Here is a great comment from Kimberley that I didn’t want anyone to miss…

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter some paper clutter ~ magazines, paperwork, old tax papers, expired warranties…

Eco Tip for the Day

Organise your weekly menu prior to grocery shopping. This will help avoid extra trips in the car to the store.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

One of the ebay items I am procrastination about.

Do you ever find yourself juggling with the decision whether to donate or sell certain items you have decided to declutter. For me the items I most want to sell are items I feel the need to recoup some monetary loss on. Items that were relatively costly but I never did get much use from. These are items I most definitely want to get out of my house but my thrifty side says ~ “Sell, sell, sell!”  ~ while my I can’t be bothered with all the selling nonsense side says ~ Donate it and just get it the heck out of here, quickly and painlessly.

I have several craft items that I am juggling with this decision about right now. And I have had many such experiences in the past. What do I usually end up doing? I think it is about 50/50 sell v donate. And then there are the times when I have listed an item on ebay and it didn’t sell so I donated it anyway.

You would be forgiven for wondering why it is that, after all this time, I still find myself struggling with this decision from time to time. The answer with that is that question is that my desire to make some money back is equal to the amount I dislike going to the trouble of listing items on ebay.

I have done the pros and cons list and they come out about even…

• Making some cash v feeling good about making a donation
• Not having to pack up the item v Using up some of those pre-used packaging materials lingering in the garage cage.
• Getting it out of here quickly v the tantalising anticipation of receiving bids and the joy of a successful sale.
• Having to go to the post office v The extra exercise and nice harbour side walk to the post office.
• All that bother v the cash in hand.

You know what I am going to do. Finish off this post and just list the darn things instead of wasting the next hour browsing Pinterest for more craft ideas when I have so many going on in my head already. Why waste my brain space procrastinating while I waste my precious time faffing about doing nothing important.

See you, I have work to do.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter plastic items, excess shopping bags, kitchen containers, broken toys…

Eco Tip for the Day

Try to replace at least a couple of meat meals a week with plant based offerings.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

The story of Adam and Eve, I believe, is about more than just defying Gods wishes and giving into temptation. Even many religious people believe this to be a made up story, a parable if you will, to make a point. Or even several points, if you read between the lines.  One clear lesson of this parable, that I see, is to be satisfied with what you have and not be forever wanting for more or other things.

Given the age of this story, even if made up, it is obvious that people have been inherently greedy for a millennia or more. So why is it that no matter how much we have we are always wanting something else. This gets me to thinking about another things that the nuns taught us about in Catholic School, and that is purgatory. This is a place, we were told, where sinners go when they die to suffer for their sins before being allowed into heaven.

Here is the definition as per my Apple Macbook dictionary…

purgatory |ˈpərgəˌtôrē|
noun (pl. purgatories)
(in Roman Catholic doctrine) a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven.
• mental anguish or suffering: this was purgatory, worse than anything she’d faced in her life.

It has occurred to me more than once since my school days that it seems that we are already inhabiting such a purgatory. This state of never being satisfied with what we have is certainly a form of suffering in my opinion. It is a state that I am sure many of us would happily live without. It is a constant state of ~ This one next thing, or being just a little more financially comfortable, will make us happy. Then when we reach that state we once again find a new “one next thing or state of financial security” that will make us happy sometime in the future. Preferably sooner rather than later. If that isn’t a form of suffering then I don’t know what is.

My declutter journey has certainly eased this suffering for me, but the demons still come to visit now and again. Financial security is my Achilles heel but the desire to acquire can also creep up on me at times. I must say that I get far more long term satisfaction from letting go of things than I ever do from acquiring them. Maybe there is a lesson not to be missed from that experience.

And I don’t need to tell you that the more we resist these temptations the less we need to declutter.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter shabby fabric items other than clothes. Worn out napkins, rags, table cloths, cushion covers…

Eco Tip for the Day

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The more we refuse to acquire, therefore reducing our consumption and reusing what we already have, the better caretakers of the environment we become. And the less recycling we need to do.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

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 didn’t have a theme for this weeks missions until I realised as I wrote Friday’s mission that most of the items I had mentioned in my list were items that tend to accumulate. Although I suppose clutter in general accumulates but many if the things I mentioned here tend to accumulate over and over again. Sometimes slowly and unnoticed until you eventually realise how numerous they have become. So lets get to reducing their number this week.

