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
We are going to do a declutter tour of our houses this week and visit one room a day. While you are in each room do a little visual declutter. What I mean by that is, aside from the mini mission item you are removing you might spy an area or two that needs more attention later on. Make a list of these areas so you remember where and what they were for when you have a little extra time up your sleeve. I will leave the item up to you to choose but I want something removed from each room I mention each day.
If by some lucky chance you don’t have seven different rooms in your home and have a lot less housework than some, chose seven different function areas. Even in a small living space we designate spaces for paperwork, cooking, bathing, relaxing, sleeping, dining, storage etc so concentrate on each of these areas if you don’t have separate rooms.
Monday – Bathroom (Perhaps you have some old make up brushes you no longer use)
Tuesday – Dining Room (Perhaps you have some excess linen in the buffet)
Wednesday – Living/Lounge Room (Are there old magazine in your coffee table drawers)
Thursday – Bedroom One (There is nearly always old clothes that are hiding in the back of the closet)
Friday – Bedroom Two (Children’s old toys may be found here)
Saturday – Kitchen (There is always something lingering here, unused gadgets particularly)
Sunday – Laundry (Cleaning products that didn’t perform well or old cleaning rags are often found here)
Good luck and happy decluttering
Don’t forget to leave a comment telling us what you managed to achieve with your mini missions.
Today’s Declutter Item
These little plastic bottle held beads and hotel shampoo. I was saving them to put more beads in but have convinced myself that I need no more beads unless I use something else up. I will use the one in one out method to keep things under control in the craft room. So these bottles are useless to me and unfortunately they went in the bin because there is no recycle mark on them.
Things that made me happy, made me laugh, made me feel grateful, fascinated me or I thought were just plain awesome.
- I had fun at a surprise birthday party of a good friend. ~ Â It is so nice to be a part of the celebrations of life.
- I looked after a friends dog and she gave me a clutter free thank you gift of two plants for my garden.~ I needed a little inspiration to do some gardening now that the weather is colling down.
- Roast chicken dinner.
- The cooler nights of Autumn.
- Chatting with an old friend from America on Facebook ~ it was great to hear from her.
It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow.
I’ve already done Monday’s mission! Last night I chucked six little tubes of various lotions. When I read what was in them (and what they were to be used for), I decided I didn’t want that stuff seeping in to my body. Now I have a couple of days to focus on Tuesday’s mission which will be a little harder.
Hi Willow,
Good for you! Have you been trying to read my mind in advance so you can get ahead of the game. I also had a bit of a bathroom declutter last week. I had so little in there it amazes me that I keep finding something. It is those dreaded lotions mostly maybe if I just used them occasionally they would run out. 😆
Finding something to declutter will be hard… I have done a lot lately. The only thing I want to do is to digitalize my notes from school, and make a book out of it (which I will be using a lot – I hope).
My sales (books and DVD’s) are going well! The website I use (for dutch people only, otherwise I would share it!) has sold 5 items in one week! I’m so happy, it motivates me even more to have a third sceptical look around my DVD and Books collection to see if I can sell something else!
Hi Nurchamiel,
I am glad you have been having success sell your book and that you have got to the point where you are about done decluttering. My husband has also been selling some of his books lately. He sold a couple on eBay but the others he has been selling to his work colleagues.
It sounds like maybe I should let you off mini missions for the week and you should get on with the task of digitising your notes from school. Do you have a scanner and word recognition software for that task or do you have to do it all manually?
This one is easy for me. We have one bedroom, no dining room and I “finished” my kitchen for now. Does this make me an overachiever this week or extra lazy? I can’t decide…
Hi Lyn,
you will have to answer that question for yourself. You can still do the mini missions and if you don’t find anything then bravo but maybe just maybe there is something lurking that you hadn’t noticed before. Good luck!
Our whole house seems to be a hive of decluttering at the moment and reorganisation. I have had such a fun day with OH safely out of the way doing conservation work in the spring sunshine. I’ve been shifting furniture in our front room to creat more simple lines and a less higglety pigglety feel to the lay out. Another piece of furniture has left the room, hurrah. I’ve created better space to store OH’s piles of paperwork (he is involved in several different research projects) in some sort of order rather than tottering staligmites that creep across the front room floor.
I think I need to focus this week on consolidating the fallout from today’s work and get the growing charity pile out of the house.
