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 week we are not going to make a lot of space when completing our mimi missions but we won’t be doing any heavy lifting either. We are going to work on some little things what we might otherwise overlook. Some of these areas have been visited in previous mini missions but they are areas that need periodical decluttering so it never hurts to have another sweep though.
Monday – We will start off with one of those categories we have worked on before ~ Little stationary items, pens, pencils, paperclips, rubberbands, thumb tacks…
Tuesday – Check out your spare button collection for ones that are no longer relevant. I know I have plenty of spare buttons that I no longer have the items they came with. I know it pays to keep a few spares of the obvious colours but not a whole jar of them. Of course there may be an exception if you dress-make on a regular basis, I don’t. These excess buttons can be donated to your local thrift shop.
Wednesday – Hair clips and bands are also items that are regularly used and sometimes get broken then work their way to the bottom of the collection. There are also those ones you avoid because they don’t perform as well as others. Now is a good time to weed them out and throw them away.
Thursday – Those old socks and undies that work their way to the bottom of the heap also need weeding out every now and again. Today is the day to take care of this task.
Friday – There are items in the kitchen that sometimes get lost in the heap because they don’t perform as well as others. Potato peelers, odd cutlery, corn cob holders, cake icing tools etc would fall into this category.
Saturday – For those with littlies the change of seasons is a good time to declutter their baby clothes that will no longer be used because unlike adults they aren’t going to fit into them next year.
Sunday – And last but not least there is always little bits of jewellery that are broken or not so loved that could be cleared out of your collection. Some times you can sell off the precious metal from jewellery that you no longer want. Do your homework on this before deciding to sell because some companies offer much less then your items are worth.
Good luck and happy decluttering
Today’s Declutter Item
This old hoody has seen better days and my son is ready to admit it is time to let it go.
- Liam’s old hoody
My Gratitude List
- Something that made me laugh ~ When my darling husband saw the title for this post he wanted to know if I was decluttering my bras today. Luckily for him I have a good sense of humour. I gave him a slap upside the head for good measure though.
- Something Awesome ~ Getting rid of a pile of junk in the garage. (More about this later in the week)
- Something to be grateful for ~ A nice tender rib eye roast for dinner.
- Something that made me happy ~ Taking an afternoon walk with my hubby, it is always a good opportunity to talk.
- Something I found fascinating ~ The endless possibilities where art is concerned, although I must admit I would pay for some of it.
Just found your site. Practical and current except for the grammatical error: it should be 365 FEWER Things! ;-P
Hi Chickadee,
you aren’t the first person who found it necessary to point this out to me and I dare say you won’t be the last. By the time I realised this mistake the title was entrenched and there was no going back. Compared to some of the grammatical errors, typos and spelling mistakes that slip by me when I proof-read my posts that one is pretty mild.
I hope you enjoy my blog enough to stick with me even though my writing and editing skills leave a lot to be desired at times. My intention is to help folks with their decluttering (that word isn’t in the dictionary by the way) and hopeful my skills in that department make up for my lack of skills in the other. Look at it this way I did manage to unintentionally declutter a syllable out of the title. 😉
Colleen, don’t bother to read this. I have nothing interesting to say today. Just, you know, the usual rambling.
(To everybody else: If you have excess buttons, please just send them to me – I LOVE buttons; they are one of my big weaknesses. Don’t tell Colleen, though :))
Hi Jo,
you seriously didn’t think that that first sentence was going to work did you. What’s your address so I can send my excess buttons to you. Nah, just kidding, I am not an enabler. I am interested to know what you do with the buttons though, aside from hoard them that is. Some photos would be good.
Your question got me thinking, Colleen – as usual, I might add!
I actually have used them for several different kinds of crafts. This has included button bouquets (http://www.favecrafts.com/Home-Decor/Spring-Bouquet-Ribbon-and-Button-Flowers and http://kiddley.com/2006/05/31/a-button-bouquet) as well as snowmen Christmas tree ornaments (can’t find an on-line picture, but involves stringing stacks of white and off-white buttons of varying sizes plus a different colour for the snowman hat). I also use larger buttons to keep my pierced earrings together (I have a jewellery tree with a saucer-like base where the earrings sit, and it’s hard to find a pair unless I do this).
However, the best buttons for crafts are unique or colourful, so that leaves a person with a lot of ordinary ones, and I was ALMOST ready to concede that I could get rid of these – but I think I have come up with a use for them, too. I will substitute them for the beans in my bean-bottom angels for the Christmas craft fair. That should use up the bulk of the “rejects” very quickly. (Along the same lines, they could also be used for bean bags in a children’s bean-bag-toss game.)
Amazing how focusing on a problem helps to identify solutions! But I would not have realized it was a problem without your question to make me think.
Hi Jo,
now that comment is going straight to this weeks Favourite Five. I love it how one simple question focuses you on a situation and you come up with brilliant solution to something you didn’t even really see as a problem. If you were to run across a problem and racked your brain for a solution it often wouldn’t come as easily. Maybe the difference is with one you feel forced to solve the problem while the other you are actually trying to justify your situation and the willingness to do the second frees your mind to more ideas, if that makes any sense.
The craft ideas were really cute. I thought a combination of both would be good ~ use the ribbon / button combo in the first to created the bouquet in the second. All I need is more craft ideas though. 😆
oh, yes, I adore buttons, too, but send them to Jo, she blogged first! 🙂 over the years my ‘box’ of buttons is the one thing that has remained and the reality is the contents of the box gets added to….(ahhhummm, shhh, remember, we can’t tell Colleen!!!)
Hi Annabelle,
I didn’t read any of that! 😉
As always great stuff (the title doesn’t bother me too much 😀 ).
Just a thought with the buttons, your local kindy will probably love them, they use them for counting and sorting and making craft with, same as old boxes (and those from cereal etc)…worth ringing them or dropping them past.
Hi Fiona T,
thank you for that vote of confidence and thank you for joining us here at 365 Less Things, you are most welcome.
Thank you for the tip about buttons I will check out that source of donating. I should actually make it my business to go out and investigate what sorts of donations different establishments would appreciate. I know it would vary from one place to another so it would be interesting to see the results. There are many different establishments right in my neighbourhood that I could check out like, the dog grooming place, the veterinary surgery, the schools, the acting theatre, Meals-on Wheels, the library…
There are probably all kinds of things that we wouldn’t think to recycle that could be used.
Fiona T – thanks for the extra ideas on using up buttons! I do remember when my children were 5 or 6 that they used them in these ways, as well as making “roadways” for their toy vehicles (use two lines and drive the cars between).