Monday - Declutter some digital clutter. Perhaps photos, emails or documents that are no longer needed.

Tuesday – Declutter shabby fabric items other than clothes. Worn out napkins, rags, table cloths, cushion covers…

Wednesday – Declutter plastic items, excess shopping bags, kitchen containers, broken toys…

Thursday – Declutter some paper clutter ~ magazines, paperwork, old tax papers, expired warranties…

Friday – Declutter out of date items ~ drugs, first aid items, pantry foods (spices for example), makeup…

Saturday – Declutter other items that have begun accumulating around your home recently. Perhaps, stationary items, books, hotel toiletries, freebies, unfinished projects, more of any of the items above…

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

Where possible, have family members take showers one after the other so as not to require wasting water getting it hot.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Recently my parents put a deposit on a property in a gated retirement community. I have to say I am very proud of them for taking this step. Mind you, it isn’t a fait accompli until the home is built and they have moved in, but being open to the idea and making the first move is a wonderful thing.

The home my parents are currently living in has become far more than people at their stage in life to should have to maintain ~ inside and out. In my opinion, the home itself has become their biggest item of clutter. Too many rooms to keep dusted, vacuumed and fresh, to much yard to mow and gardens to weed. Now they have decided to trade that in for a smaller premises, with added security and with lots of extra amenities thrown it ~ that they don’t have to maintain.

 For many people taking this step can be very difficult, sometimes only taken when fate steps in and deals them a painful blow, so to speak, which forces their hand. Often, once taken, these folks wonder why they were so reluctant because the outcome was far better than they had envisioned. Sadly I have also heard of many cases where the previous dwelling was the actual cause of that painful blow, due to its unsuitability for the persons mobility or reduced capacity to deal with the responsibilities involved.

My husband and I have already made such a move in our middle age. Better sooner than later I say, than wearing oneself out on unnecessary household duties.

I am glad that my parents have, through choice,  moved from house to  house throughout their married life making it less difficult to make this next move. but this isn’t the case for many people. Some having lived in, raised their children in and intend to die in the same home for just about their entire adult lives. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for them. And for some it is never necessary to make the move.

Like my parents, my husband and I have also been temporary dwellers in several homes. To us a home is where the heart is and the heart can be very transplantable in our case. Like Marco’s blue polo shirt in the post I linked to yesterday, the difference ii a polo shirt v the polo shirt. We are happy with a home to live in not needing it to be one particular house.

Has your home become your largest item of clutter. And if not, this question sure puts into perspective how trivial all those other smaller items of clutter are. Even if your current home is really quite suitable for you now is a good time to practise not being attached to material things by letting go of those little unimportant items.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a something you have kept out of obligation but really wanted out of your house for some time. Perhaps an unwanted gift or a family heirloom you wish to hand on the responsibility to someone else in the family.

Eco Tip for the Day

Give consumable gifts. Preferably one from sustainable sources.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Doodle

I do love the mantra, a place for everything and everything in its place. This is a good rule to live by when dealing with an excess of stuff. But it is just as important to ensure that the place you give something to ‘live’ is also at the logical point of use, and easy to access.

We live in a small space so inevitably, we have our armchairs in front of book/storage shelves and these need to be moved if we want to get something behind them. One thing that has been annoying me for a while is that somehow, my filing system has ended up behind my chair (and therefore now behind a sofa – see last post ‘Would I buy it now?’).

Although on paper you wouldn’t think it takes a moment to move the chair/sofa, the reality is that is doesn’t happen and paperwork piles up unfiled. I also had an ‘in-tray’ next to my chair that I no longer had room for – and to be honest it only acted as an  – “can’t be bothered, let’s dumps it here for months” tray anyway and looked messy.

