Since today’s mini mission is to analyse your clutter weakness I thought it would be good if I also made it the subject of the day. Perhaps in the comments you might like to admit your clutter weakness and see if you can get any advice about it.

My clutter weakness would be my craft supplies. It is one of the few areas where I still add items. Mostly cutting dies and embossing folders. However there is more going out than is coming in so I am happy with that. And these items are being used over and over again. I did also bring home fabric and lace from my mother and mother-in-law but I am already making inroads into using that up.

My previous clutter weakness was garage sales. I used to go to them every weekend in the Summer when I lived in Seattle. I love a great bargain. Now I could count on one hand the number of garage sales I have been to in the seven years I have been back in Australia. Lead me not into temptation I guess. I do like the thrift shop though but only for items I am trying to avoid buying new that I have an immediate use for. And the beauty of getting items cheap is I have no qualms about donating them back if they don’t get used within a short length of time.

On a related topic, Wendy F and I went picking through the bulk waste pick up piles on the side of the road yesterday. We had a wonderful time. I was searching for some organising items for the art space where I sell my cards, which I found. I also brought home a free standing hand towel rail for one of our bathrooms. My husband and I had had a discussion about this just the other day. For some weird reason they never fitted hand towel holders in our apartment when it was built. If this rail doesn’t work out I will either be use to hang my potted plants on or be donated to the thrift shop. I also brought home a handful of suction cups from an old desk. We are in need of these as replacements for ones the removal company lost from my dinning table during our recent move. I tried them out but they aren’t quite right so they will go in the bin. It was the try though.

During this outing Wendy and I also collected up a car load of items to be donated to the thrift shop. I suppose you could say that one of my weakness is that I just can’t bare to see perfectly good stuff go to waste. It angers me to see this stuff dumped on the side of the road when it could have been easily boxed up and taken to a thrift shop. Why are people so lazy and frivolous?

Recognising a weakness is the first step to overcoming it. So what is your clutter weakness and do you have it under control?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter an item of your choice and spend 10 minutes thinking about what your particular clutter weakness is. Knowing this will help you avoid it in the future.

Eco Tip for the Day

If you see something going to waste, rescue it and donate it to someone in need or to a charity of your choice.

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

Even when a person has been working at this decluttering thing for a long time it is possible for stuff to build up right under your nose. A little something comes in here and a little there and before you know it a drawer, a cupboard, a corner of the garage… is more cluttered than you would like. Or maybe even there is a thin even spread of clutter built up all over the house.

One must be ever vigilant so that this clutter build up does not occur or at least doesn’t get out of hand. It can happen due to a change in circumstance.

• Perhaps you are doing a little renovating and home hardware catalogues build up in a drawer somewhere.
• Or you need medication for some reason and find you don’t respond well and have to try several before hitting on one that works for you. In this situation packets and paper paraphernalia can build up in your medicine cabinet.
• Your child grows into the next size of clothing and you don’t immediately declutter the outgrown size ones.
• For health reasons your diet changes and you don’t eliminate the ingredients from your pantry that you should no longer eat.
• You begin a new hobby but still have products and tools from the old one now relegated to the back corner of the garage.

I could go on all day with circumstance after circumstance but I think you get the idea.

Never fear, the solution is to nip these situations in the bud before another occurs, then another, and before you know it you are back to square one of your declutter mission. All you need do is be aware, be ever vigilant when spaces in your home start to appear a little fuller than you remember them being.

I have found a couple of drawers in my home to be like this recently. They have been a little neglected and have become a little cluttered. Not with things I have been frivolous about, or caused by any desire to acquire but simply life happening. And this can happen to anyone.

The way I become aware of this is by paying attention when visiting areas of my home during my day to day routines. As soon as I realise that the clutter is starting to build I quickly do something about it. Today I cleared a drawer in my living room that had a couple of hardware catalogues and some notes I had taken with measurements and preferences. There is also a little build up of receipts, in another drawer, that I have kept for items bought that carried a warranty. I know this doesn’t sound like much but when left unchecked we all know where it can lead.

