Day 75 Little by Little

Today I would just like to revisit the idea behind 365 Less Things. There are times when we all look at our living space and think it really is time I went through everything and got rid of all the clutter around here. The problem is that when we stand back and look at the job as a whole it becomes very daunting and quite frankly we give up on the task before we even begin.

The better approach is to tackle one small task at a time, in my case one task per day. I don’t even concentrate on one area at a time I might just see something during my daily routine and think “I don’t need that” or “I might just sort through that drawer today” and that becomes the task for the day.

If you keep the task small it never appears to big to handle and doesn’t become a huge chore. When you are doing the days task you will likely see something that you can deal with the next day and so then you have a task in mind for tomorrow and one task flows into another and suddenly you realize that it is no effort at all.

SOME SMALL TASKS TO GET YOU STARTED

• Clean out one kitchen drawer
• Take the accumulation of metal coat hanger back to the drycleaners next time you go.
• Go through your sock drawer and throw out the orphan  and holey socks
• Pick one pair of shoes you never wear anymore and toss them out or put them in the donation box.
• Empty one shelf in the pantry and don’t put back anything that is past its used by date or that you are unlikely to use.
• Go through the pens you have in drawers around the house and throw out the ones that don’t work.
• Fishermen, look in your tackle box, there are bound to be a few rusty items that are now all but useless.
• Check the coffee table drawers for old magazines that you haven’t looked at in ages.
• Get the kids to go through the toy box and throw away any broken items and donate the one they have grown out of.

All these tasks really take very little time but you will feel good about it and you will be inspired to move onto a new task tomorrow. And if you are feeling more energetic one day do  more than one task and stock pile a few of the 365 things so you can have a day off every now and again, I do.