So on my unscheduled mass de-clutter day, in the middle of everything else, I decided to ruthlessly weed two 3 feet (1 metre)  shelves of paperwork to take up half the space and look for a new home for my paperwork…and no in-tray would be it had to be done straight away or diarised and filed.

Which led me to my 1950’s retro cupboard…. that was full of craft stuff:

I’ve had various crafting hobbies over time, but in recent years have been learning to down size the stuff I keep and to recognise hobbies I have gone off. A year ago I bought a 2^nd hand cabinet for my crafts stuff with the commitment that anything that couldn’t fit in there had to go. It’s worked really well. So well in fact it has made me see that after 10 months, I am no longer that interested in making stuff.

So, enthused by the changes I needed to make, I got ruthless with the contents.

This is just the bottom cupboard  pre sort out, the storage space above looked much the same:

All my craft stuff has now been reduced to just the bottom cupboard:

Now the top 2/3rds of the old crafting cabinet is my new office 😀

A month on, and not one bit of filing has hung around for days – it can be put away very quickly and easily. You will note from the photos that I have also labelled a lot of things with printed labels. This helps not just me, but if anything should happen to me, anyone else who needs to sort my paperwork and find vital stuff.

Anyone else got things they use regularly that never gets put away because there is no convenient place for it/ or too much effort to put it where in the place designated for it?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter an item you have known you no longer want but guilt has had you hanging on to.

Eco Tip for the Day

Use the stairs rather than the elevator. This of course has the added bonus of a little impromptu exercise.

I received an email from a new minimalist blogger on the weekend. His name is Marco Laberge and his blog is Toward Minimalism. He asked me to check out his blog and give him some feedback. I am a busy lady these days with my blog, my craft making and selling, my other volunteer work, friends and family, so reading is just one things I don’t have a lot of time for. Most of the posts, from blogs I subscribe to, that appear in my in-box are deleted without receiving any of my attention due to these other commitments. However I was intrigued enough to take the time out to read some of Marco’s posts.

I have to say I was suitably impressed. Marco, like myself, focuses on the mind rather than the clutter itself. As I have said many a time, clutter is all about mind set and not the items. The items are just the material manifestation of a skewed attachment and want for stuff. His post ~ Are you too attached to your possessions ~ sums up one aspect of this thinking beautifully. I urge you to read it.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a sentimental item that habit says keep but your mind says is just wasting space.

Eco Tip for the Day

Use a microfibre mop to clean your floors. All you need is a little water, no harmful chemicals. Even green cleaners have to be manufactured so why use them if you don’t need to.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

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 all have those items that we have procrastinated about for some time but are still lingering in our homes. At the moment the items lingering in my home are items we intend to sell on ebay but just haven’t got around to it. I also have some silver jewellery that I haven’t decided how to deal with yet. Anyway enough about me. Do you have any such items either awaiting sale or not dealt with for some other reason. This week is the time to deal with them.

Monday – Do something about selling a clutter items you have been meaning to sell for a while.

Tuesday – Declutter a sentimental item that habit says keep but your mind says is just wasting space.

Wednesday – Declutter an item you have known you no longer want but guilt has had you hanging on to.

Thursday – Declutter a something you have kept out of obligation but really wanted out of your house for some time. Perhaps an unwanted gift or a family heirloom you wish to hand on the responsibility to someone else in the family.

Friday – Declutter clothes of the wrong size that have been stored so long that they are out of fashion.

Saturday – Have a conversation with someone else in the house who is holding on to something that you know they don’t really want to keep but for some reason feels obliged to.

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

Doodle

I found myself making the most of my day alone today by turning the living room upside down into a state of complete chaos and back again with 5 minutes to spare so my husband came home to calm and order.  😀

There was a purpose to it of course. It started by my finally admitting my gorgeous red chenille chair seems to be now causing me back problems. So I have swopped it  position with the small very upright sofa for a few days to see if that solves the back issue and proves I’m right (oh, how I want to be wrong!)

The sofa takes up more space, so there is no room for my set of drawers I use as a side table and I needed to find something else within the home that could do the job instead.