Katharine, love the “tottering staligmites” comment – I’m well acquainted with those, too, unfortunately! Would you be willing to share with us how you have dealt with that paperwork, what kind of storage or what you have done to improve the organization?
Yes, I can happily do that Jo: we’re off out to the cinema very shortly, so I will do it later, which will be after Colleen’s next post hits the ether, but I will post it here.
I’ve not forgotten to reply Jo, but I am putting together a post length reply now that Colleen may use in the near future.
Hi Katharine,
you have quite a way with words ~tottering stalagmites~ what a great description. I too need to consolidate the fallout as you say. My hubby keeps taking my car to work each day so I haven’t been able to get to the thrift store for about a month. He is out of town for a few days soon so I will be purging all over the place.
Isn’t it lovely when you can get rid of a piece of furniture because you don’t have anything to put in it. I am almost at that point with a huge display cabinet in my lounge room. I will be so glad to see the back of that thing.
How many toys is too much toys? Today my 6 years old and 4 years old de-cluttered their toy room. I have asked my two girls to picked four of their favorite toys. My six year old was great while my 4 year old was crying her head off… I calmed her down after 10 minutes, she did manage to get rid of some toys. I was happy with it and they were both happy too. Thank God that went pretty well except for a little crying from my 4 year old. Thank you so much for sharing you blog with all of us. Since I’ve been reading your blog daily I am so much more of a happier person with less things. Please keep it coming…
Hi Angelina,
so nice to hear from you again. How are you doing with getting people to not buy things for the kids. If I remember correctly you had a problem with that the last time we chatted. I am so glad you are feeling much happier now living with less. It is a very liberating feeling isn’t it? I am also glad that your four year old recovered quickly from parting with a few toys. If you can control the amount of toys coming in from now on you will be able to avoid that problem again in the future. As for the question how many toys is too much, there is no definite answer but for me their indoor toys should be able to be tucked away neatly in their own bedrooms when they aren’t being played with. If they are overflowing into all the living space as well then there is just too much. I also think that the toys ought to be organised neatly so they can easily find what they are looking for and know where to put it back when they are done.
can we send you a before and after pictures just wondering? Please let me know.
Hi Angelina,
I would love you to send before and after pictures. If you approve I will feature them on my Simple Saturday post. We love a good before and after spread here at 365lessthings. I will send you an email so you and reply to me with the attached photos.
Hello.
I just love this. I’m also trying to have a more empty home. And I love this idea of having one day for each room.
I try always to recycle the stuff. That as less as possible goes in the garbage. So, every plastic bottle or piece of plastic goes in the special bin. The same with glass and metal. And for the chemical substances I try also to be environmental correct. So I give the old medicine back to the pharmacy and the cosmetics also. They have, or should have a recycle bin for them.
Now I’m just trying to find a way to recycle the electronic garbage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVFZ4Ocz4VA
This is German, but the pictures are enough to understand.
Hi Laura,
thank you for joining us here at 365lessthings and let me say welcome to you.
I also recycle as much as I can but am often shocked when I discover people who just don’t care about it.
Do you have Freecycle in Germany, I have given away electronic items on Freecycle before to people who are willing to use the parts or have a go at repairing the item. Just because I can’t do it or companies don’t do it doesn’t mean that other people don’t have the skills and ambition to try.
You are right about the youtube video it can be understood even if you don’t speak german.
I’m totally pumped for this week’s mini mission! Thank you so much for posting these, Colleen, I love the motivation! Somehow it just feels more possible when it comes from a “real person” and not a decluttering book 😉 I do find myself with less than 7 rooms. In place of Bedroom Two I will be doing my front and hall closets. In place of Laundry Room I will be doing books/DVDs/music.
I plan to post about last week’s mini missions tomorrow!
Hi Liina,
I am glad you are enjoying the mini missions and you are right there is something different about following a blog where you can comment and get a response than just reading a book by someone that you can’t interact with.
I am also glad you can follow instructions well and have found alternatives for the rooms you don’t have. Well done. Good luck with the DVDs/Music declutter I have seen your hoard and that should keep you busy for a while. It is impossible to be young and from the Pacific Northwest without being into music in a big way isn’t it? I asked my son once if you had to make a choice between going blind or going deaf which one would you pick and he chose blind because he couldn’t live without his music.
I am looking forward to reading your post about your mini missions.