At the moment I am visiting family interstate and I have limited access to the internet. I also gave myself very little time to write posts to fill the days while I am away. And to be honest I also just want to take it easy and devote my time away to my family who I will be visiting while I am away. Therefore I decided to dig some posts up out of the archives to share with you over the next couple of weeks. I have chosen a series of posts written in 100 words or less that briefly summarise some of my basic principals of simple decluttering. Also during this period I will not be following my usual routine of the Friday Favourites or possibly even the Simple Saturday posts. I hope you enjoy the trip into the 365 archives as I enjoy my trip to my home state.
Key 1 – Don’t bite off more than you can chew
If you are finding the idea of decluttering your home daunting maybe you are thinking too much about the big picture. Maybe you are picturing turning over entire rooms and disrupting the household. That isn’t necessary. Just work on one small area at a time. Even if you want to focus on one room at a time just clean out a drawer, then another, then one side of the closet, then the other, then under the bed… Limit yourself to one hour jobs so you can easily get finished in one time period and leave no mess when done.
Today’s Mini Mission
Declutter out of date items from your first aid kit ~ Replace the item if necessary but I find that things that go out of date in my kit are things that never get used so perhaps they just don’t need replacing.
Today’s Declutter Item
This is yet another craft item that had not been used for years so was donated to the thrift store. It was an “I might use it one day” that’s for sure. One day never arrived.
Paper Making Kit
Eco Tip For The Day
It is better to refuse and reduce that to have to recycle. So if you can avoid packaging and bags please do.
“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast
Hope you are having a great time away, Colleen. It’s good to be reminded of the basics.
Hope you have a great time with your family! Sometimes we need to declutter our mind and relax, just as we declutter our belongings. Enjoy!
Actually, we just ADDED to our emergency kit in the car. An emergency supply store was going out of business and selling everything for pennies on the dollar. So we bought one of those emergency food bars (enough food and nutrients for two people for two days in the size of a couple granola bars). It’s now in the glove box along with a few bottles of water in two of the EIGHT cupholders the car has. We hope to never need it, and even jokingly have a “date” in April of 2017 when the food bar expires, where we will eat it for breakfast a few days (apple cinnamon flavor!)
Did check all the medkits around the house though, to see that they were still in date.
Keeping up with all of us. Tough job. Relax and Rest. You’ll feel so refreshed when you get back. Enjoy your family.
I need to be reminded of the basics every so often! Have a good trip.
Enjoy the break away. The weather is pretty good up on the Gold Coast at the moment, just came back from up there. I was really excited about my trip as my sister had returned from Germany, and we were able to meet up for five days. It was great to pack lightly with only carry on baggage. I packed a small amount of washing powder, that probably looked like cocaine on the X-ray, to cover my clothes washing needs. One of the benefits of decluttering my wardrobe was I had confidence in what I packed to take away. These were items that I would wear, not the just in case ones. While I was up there, found a far more comfortable pair of sandals at an affordable price, my old sandals where happily disposed of by the shoe shop owner. Burleigh Heads has two of the most awesome thrift shops I have been in and the main street is full of lovely shops that are a far cry from the likes of the super shopping centers, they are relaxed and I can browse without that pressure associated with buying.
I am back home and catching up on some more decluttering.
Whenever anybody uses our medicine box, they are usually looking for bandaids and cream. So everything is moved around to look for a suitable sized bandaid. When they are finished the box is messy. So today I am going to make up a bandaid box, a cold /flu/pain tablet box and a miscellaneous box rather than one large messy medicine box. I keep my tablets separate and stored in the fridge, my husbands favorite cough mixtures decorate handy locations throughout the kitchen(annoying me) because he likes to have easy access to them. Various ointments and vitamins also find homes on the microwave. I think it is time to round them up and give them a permanent, out of site home. If they put medicines in decorative bottles or containers they could fulfill my criteria of usefull and visually pleasing items, I would be happy to display them.
Cheers