Somehow, this led to emptying 7 feet of bookshelves, completely emptying my craft storage cupboard and putting together a flat pack storage cupboard all at the same time/not finishing one job before starting another. Basically, every time I thought – “that could go there and that could go there”, I had to create the space before I could move anything. So within an hour, the floor was covered with books and craft pieces and various shelves and cabinets were in a state of undress.

This is a great example of how not to de-clutter/re organise if you are likely to feel overwhelmed! How I handled that was to give myself regular breaks and bring my focus back to completing one area at a time. Most importantly, I was in the mood to tackle a bigger job and to get rid of stuff and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I’ll talk about the results of the craft cupboard and bookshelves in my next post.

The flat pack storage cupboard, I bought 8 months ago. I realised instantly it was a mistake and have never been able to face putting together in order to sell it on at a loss. Well this afternoon I finally did it, and it confirmed itself as a bad purchase as not only is it too big for where I though it might go originally it doesn’t work as a replacement side table. I also can’t find room for it anywhere else in our small house. I’ve tried every possible place as I rather like it.

Finally I asked myself a key question: “would I buy it now?” Always a good question to ask yourself if trying to decide whether to keep something or not.

The answer, ‘no’ is a good clue to the fact it needs to go.

So the cupboard is now online to sell. For much less than I paid for it of course, but 8 months has softened the blow. And hanging on to it unused and in the way will not bring my money back either.

Do you have anything you keep trying to find a use for that you wouldn’t buy now? Is this a sign it needs to go?

Today’s Mini Mission

Put away an item out of place in your home then declutter an item in the place that you just rehoused the other item.

 

Doodle may not have had a photo of her upheaval but here is an old one of mine during some manic craft room decluttering and reorganising.

We all have at lease one if not several “Why oh why!” items we have parted with or should part with. Michaela shared one such story with us last week. Here is her story to set the scene for today’s post.

Michaela ~ Kind of on subject here, but today I decluttered a (never worn) bra. I bought it probably 10 years ago, and when I purchased it I was on a visit (three hours away). It fit wonderfully in the store, but upon returning home I realized the sales clerk grabbed the wrong one and it didn’t fit me (and it was expensive = grrrr). So for whatever reason I held onto it, taking up space in my drawer, all this time – thinking maybe, someday, I could *possibly* squeeze my assets into it. Today I finally tried it on and lo and behold – ill fitting as can be. It was comical. So into the Goodwill bag it went. It feels great to look in my drawer and NOT see it. WHY, oh why did I hold onto it all this time? The world did not end . . .

I will admit I had some sexy lingerie that I hung on to for ages with the thought that I would use it at some point. But in reality sexy lingerie is usually uncomfortable, unflattering and impractical (even for the purpose intended). I held on to it for at least the first two years of my decluttering mission, like Michaela, mostly because I had paid a lot of money for it. Lets face it whose husband/partner ever needs any extra encouragement to participate in this kind of activity.

I am sure I could also summon up a few other examples if I put my mind to it.

The fact is that mistakes in purchasing, whether yours or someone else’s aren’t a reason to hold on to clutter. In fact these items are some of the worse clutter to hold on to because they make you feel bad every time you lay your eyes on them. Bad because you don’t want the items, bad because you are reminded of the money you wasted and bad because they are wasting space in your home.

So if you have any such item in your home right now, then let it go. Resell it to recoup some cash if you can be bothered but, one way or another, get it our of there. You don’t need the item or the angst that comes with it.

And one more piece of advise is, never buy items out of town at shops that don’t have a store in you home town unless you are certain the purchase is sound and transacted correctly. Returning items become near on impossible and, at the lease, very inconvenient under these circumstances.

Today’s Mini Mission

Put away an item out of place in your home then declutter an item in the place that you just rehoused the other item.

Eco Tip for the Day

Carpool with friends when attending social events. Consider the possibility that you could compromise on when you need to arrive and/or depart. Sometimes we are a little too spoiled when it come to having things completely our way.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow