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.
I received a comment from Amelia last week saying how much she enjoys the mini missions, particularly the ones that focus on what things are made of.  I am sure we all have our favourites when it comes to the missions. I know that some of you like me to be exact about the items so you don’t have to put much thought into it. Well this week I am going to honour (honor) Amelia’s request and make the missions about the colour of things. I put it to the test by picking a colour and looking around the room and it is amazing how the colour stands out when you are searching for it. So this week you can all wonder around your houses with you colour radar on and see what you can find to declutter. Have fun with it.
Monday – Declutter something that is red.
Tuesday -Â Declutter something that is green.
Wednesday -Â Declutter something that is brown.
Thursday -Â Declutter something that is blue.
Friday -Â Declutter something that is white.
Saturday -Â Declutter something that is silver.
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.
What fun! I don’t actually do your mini-missions as laid out although I often use them for inspiration. This one, however, I am going to follow to the letter because it amuses me. Nothing like a twist to jazz things up a bit. Because it’s still Sunday in this part of the world I have kicked off my 365 rainbow by decluttering a much-hated recipe box (used for corraling small bits like business cards). It is orange. Ick!
Red is HARD because it is a favorite color. Lots of red stuff here but not a lot I want to get rid of. Still…. this has inspired me to release:
A red t-shirt I never wore (lovely color but horizontal stripes? What was I thinking!)
3 cloth napkins have become shop rags,
a plastic drinking glass,
a ball and
two glass bowls which we both liked when they were new. Unfortunately the color (this Canuck prefers the US spelling) was painted on and scratches off. I check that more carefully now.
Now I’m on the hunt for green…
Well done Wendy B. Now I realise I should have called the post Rainbow Mini Mission. You even made be feel excited to follow the missions myself. I wonder which colour I will find the easiest the choose. Probably pink as I have some t-shirts that really are getting too shabby.
Pink? I don’t see pink on the list!!! Cheater… (I’m only grousing because I’ve looked for green and so far have only come up with a cheap nylon wallet and a votive candle holder). Looking forward to Thursday because I have blue in abundance.
Ha ha Wendy. Perhaps I am going to over achieve by doing seven missions instead of six. 😉
Hi, Wendy B. “365 rainbow” – nice!
What a fun week ahead! I have to admit that I haven’t done a declutter by color before.
It will be interesting to see how the week plays out. Great idea Colleen.
Good luck Calla
Funny Wendy B – RED screams at me, and therefore my home is mainly blue tones! My BF’s Christmas gift was a choice of red or blue, and I felt ‘bad’ that I went for my fave colour over his, but as he said, you’ve got to see it on the bench every day and not hate it… And it’s not like he cares…!
As to something blue to declutter – well, with a surplus, I’m sure I’d do ok! Love this Colleen, as a long time follower, I think this may be a first to my memory!
Hi Snosie, I am pretty sure it is a first. Good on Amelia for coming up with the idea. Good luck with your attempt at it.
What a hoot. This ought to be fun. Side note: All my Cuttlebug stuff including the Cuttlebug went home from church with my friend who sells things on eBay. She is going ot sell it all for me.
Good move, Deb. What color is it?!?!?!
The Cuttlebug is green and the folders are white. So I have two days taken care of it I want but I plan to try to find something else for those days this week.
Yay, I hope you make some good cash with the cuttle bug stuff.
Deb J – what is a cuttlebug?
It is a die cutting and embossing “machine” that is made by Prove Crafts.
Oh deb, I was thinking of you today as I sold my cuttlebug and folders/dies just this morning.
Also I just donated hundreds of embellishments, paper, stamps etc to a not for profit children’s organisation in my area. As I was bundling it all up I was angry at myself for spending so much money on it but I know you can’t look at it that way. I feel so much better and there is still some stuff to sort through and shelves to clean, it’s still three quarters gone though.
It also followed the mini mission for this week as every colour was present in every shade in that lot.
