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.
As you  can guess from the title this week’s missions are all to do with the outdoors, whether in your yard or equipment you use to enjoy communing with nature. So lets see what missions I have come up with for this subject.
Monday – Declutter any camping gear you no longer use. Perhaps items you have upgraded but kept the old item just in case.
Tuesday – Declutter any outdoor pet related items that are ready for the trash.
Wednesday – Declutter any gardening items that don’t seem to be getting used. Perhaps even pull out some weeds that are making your home look tatty.
Thursday – Declutter any old outdoor toys that your children have grown out of.
Friday – Declutter some outdoor sports equipment that is no longer in use.
Saturday – Declutter any old building supplies getting overgrown with grass in your yard. Timber, bricks, gravel, wire mesh etc..
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.
Good luck and happy decluttering
Eco Tip for the Day
Join your last fragment of soap to the new cake so as not to waste it. They usually stick together well when wet.
It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow
We don’t have much in these categories Colleen but these sure are good ideas. Since Mom has decided she wants to get ready for moving I’m going to suggest we go through what little gardening stuff we have and plan when and how to get rid of it. We can also go through the shed with this in mind. We will have to wait until it is cooler though as 115-120 is too hot to be out messing with this stuff.
HI Deb J, I am glad your mom is being open minded and ready to prepare for the move. I wish you success with the shed declutter but as it is too hot right now, I agree, it is best to stay indoors. I am sure there is plenty that your mom can work on in there.
Yes, there is a whole lot more inside that outside that Mom needs to make decisions about. Grin.
I see I have an easy week coming ahead as I live in an apartment, I don’t camp and have no pets.
However, I do still have lots of paperwork so think I will concentrate on that. If I need more inspiration, I’ll take a look at some of the archived Monday posts.
Hi Diana, I am glad you are exempt from many of this weeks missions and doubly glad that you will work on something else instead. Especially that paperwork. I hope you are coming to the conclusion that some of it is unnecessary to keep in the first place and can reduce the burden in the future. And if that isn’t possible I hope you are coming up with a system that will help you keep in under control at all times.
Well for once ,apart for some weeds and overgrown bushes which need pruning back and a couple of small plant pots there is nothing we have to declutter this week. What a great feeling that is. However, I’ll carry on with things in the house.
Hi Linda, it seems we haven’t too many outdoorsy people among us. Perhaps that is why we have so much indoor clutter. Maybe spending more time outdoors might be a way of keeping indoor clutter down.
Nope. We have BOTH!!!
Hi Wendy B, it is nice to see you around the blog. How are you these days.
Hi back. I’ve been lurking, but decluttering hasn’t been the focus of our lives this last year.
We’ve just come to a big decision which will affect our decluttering in a major way. The property we live on is 11 acres (3 ha.), most of it bush, meadow and marsh. It was the ideal retirement place and we built our house smack in the middle of it. This means 600′ of driveway to plow in the winter and lots of mowing and maintenance. Ian’s back surgery last year wasn’t the success we had hoped for and he might have more scheduled. Surgery or not, he is close to 70 and coming to the realization that he needs to scale back and be kinder to himself. Up til now he’s been grumping about having to sell out and move to town — a recipe for personal disaster for us. Now we’ve agreed that we can subdivide a section off the edge where our property touches the village street, build a smaller house and leave all that plowing and mowing and wood-shopping to someone else. We’d still have the birds and the deer and the foxes and the view of the lake. He’d still have property to putter on but less urgency about maintenance, less panic to clear everything up before we go on a trip, and to catch up again when we return. Fitting what we own into a smaller house with no basment will will be an interesting process but we have time to work on it. Having a clear goal in mind will help. It’s nice to be excited about planning a move to our ‘transition’ house instead of dreading what’s ahead. W
Wendy B, it sounds like you have a good plan in mind. It is amazing how as you get older a lot of things are no longer on your “I want to do this” list. I pray all goes well with your building, moving and downsizing.
It would be a good idea to go thru our tool shed but it’s a bit cold at the moment. Maybe on the weekend.
Hi Moni, I would have thought that you of all people might have something for many of these missions. With three older kids and being an active family makes you a prime candidate for such clutter. But then I know that you have worked on much of this previously. Good for you.
Colleen – I’m just too cool for school this week. But that’s ok cause I have stuff from the Sanna Challenge to process out the door.
Monday – Camping Gear : Thanks to our son losing the family tent last Summer, we’re ahead of the game on the camping gear front.
Tuesday – Pet Gear : We have cats and I got rid of a scratching post that they didn’t like early in the Sanna Challenge.
Wednesday – Gardening Gear : Adrian has his tool shed. More on that later
Thursday – Outdoor toys : nope we’re past that stage and live about 1km from the beach.
Friday – Sports equipment – we got rid of the basketball board and hoop about six weeks ago.
