvy person managed to revamp it and it is still in use somewhere today.

The Grill Pan ~ This is another of those old, well seasoned items that is still in my possession. It is great for cooking pancakes and many other foods on. It was secondhand when my mother-in-law gave it to me and I know that if I decided I didn’t want it my daughter would be happy to take it off my hands.

All these items were of great service to me. They were, and in some cases still are, used and used and used. This is the kind of stuff that I find most valuable in my home. No fancy china, not mementoes of past achievements, not an extensive wardrobe or status symbols. Just good old fashioned useful stuff.

Here is what my daughter wrote in the comments of that original post back on day 258:-

I almost fell over when I saw the photo that was next to this post when it came up on Facebook. It was the one of the skillet from grandma and I thought you’d gotten rid of it. It’s honestly the greatest skillet known to man..and the rest of those items are all some of my favorites. A little bit because they’re just really useful and good items to have around the house but also because through all the moving that we’ve done over the years, they’ve always been with us to make each new house feel like home.

Decluttering isn’t all about getting rid of stuff it is more about sorting out and only keeping the good stuff that is truly important to you for whatever reason.

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

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

This weeks mini missions will take you to a different area of your house each day. I will name a room/area and all you have to do is find one thing from there to declutter. If you don’t have one of these areas either declutter a second thing from one of the other areas or choose from an area you have that I may not have mentioned.

Monday -Declutter something from a bedroom.

Tuesday – Declutter something from a bathroom.

Wednesday – Declutter something from your kitchen.

Thursday – Declutter something form your storage room. Be that attic, garage, back shed, basement…

Friday – Declutter something from your living room.

Saturday – Declutter something from outside. Whether from your garden, porch, balcony…

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

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

Deb J

First I have to tell you that I am not fond of the word sensible. It strikes me as an inhibitive word. It’s something I have to do because someone said so. Ah, my rebel heart shudders at words like this. BUT!! Sensible is a word we need to attach to our vocabulary way up there at the top of the list. Let’s see, this brings to mind words like wisdom, prudence, of benefit to. So okay! Maybe it’s not so bad of a word. I guess. Maybe?!

Wisdom in buying. Well, okay, I know better than to buy a Lamborghini when I can only afford a Focus or not to buy a Versace but a White Stag. But is that really using wisdom or is it using common sense because $20 in the old bank account means White Stag is the only thing to do.

What about when you actually HAVE the money to buy something? What about when you can have a choice that will bring you into the “this is the thing to have” state? What if you can afford to have that name brand? Oh, heah heah. Gulp. You mean THAT kind of sensible?! Yep! You got it. That’s what I want to talk about because I hope we all have already come to where we realize that we can only buy what we can afford. Haven’t we? HAVEN’T WE??!!

Sensible Buying looks like:

1. Not buying that dress just because it is on sale and I like it when I don’t need it and already have more than I wear.

2. Not buying that name brand outfit when there is one almost identical that I actually like better but doesn’t have “A NAME.”

3. Not buying that item for the kitchen because I saw it in a magazine or on a TV show and it looks like fun—even though I KNOW I will never make _______ more than once or twice if that.

4. Not buying that vacation package just because the neighbor is always talking about her vacations.

5. Not getting my 7 year old child (or myself) an iPhone just because all of the people in my clique have given their child one.

6. Not going to that expensive restaurant just because my business peers say it’s the place to be seen.

I see you are getting my drift. You know, there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these scenarios. It’s why you do it and whether it’s really a priority for you and your family. It’s the attitude and mind set behind the buying. It’s the buying for buying’s sake or for the sake of your reputation or some such thing.

I’m not saying we are all like this. I know it is easy to be swayed by many things that bombard us on a daily basis. That’s why Sensible is a good word. It keeps us out of trouble (like debt). It keeps us aware of what we are doing. It keeps us from having clutter we don’t need, like or want. It keeps us accountable. Oh dear! There’s another one of those words we don’t like. Sigh.

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

I make a lot of suggestions and give a lot of advice on deciding what may or may not be clutter in your homes. However, ultimately your decisions are your own because no one knows better than you as to what you consider clutter in your home and what you don’t. No matter what the choices, everyone’s ultimate goal when it comes to minimising their possessions is, and should, be their happiness.

What you are happy to get rid of and what level of minimising is entirely up to you. Quite often these goal post move as time wears on, and that is fabulous, but the end result should be what you are happy with, or a happy medium between you and the other occupants of your dwelling place.

Sometimes the decision making may be a cause of discontentment, procrastination or soul searching. However don’t let that deter you, because in the end, it is a rare occasion when seeing the stuff go out the door causes anything other than delight. Anything that is too difficult to decide on can be put aside while more decluttering goes on around it. With decluttering experience comes decluttering ruthlessness so the decision making does get easier.

I have gotten happier and happier with my surroundings as more and more goes out the door. I do a little happy dance with every package I send off to an eBay auction winner. Driving a car load of donations to the thrift shop is also a joyful experience for me and it ultimately benefits others. And things offered to and accepted by my children pleases me because we both benefit from the exchange. Of course they are always told they are under no obligation to accept nor keep the items, should they, at some point, no longer want them.

So be happy with the process of decluttering, delight in your progress, and be happy with the end result.

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