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 is another good exercise to help you find extra things you may not have thought to get rid of. So this week we are once going to remove some clutter that might be bothering someone else in some way. If you decide to take on this weeks missions be prepared for it to be confronting at times.Â
Monday – Ask your partner/husband/roommate if there is something of yours in your shared living space that they wish you would declutter because they don’t like it. It is up to you whether you comply of course.
Tuesday – Remove something from your yard that a neighbour might be able to see and think looks out of place or unsightly. Ask the neighbour if you aren’t sure and are game.
Wednesday – Ask a family member if they have anything you have given them that they really don’t want but keep because it was a gift from you. Give them permission to declutter it.
Thursday – Return something that you have borrowed from someone else that you should possibly have returned some time ago.
Friday – Declutter an area where your items may have spilled over into someones else’s space. For example ~ Your clothes in your husbands side of the closet.
Saturday – Ask a family member if there is an area of clutter in your home that you might have overlooked that they think needs attention. This might possibly be an area that is OK to you but annoying for them.
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.
I think my family has a long way to go before they can say anything about my stuff. Which is why I won’t ask them :).
I will use the suggestions in regard to Their stuff.
Yesterday there were two pairs of work boots which had been sitting in the basket for months. They had dual ownership between my son and my husband. Neither wore them, neither would throw away the boots . I asked both if they wanted the boots, neither did. So I disposed of them.
With a new kitchen two weeks away, I have cleaned out the existing cupboards in preparation.
With new technology in the kitchen I will be able to reduce what I already have . The biggest joy will be a dishwasher. To me that will instantly reduce the sink clutter. The rack, the drying dishes, the towels, the dish washing liquid, the scourers and the dirty dishes.
The cook top will be more efficient than my existing one , so out will go the electric frypan . I currently have five saucepans that won’t be suitable for the cooktop. They will be replaced with two suitable ones to start with and I will see if I need any more.
Cheers
Wendy F – we got an induction cooktop recently and had to replace our frying pans, fortunately our pots were ok. Usually I have a large pan and a small pan, but I have had to expand it to a large pan, a small pan and a wok pan as the base of the pans needs to sit inside the element area and therefore pans are smaller than my regular pans, making fried rice and Chinese dishes became too messy with stuff going over the side of the pans. Fortunately I was able to get the wok using my Flybuy rewards points.
Dishwasher – the greatest invention in my opinion, but my kids who’ve been raised with one think that unloading it is a chore and a bore, and often a stack of dirty dishes ends up on the bench. I will be cracking down on that in the near future, too many pressure deadlines at school at the moment to add that to the mix but I will be bringing back the washing by hand regime in the near future.
Moni,
Your dishwasher comment reminded me of an elderly lady at our church who has never owned a dishwasher. She always says that for years she had three dishwashers….her three sons! Love her sense of humor.
Wendy,
What’s up with me?? I have had a dishwasher for years and I do use it. I also use the dish drain, dish towels, dish detergent, etc. I always have so much stuff that I do not put in the dishwasher – like knives that will loose their sharpness, pots and pans that do not come out nice and streak free, plenty of plastics that are only recommended for top shelf and I never have the room, with the mugs, glasses and bowls.
Please don’t let my perfectionism ruin your ability to have a nice neat kitchen. I have tried many times to do without and have donated my dish racks, only to go out and repurchase. I have even tried using only dish drying mats and they also don’t work for me!
There’s nothing up with you. 🙂 We have knives we only hand wash because it does help retain their sharpness. Not all of our pots and pans fit into the dishwasher. Also, the inserts for our rice cooker get cleaner when washed by hand. Sometimes I think it is just a matter of how many dishes and what kind of dishes your family uses throughout the day.
Yes we find the clutter is worse with the dishwasher, rather than dealing with dishes daily. However, i cant seem to educate leaving dishes to drain indefinitely is not cleaning up in entirety. Does anyone have tips to lower your frustrations with families clutter?
Oh my Colleen. I wish The clutter was my mess so I could ask this question and then declutter. 🙂
We have a diswasher. We never use it except to run it once a month or so to keep the gasket from going bad. We don’t have enough dishes. It would take a week to fill it. We wash our dishes right away and it takes maybe 5 minutes.
I wish we didn’t have enough dishes to fill the dishwasher but we do. With (currently) five people living here and everybody often eating at different times, I can load and run the dishwasher in the morning and have a full batch by the evening. I read tips about making the family eat together and blah blah blah. But only one of us is under the age of 18 and herding adults is akin to herding cats. ::sigh::
Rachel W – I have exactly the same situation. Everyone has places to be at different times and its just how it rolls. I have a dish drawer dishwasher, so at least I can put one drawer thru at different times of the day but there is a tendancy to use mainly the top one (which the manufacturers don’t recommend) – but the dishes are a bit relentless. Plus my son makes a meal to take to work and my dishes slowly disappear and then I get a heap back at once.
That’s how we do our dishes, too. Takes about 5 minutes usually, but I wait until just before I start lunch to do the breakfast ones so I will have good hot water for the clean-as-I-go fixing lunch.
As for my clutter bothering anyone, I don’t think my husband would ever see it, lol. He tends to hang onto his stuff, so I think he would be afraid to mention it–if by some miracle he actually saw clutter. Our office area stays sort of messy since we both use the same computer for the internet, and usually leave whatever we are working on out, which in my case that may be 4 or 5 different things. I did ask him once if he thought it looked cluttered. He immediately said no. Since I was tired, I just left it as it was. I have read that since men were the hunters, and women the berry gatherers, we don’t see things the same way. Could be, who knows.
YES! when I get back home, I will ask my husband if there is cluttering he minds.. I can only wonder what he will say.