Saturday – Building supplies : nothing
Whoops I forgot to come back to Adrian’s tool shed. It is a masterpiece of minimum space as he designed and built it himself, to fit under the eaves and holds an astonishing amount of stuff.
Last Spring he re-did our gardens to rock gardens and did low maintenance plants, so we’re pretty good on the weed and foiliage front. So glad we went that option. Have a corner garden to look at in Spring.
Adrian has come to the conclusion that when it comes to lawn care and prickle sprays etc, looking at the jumble of equipment required, the bottles of stuff that expire, can’t be mixed so require seperate sprayers etc, he’d be better off just getting the local Jim’s Mowing in to fertilise the lawns and spray for prickles rather than owning all that stuff himself. He thinks its probably no better/worse economy considering the size of the bags and bottles which tend to expire before its all used. Has anyone else done the maths on this?
Moni, at out last 2 houses we did this. It came out about even cost wise but then you add in the time it takes you to do it yourself and the time it takes to get all the expirable supplies to do it with and it pays to have someone else do it for you. At least, that is what we found. We had a really good crew do the work and our gardens/lawns looked so much better than if we had done it ourselves.
Hi Moni, it seems you made some very good decision on the gardening front there. I agree with Adrian, better to get someone in to take care of the lawn nasties. We took care of that problem by getting rid of outdoor responsibilities all together. Now all I have is a dozen potted plants on my balcony which I really enjoy tending to. At least half of them are succulents so don’t need much care.
Well done Moni. I had a feeling you may have taken care of it all by now. That is probably why I thought of you when I was writing the post. I remember you had the camping year at least.
Great reminders Colleen, and I do have a few outdoor items to declutter! Fortunately, no camping gear and no toys but I have some gardening stuff that can go. Last week I sawed up an old plastic chair and put it in the trash, this week I’ll declutter it’s mate. I have a some bricks and pavers that are no longer in use, I will try to recycle them at Habitat for Humanity. Meanwhile, I’m still doing Sanna’s challenge.
It seems I vhose just the right area for mini missions for you Barbara. Even the few thing you have outdoors that needing tending to can make a big improvement to how your house presents.
Gosh there is something that is kind of for camping: an emergency water supply holder. It only holds about 5 gallons but I only used it for a few years sometime ago.
I wonder if I should let it go and get something a little more practical? Perhaps a water holder that is square and collapses thus storing easier?
Of course I know I should be actually using these things and not just storing them. Oh boy.
Hi Ron, I like the idea of a square and collapsable container. That would take up much less room when empty.
I’m a firm believer in that you should do one thing each day that carries you toward your goal. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just something.
We just got home from a camping/caravanning holiday in the Peak District UK. So I will head on out and find something that was surplus to requirement from last week. Only problem is we are so in the ‘clutterfree’ frame of mind that I actually have a list of things I need to acquire and take next time! On the list is a bread knife. But to be fair, it wasn’t overly missed. There’s a reason why it’s called ‘breaking bread’ 😉
Hi Jo, if you are outdoorsy people then it doesn’t hurt to have a convenient set of equipment to take with you. Like you said, get rid of the items that weren’t use and replace them with things that you will find useful.
We definitely have heaps of this type of stuff and a large pile of things waiting to be sold on ebay – currently includes; 1 windsurf sail; 1 landboard; 1 traction kite; 1 windsurf boom; 2 pairs of kayak paddles and 1 buoyancy aid. And that’s without looking. Apart from the landboard and kite, all are needing to go as part of the 1 in 1 out policy as they have been replaced. The landboard and kite OH has finally agreed to sell – YIPPEE – as he has a new sport (kayaking) and no longer uses this stuff (I sold my traction kiting kit several years ago – polish my halo lol). I have couple of bits of outdoors kit on ebay at the moment which are refusing to sell, bah humbug. I don’t like putting them into the charity shop as they are probably too specialist..
Gardening too – another of my passions – I have a huge ‘pile’ of plants waiting to go in to the ground (from my dad who I am helping to clear out) which will then release a load of plant pots to be donated (to get them in the ground requires clearing the ground first, humpff). Tools are ok at the moment – I went through them last year and have not added. Seeds though – I have several packets waiting to be sown – eek. There is a pile of bits of wood waiting to be sorted out for firewood and some old building blocks that could be tidied – they get repurposed for different things throughout the year so are staying but could definitely be in a better place.
Am going to stop thinking about it now before total overwhelm kicks in….
Hi Fruitcake, you are a busy busy and active person. Good for you! I was feeling overwhelmed for you with all that by the time I finished reading your comment 😉 so I can imagine how you feel. Don’t lose too much sleep over it though, it is just an area of your life where there is always going to maintenance decluttering to take care of. It seem you are doing the best you can on that score. so well done you.