Mich
Mich, I think it is great that you were able to sell your Cuttlebug and other stuff. I can’t wait for mine to sell but am already excited to just have it out of the house. I also declutter ed 90% of my embellishments, etc a while back And was sick when I thought of all the moneyspent. I did enjoy using much of it there for awhile so decided it was worth the investment.
You’re absolutely right – just have it out of the house. I feel a lot lighter. Tonight I got some more craft items together to donate and tossed a bag full of things. You are such an inspiration to me Deb, I wouldn’t have done this if it weren’t for your posts on ending your scrapbooking days. Thankyou. I probably don’t have that much further to go as far as craft items go. My cookbooks are another matter.
Mich
Ahh Mich … cookbooks, actually recipes, are my wicked downfall! I cruise the internet and print off all sorts of recipes, then they sit in a pile, unorganized, and very cluttered, in my overflowing and broken recipe binder, so now I can’t even find my favorite recipes. I have decided no more recipe printing until I go through the mess I have. I might save that for the “white” day or days! This is a GREAT idea Colleen and your website came highly recommended by my dear neighbor! Thank you all!
Hi Tracey and welcome to 365 Less Things. I used to have tons of cookbooks and magazine recipe cut out and print outs too. Now I get all my recipes from the internet by either saving them to separate boards on Pinterest or bookmarking them. And like the material version I often never get around to using them but at least they aren’t cluttering up my house. And when I do want to use one they are easy to locate.
And thank you neighbour for giving my blog a good wrap and for sending you to us. We, meaning myself and my great community of readers, hope you will find all the inspiration you need here to help you succeed in your decluttering mission.
I’m glad I could help, Mich. It has taken me a long time to figure it all out but now it is done and it feels soooo good.
Ooohhhh decluttering by colour/color. What fun. I think its time to put down the photo project and to rummage thru the girl’s old gear to see what else can be sold.
I can see why Marie Kondo and commonsence dictate leaving photos until the very last decluttering project – its long and somewhat boring work. I’ve been getting Adrian involved with sorting and culling photos and his attention span is about 10 minutes so progress is slow.
Moni,
In answer to the question you asked in your last post re: window cleaning, I clean my windows inside and out every three months. There are a few that I do every month on the outside only, but that depends on what our trade winds are blowing about. I also use elbow grease and a few drops of dawn dishwashing liquid in the bucket of warm water. I started using Dawn many moons ago when the USA experienced the Alaska Valdez oil spill and they were using dawn to clean the oil off the animals. It is the only window “cleaner” I have used since.
Kimberley – I think once every three months sounds reasonable but on a monthly basis wow that would take dedication. Maybe if I had significantly fewer windows and some special view. No doubt I’m going to have to re-do one side of the house again now this cyclone has passed by. I shall view it as good exercise.
Moni, I was thinking about you when I read about the hurricane. Cyclone. Typhoon. Whatever they call it! I hope you didn’t have any damage.
Melanie – it pretty much tracked a parallel path out at sea past my area but we did get up to 7 metre waves along the coast, so it was a fortunate miss for us but unfortunate as it is heading for the Chatham Islands which are quite isolated, hopefully it will have lost strength by time it gets there as it is definately not tropical. We were able to watch its progress over the last week on the weather radar which was pretty cool technology. A city further down the coast took a bit of a battering last night, but no casualties or major damage as there was plenty of warning to prepare and evacuate low lying areas prior to high tide.
Hurricane in the Northern Hemisphere, Cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere and Typhoon in the Asia-India area.
Oooh I am so excited!!! Thanks for building on my idea Colleen, this is so fun!
Red is the menu of what was me and my boyfriend’s favourite Chinese takeaway (before he broke up with me via text message on Saturday, nice.)
Green is my sea salt hair spray, which he tended to use more than I did anyway.
Brown, hmm, not sure on this one, maybe photos of now ex?
Blue is some old lens cleaner that was floating about as a useful but not used item.
White is a spare set of dice.
Silver is a rusted coathanger.
Will see if I can find some more of each colour during the week, you’re right, it’s amazing how each colour jumps out at you when you are specifically looking for it!
First, what a cad! Your ex boyfriend that is. I had a boyfriend who sent his friend to tell me he was breaking up with me once. I guess that was the 80s version of breaking up via text messaging. I got the last laugh though as he only broke up with me because he said I was too young. We ended up going out for about a year when I was older and it was I who broke that off in the end. He was devastated while, although I felt sad for him, I was glad it was over.
And I am not convinced that sea salt doesn’t damage your hear more than it helps style it. And well done with all those other things since they are no use to you.
And of course, thank you, Amelia, for the inspiration behind this set of mini mission.
Thanks Colleen. Yeah, what a way to end things. I was going to say, what are we, teenagers? Then I thought, no, that is being judgmental of teenagers. Plus I struggle to think of anyone I knew way back then that acted like that anyway.
Well to take a positive from it all, I was struggling a bit with my decluttering over the last couple of weeks. At least now I can get right into all the negative sentimental stuff!
Good for you Amelia, be a cup half full kinda gal.
Hi, Amelia. The right guy will walk into your life (or you into his) when the time is right and you will see why it never worked out with anyone else.
Thanks Nicole, that is a lovely thought.
Amelia,
In keeping with the theme of the week, be grateful that he showed his “true colors”! Probably doesn’t seem like it now, but when the right person finally comes along you will understand why said boyfriend is now out of your life.
Haha Kimberley, that is a good way of putting it!
One of my friends said he was actually helping me declutter, over 160 pounds out the door.
Oh, Amelia, I’m so sorry your ex acted like that. You sure have a good attitude and sense of humor about it. I agree with the other ladies….someone better will come into your life. Hugs.
Thank you Melanie. The good attitude, well, I am trying!
Ok,I have every color of item except for red! I can’t find anything red….Will keep looking. I might have to do pink instead, does that count?
I think it should count, it is kinda red… ish… 🙂
No excess Christmas decorations or lipstick, nail polish floating about?
Either that or maybe you could play on the sound of the word ‘red’, and find something ‘read’ eg a magazine 😉
Hi, Calla. What about in your kitchen? Any cayenne pepper, paprika or chilli powder that needs to go, for whatever reason? Or perhaps a can of cherries languishing in the pantry? How about an extra red pen or folder or a book with a red spine from elsewhere in the house? I decluttered a pair of red dumbbells last week. I think Colleen’s watching me. 😀
Oooh, the colours of food, that’s a good one!
Those are great ideas, but I only wear blue or teal nail polish & I only have one tube of pink lipstick….but Christmas decorations I can go through those. Thanks for the ideas, they never occurred to me!
Too funny about the read. And as far as your ex is concerned it’s his loss. With your great ideas & attitude you’re a real jewel!
Yeah I don’t do red makeup either, but thought it was worth a shot.
And thank you, that is very nice of you to say, I appreciate it.
Hi, Colleen. This is such a lovely idea! It immediately brought to mind the Pantone Colour System and the Colour by Numbers I did as a child. Thanks for putting a smile on my face 🙂
Food colors, another great idea. Sounds like I’m going to have more than one red item!
Thanks for the ideas
First of all, the title of this post made me laugh. I speak American, not Australian, so I really appreciate the translation. LOL. As for the rest of the post, it’s such a cute idea! Funny, I can’t find anything red. I’ll have to look harder tomorrow. I’m sure I can find something for the other colors. I did get rid of two reddish t-shirts a couple of weeks ago. That just might have to do.
Hi, Colleen. Like Wendy B, I don’t really do the mini missions although I look forward to reading what you come up with each week, as well as the comments. This week’s was just so much fun and so I began looking. I found something to let go of for each colour. It wasn’t difficult as my husband and I have been decluttering for quite some time now and it’s so much easier to see things with just a glance. So here’s my list of items that have either been recycled or gone on to a new phase of their lives:
Red: a carrier bag
Green: an old pair of shorts
Brown: folders
Blue: bath towel
White: paper
Silver: a necklace
Colour me surprised … and happy! 🙂
Well done Nicole V. I think I am going to have to do rainbow missions again in the future.
Thanks, Colleen … and yes, please.
Hi Colleen!
I have a taker for a red, a green, a white and a black cushion tomorrow… She is also looking for some kitchen stuff as she has to re-stock her shared-living kitchen now someone moved out. I will have a look if I also find some surplus silver, blue and brown items in my moving boxes for her. Should be not too difficult… 😉
Really fun missions, I like this kind of creative ones! 😀
Also found some metal and wooden kitchen tools to go – so silver and brown is covered, and a little blue sieve. 😉
Some more (green) plants and clothes hangers (brown with silver) will find their way out as well – and it’s only tuesday! 😀
I had to look really hard for something red to declutter.
In the end it was an old tin that came from my late mother’s house. She used to keep “precious papers” in it. I had long ago moved those to somewhere else but somehow the tin stayed.
Not any more – bye!
Tomorrow I may let go of an indoor plant I have been trying to save. Some of it is green.
Or maybe it would be better for Wednesday (brown) LOL
Well, I’m about a day behind catching up reading about the mini-missions, but this definitely sounds like fun and an easy task.
Update on the sale of the silver pieces. Come to find out, my boss and his wife were interested in my sugar/creamer set and the serving pieces, so I got a price from the Cash 4 Gold gentleman, and then sold them to my boss. 🙂 I LOVE that the pieces will be used instead of melted down. The guy did buy my jewelry pieces and the price was so tiny, I really had to fight myself to sell them, but truthfully, I wasn’t using them so why not sell them?? At least there are a few open spaces in my jewelry box.
I hope everyone has a fantastic time completing these great mini-missions!
Great solution Michelle. You win the challenge – my stuff is ready to go but I have to make a trip to town or the city and I really don’t like the attitude of silver buyers either. Will have to gather my courage and face them. W
Well done Michelle. Don’t you just love it when the perfect solution just presents itself out the thin air.
So here I am with my declutter items for the week. 1. Red–a mumu type robe. 2. Green — tow seperators for polishing your toenails. 3. Brown — slipper socks from the hospital. 4. Blue — unused lint roller. 5. White — blouse I don’t like. 6. Silver — Cloth to clean glasses with (too small). All went to Goodwill. I also sent some puzzles, two pictures we were given at church but never had out of the box, and an unopened travel container of toilet seat covers (Grin).
This post has a very interesting theme, Colleen, very unexpected. I think I should be able to do at least a couple of these.
I decided to declutter green today being St Patrick’s Day. I struggled as generally it’s not a colour I go for. More craft items went today with some green splashed through it as well as a Christmas wreath I binned. Also 3 Hunter Lifestyle magazines that I took into work – there was some green on the front covers. I know it’s a stretch but they’re gone.
Sounds fare enough to me Mich. Green is green.
Here’s mine:
Red: A red and white wooden chicken I had in my kitchen;
Green: 2 green scrunchies and a green & white hair clip;
Brown: 1 headband, 2 brown hair clips, 1 leather hair clip;
Blue: FAIL! (maybe I can find some socks with holes – will have to check!)
White: paper to be recycled
Silver: 2 silver hair clips & those herb scissors that I told you I nipped my fingers on
Gold: 2 gold hair clips
Purple: 2 hair scrunchies
I am an awful hoarder and can always find a reason to keep things, but starting this day by day focus seems to have spurred me into action. As it’s Tuesday I’ve hunted out red and green clothes and had a charity bag full in about 30 minutes! It feels so good!
Already have two pairs of brown sandals in the bag too.
Well done Chris. I think I am going to have to use the coloured mini mission again in the near future. I am also glad that the day by day decluttering is working for you. I have found that many people who have procrastinated over decluttering are finding the thing-a-day method doable and has kick started them into some very deep decluttering. I wish for you continued success.
I’ve been uncluttering for about a year and a half so it’s hard to find things to unclutter now (but I know that there is a lot I could get rid of). For red I found an ice cream carton I was using for money I save from my weekly allowance – I put the money in an empty food storage thingy and threw the ice cream box out. I also found a red box from Staples with 3 used toner cartridges in it – I’ll take the cartridges back to Staples this week and turf the box. I threw out a pair of red gloves, the elastic of one of which had sprung. For green, I found a red-white-green apron I hadn’t used in quite a while, but I decided to give it one more chance to be useful. Underneath it was a scrap of red, which turned out to be a duster. When I put it in my duster drawer, I found a box of plastic forks (white) and one of knives (beige) which I’ll take to work next week. For silver, the toner cartridges (above) are in silver foil. I found a thermometer/humidifier thingy which is gold that I don’t need – you didn’t mention gold.
For yellow, which you also didn’t mention, I will get rid of my sheet set as soon as the new sheet set I ordered yesterday comes in. So, I’m missing green and blue but I substituted gold and yellow. I think that’s OK, isn’t it.
Hi Penny, as it turns out the colour coded missions made it easy for you to find lots of things to declutter. Well done you. I need to play catch up and see what I can declutter. Although let me think. I did take about 10 things to the thrift shop today but I don’t think any of them met the colours choices I mentioned in the missions. Perhaps I will make a set of cards for my art space made from each colour on the list.
I know what you mean Penny by finding it hard to figure out what must go when it’s already pretty basic and well loved things left, I have been puzzling since Colleen’s challenge but there’s a couple things I could let go. Yeah, such a good reminder about the cartridges, we have taken ours in in the past.
Yesterday I gave away 5 cookbooks 3 with mainly blue covers. Today I went through the linen press only to find that I have 37 tea towels!!!! 16 have been either thrown in the bin and the rest, most new but in colours that don’t suit my kitchen I will donate. That means I have 21 tea towels which is still excessive. Now that I see it in print I will have another go through them. Also a tablecloth is going that I only ever used once, it’s redish and a green and white top that I bought in a rush and it doesn’t really suit me. I thought my days of decluttering were nearing a time where I would be able to declutter just one thing a day and that would keep everything under control. Perhaps not.
Here are my items for the week
Red: Christmas decoration (thanks for ideas), pen that no longer works
Green: container for washing eyeglasses & liquid cleaner
Brown:6 fine arts paint brushes (to granddaughters)
Blue: 1 fine arts paint brush
White: 2 ring boxes
Silver: earrings
It was a very good week, just barely made a dent in craft room so I’ll be ready for next week’s challenge with that room!
Okay, so I took the challenge this week and have most of them covered. For red, I found a red quilted pouch sleeve that once stored clothes pins. For blue I decided it was time to say goodbye to a blue container set with three nesting containers. I try to cook just the right portion sizes and we eat leftovers pretty quickly so it’s not been used in months. For white, I finally got my old towels I use for cleaning up spilled water in one of those stretchy kitchen bags and am taking it down to the humane society thrift store tomorrow. I kept one bath sheet which is all I ever use for that anyway. For silver I have several spice jars with silver lids that once held colored sugar. Brown is some boxes in need of recycling that I stuck in the bin. So everything for donations and I still need to find something green.
I found a little green baby onesie that had somehow escaped my detection.
Colleen, if you read this I took your tip for using a microfiber dust mop. In reading more about these whole-house (faux wood) Vinyl floors we have the scratches we have are from regular sweeping particles. My husband purchased a microfiber mop and a matching dust glove last night on his way home from work. What a dream it is at catching all this dust that my regular broom won’t sweep up! It’s little things like that that I never learned growing up in a home where those sorts of things were not taught. Like bleaching the washer drum, for instance. So thank you for sharing. What a difference!
Hi Jean, it warms my heart to know that I can help people, even in the smallest ways. Although in my opinion, clueing people in on the wonders for cleaning with microfibre is more that a small thing. 😉 I will give you one helpful hint when it comes to using them. Don’t use too much pressure when wiping with them, the fibres work best when not squashed.