So be ever vigilant and deal with the new clutter before it gets out of hand. Whether you have reached your declutter goal or are still reducing your belongings you are always in a maintenance phase. Either ensuring the you maintain the goal you reached or ensuring you aren’t taking one step forward two steps back when you are in the throws of your major decluttering effort.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter an item of your choice and spend 10 minutes listing the reasons why you should acquire less stuff. For example, save money, work less, environmental reasons, better uses of your time, not accumulating more clutter…

Eco Tip for the Day

Recycle responsibly by checking what you can and can’t put into your bins and sticking by those rules. All locations aren’t equal when it come to what is and isn’t collected for recycling. It is up to you to find out. Usually your local government website carries this sort of information. So be a responsible consumer and recycle the right things and only put in the trash the things you can’t.

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

I catch the train a lot and love nosing at the back of people’s homes that we pass en route.

Doodle

I can’t help myself from thinking over some of them, that half an hour of putting things away at the onset of autumn would make such a difference to the look of a garden that never look their best during the wet dull days of winter. Of course, fortunately loads of strangers can’t see my back garden from a train 😀

We only have a small back garden – a very typical Victorian ‘backyard’ with high 8ft walls.

The History Bit

In the UK, the Victorian period is so named after the period that Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 – 1901. (Great Great Grandmother to our current Queen Elizabeth II).

This was a period of mass movement to urban living. In the town I live in, the population quadrupled during that period and there are many many streets of terrace housing, back to back (where gardens back on to the terrace behind you with no other access other than through your own back door.)

You can often find traces of the old outdoor privy and in our’s also the original brick floor of the coal house.

*

Our backyard is a fairly typical 10ft x 16 feet wide (the width of the house) and doesn’t have any soil, just paving.

When I first moved here, on my own 12 years ago, this was my first garden and I fondly imaged that I would prove to be a keen gardener, despite never having shown a flicker of interest before. In fact I remember on first meeting the people who were eventually to become my in-laws, shortly after I moved, proudly talking about my ‘interest’ in gardening, lol.

My Garden Clutter

Over the years I seemed to have collected a lot of pots (as the only means of growing plants), in part from my now in-laws full of plants but also my own annual spring burst of enthusiasm: a triumph of hope over realism.

Most died due to a combination of summer neglect and a massive snail and slug problem. I finally admitted to my self that the idea of me being a gardener   and collecting all the paraphernalia that comes with such an interest was typical aspirational hording!

I’ve stopped pretending.

Fortunately, my husband seems to have developed an interest in the garden in the last year or two but he has bought all his own pots to suit his fruit tree passions. So we’re left with a plethora of spare pots that won’t get reused.

A few weeks ago, we had a typical British trigger for de-cluttering the garden – a weekend of spring sunshine! While he happily tackled vigorous pruning I felt the urge to declutter.

Pots gone via Freecycle

My husband is never keen on de-cluttering and seemed resistant at first to the idea, but I was greatly surprised how many he was able to let go of: I did my usual, “you c
an keep as many as you like, but let’s go through them one by one and just give me a quick yes or no as to whether you can let it go”.

By removing the stress by ensuring he understood I wouldn’t be pressuring him or disapproving of his choices he said “yes it can go” to nearly every one.

To the right is a picture of many of the pots we got rid of via freecycle that weekend

How’s the clutter in your garden?

Deb J

 Herbs and spices!  How many do you have?  Do you use them often?  How old are they?  As you can see we have way more than we need.  The majority of these are seldom used and some never used.  They have been around way too long in my book.  It drives me nuts but this is another place where Mom has her ideas and she isn’t going to change.  I’ve tried.  Some of these moved with us 5 years ago.  Yes, that’s right!  Five years ago!!  I wish it would all disappear.

I think we would be much better off if we tossed it all and just bought things as we use them and then in small amounts.  We are blessed to live where we have these stores with spices you can buy according to weight.  If you need a tablespoon of something you have never used before you can go there and buy it.  I like that.  You don’t have a bunch of something it turns out you don’t like.

My spice collection

If you only use it once or twice a year for some special recipe you don’t have to have it sitting around getting old.

I’m on a campaign to lessen the amount of spices we have and the age of them.  Wish me luck.

Today’s Mini Mission

This one may be more than a mini mission but that would depend entirely on how out of control you allow this area to become. The area for today is the desk top.

Eco Tip for the Day

Be very selective about what you buy so that you are so satisfied with the product that you will use it until it wears out and not trade it in for something else soon after.

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

I thought this was a good comment from Sanna last week regarding how being decluttered makes life simpler.

Sanna wrote ~ “I’d add that it’s simpler to have a “cleaning day” as well. My home still gets messy, especially when bf and I are both very busy at work. Dishes and laundry still tend to pile, I have to admit. However, a few years back it would take hours – or even days – to get everything back into shape after some busy weeks and even then there would be piles left, stuffed in cupboards, under sofas or in the bedroom, just because we would be too exhausted to manage getting through all at once. Now, the mess is just superficial, which means that even if we feel we drown in chaos, we usually can achieve a tidy and clean home in just about two hours (including laundry and dishes), without hidden clutter left.”

Part of my response was this… “By the way I am curious. I often wonder how, when people are busy at work, they still manage to get their homes in a mess. It always seems to me that they aren’t there most of the time so why does the mess happen. You prove that having too much of everything could be a big part of the problem because when the excess is eliminated suddenly the biggest part of the mess is eliminated as well.”

I have found that, when you have a limited amount of things that you use regularly, you have to stay on top of the cleaning in order to have what you need when you need it. Therefore the laundry needs to stay up to date as does cleaning the dishes…

Many people resort to buying more items when keeping up isn’t working, but they are generally only digging themselves into a deeper hole. Avoiding work doesn’t make it go away it just makes it pile up so it gets even harder to deal with later. Not only that, things get lost in the mess which wastes even more time. And then there is the constant misery of knowing the mess is there waiting for you to deal with.

There is also the panic in the early morning because you can’t find that shirt you need for work, you then discover it crushed on the floor, unwearable. Hanging clothes when they can be worn again makes them easy to find and keeps them wearable. And arranging what you are going to wear the next day prior to going to bed makes for a less stressful start to the day. Have you ever noticed how when the day starts out bad it usually follows along in the same vein. So any wonder when you get home you are completely drained and just want to flop down and do nothing. Then dinner needs to be cooked you can barely move in the kitchen for dirty dishes piled up all over the place.

Just thinking about it makes me frustrated.

Like Sanna, have you noticed it has become easier to keep your home in order because you now have less stuff? Tell us about it.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something that you aren’t using that could be helpful to someone else. Old eye glasses to be used for charity, children’s and baby clothes, a pair of runners, craft supplies to your local school or perhaps a tool or two to a Men’s Shed in your community.

Eco Tip for the Day

This eco tip was sent in my Cheryl. I’ve been trying to have less in my freezer so to fill up the space and save energy I’ve been filling milk jugs with water (not to full) and putting on the bottom and putting some boards on top. Fills up the air space and also makes it easier to get things out of the freezer.

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

Have you ever noticed how when you buy something it requires you to buy something else to go with it. You buy a new dress and then decide you need shoes to match. You buy a new cookbook and realise you need some extra utensils and ingredients to make the recipes. You buy a piece of sporting equipment and you need to by a storage bag, another piece of equipment, maintenance equipment and supplies. You buy a leather garment and you need leather conditioner. You buy a bike and need a pump, an oil can, a helmet and a basket…

I could go on and on about this for hours. And the same goes to changes in your life. A young person gets their licence and then they need a car and all the stuff that goes with maintaining it. You have a child and I haven’t got space here to list all the things that usually accompanies this wondrous occasion. You change hairstyles and then you need different products and styling equipment. You start a new hobby witch requires tools and supplies. You change careers and a different set of equipment and dress code are necessary. And once again the list goes on.

It is no wonder then that our homes end up so cluttered with stuff. Even less of a wonder when with the passing of each phase we then store them away in case we need this stuff again someday. Meanwhile we have moved into another phase and acquired all the stuff that goes along with it.

People often ask me if I ever regret getting rid of things. Well sometimes an occasion arises where it would have been good had I still had an item on hand, but I usually improvise and manage without it. I have long ago learned that most of the things we acquire along this journey of life are just conveniences and we can get by happily without them.

Hence why I have little regret for letting things go and no desire to rush out buying stuff to equip me for a new phase of life. That is not to say I don’t buy anything at all, but what I do do is give it long and considered thought. I also test run ideas before taking the plunge. But that is a post for another day.

So what I am getting at with this post is…

When moving from one phase to another in life, as this is inevitable, declutter the stuff that worked with your old life and think very carefully about what you will use in the new one before rushing out to reclutter your home. And be wise to the pitfall that one purchase leads to another and another. Choose wisely.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a fashion item. Be that clothing, accessories, shoes or maybe just a magazine.

Eco Tip for the Day

Use some sort of reusable splatter guard when heating in the microwave. This can be rinsed off and used over and over rather than wasting paper towel or plastic wrap. I use a large plastic microwave safe container lid when reheating most dishes or a glass casserole dish with a lid when cooking from scratch.

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

I don’t remember exactly why I started decluttering. All I recall is that I was overwhelmed. I told about this here. However that story is over two years old. So why have I continued decluttering, even though I had reduced to a “manageable’ amount of stuff and a big house where I could fit all the storage units my heart could ever desire? I was not sure about the answer. I wanted more space, but more so, I did not want my children to deal with my clutter should something happen to me. There is always going to be some stuff they would have to deal with but less is better right. But why should that matter to me, I would be gone and they would be left with a lot of useful stuff among the clutter too.So there would be no harm, right? Wrong!

Well, yesterday I was watching “Hoarders: Buried alive” and it was a heart breaking episode. The actual hoarder had died, but she had left her hoarded house to her three grown offspring to clean up and return to the bank, as she had mortgaged her house to finance her acquisition of stuff. Sadly her son had been living with her and now has nowhere to live. It had gotten to the point that, had she lived, she would have nowhere to live either as the bank was already planning to foreclose on her mortgage. All caused by her clutter issues, her hoarding that she did not deal with. I know she had a mental illness, but it was a warning for the ones of us who are not sick.

As they started looking for important papers, heirlooms and documents amidst the trash, it was plane to see how lost and angry they were at their mother. As the show progressed and the cleanup team arrived it was so sad that instead of being able to cherish her memory they had to deal with this mess and humiliation. One of the daughters was so furious that she smashed a chair that had been her grandmother’s. I had been ruined amidst the grime caused by the hoarding. All the love was buried beneath the junk and the rats nests (plenty of those, yuck!!!). I felt sorry for them. They had not had the chance to grieve her properly. They could not walk through the house their mother had been living in and sit at her bed and just think about her. They could not gather one last time around her table to remember the good times. Clutter had robbed all that from them.

That was when I thought: “that is why I am clearing my house”. That is why I declutter. I declutter so that I live a full life, so that stuff is just the things that I use. So that my house will have breathing space for me and my family. Space in my bedroom where I teach my five year old to dance. Freedom to make clean up a quick chore, so that I have time to enjoy the good things in life.

And when I go, when I am no longer here, my loved ones will walk into my house, look at those empty spaces, remember me and all the good things that we shared together. Then they can quickly dispose of the physical stuff we all need to live in this world, but, in the end, is just stuff.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter parts of sets that aren’t being utilised. It isn’t compulsory to keep sets together. In the past I have sold or donated attachments to kitchen gadgets, a strainer from a pasta pot, saucers from a dinner set…

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

Much of the clutter in our homes is stuff we didn’t need in the first place.

They are often things we purchase to make ourselves feel good…

• Things for making us feel attractive.
• Things that make our homes look nice.
• Things that are intended to lighten our work load.
• Things to amuse us.
• Things we buy to please others.
• Things to create a little more comfort.
• Pretty things that caught our eye in a moment of weakness.

…and the list could go on.

Ultimately though, these things often lose their appeal fairly quickly and the cycle begins again. Poor impulse purchases would describe them well I believe. With this thought in mind take a quick look around your home and see if you can identify five things that would fall into this category of clutter. If you haven’t been decluttering for long I am sure you could probably quickly find at lease ten.

Now take another quick look around your home and attempt to find at least two items that you put a lot of thought into buying but didn’t live up to expectation. When I say expectation I mean either didn’t live up to its promise as a product or it did but you didn’t end up using it much anyway. I bought an iPod once thinking I would use it a lot. I didn’t rush out to buy it, I thought about the idea for a while, considered what size memory would be best etc etc. Guess what, I hardly ever used it. Thankfully my son was only too happy to take it off my hands when his wore out. He is quite the opposite to me when it comes to his iPod, he wouldn’t leave the house without it and has been like this since he got his first one at lease ten years ago.

So let go of those impulse buys and avoid them in the future. And also let go of those items you thought would be great for you but weren’t. There is no point in hanging on to things that didn’t turn out to be right for you. Avoiding future clutter is all about learning from past mistakes and implementing strategies to stop it coming in. So when considering a purchase, think, think again and then think some more about whether it is right for you. And if you are looking for a little joy in your life look somewhere other than a shop.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter any pet toys that are overabundant in your home.  ~ Do you buy a new toy to amuse you pet with on a regular basis when their old toys are still in reasonable condition. Slowly they build up and then you find yourself throwing away the oldest or less loved items whether they are worn out or not. Think of the money you could save.

Eco Tip for the Day

Use a mixture of 1 part vinegar, 2 parts water and a couple of drops of eco friendly dishwashing liquid and a little elbow grease (effort) to clean your shower rather than harsh chemicals. Is is effective and a great aerobic workout.

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

Cindy

I went to high school with a girl named Helen, who was extremely petite and wore a very tiny shoe size, 5 I believe. In college, Helen and I lived in the same dorm. Her room was remarkable because it contained the largest shoe collection in the dorm, probably in the entire school. Why did Helen own so many shoes? Because she wore a tiny shoe, many stores would only get one in her size when they ordered a style. Helen was constantly afraid that she wouldn’t be able to find shoes that fit. As a result, she bought every shoe she found in her size. Clearly, the idea that there was a shortage of size 5 shoes was all in Helen’s mind, since she had several dozen pairs stored in their boxes in her very space restricted dorm room.

Years later, I was girlfriends with a very tall, long-limbed woman named Lanette. Her husband was even taller and even longer limbed. Lanette was an every weekend, very systematic garage saler. Now because they had such long arms and legs, Lanette and her husband understandably disliked wearing too short shirts and pants. As a result, Lanette bought every shirt and every pair of pants that she found every Saturday morning that were long enough. The result? A wardrobe stuffed full of clothing. There was no real shortage of long-enough clothing, except in Lanette’s mind.

Are you guilty of creating a shortage that exists only in your mind? Do you have an excess of toiletries, food in your pantry, clothing, collectibles, or great deal you bought on sale because, you believe, there may not be enough, so you better grab some now, over and over again? I challenge you to declutter at least one of these “rare” items today and to start talking to yourself about how there is, in fact, no shortage of material goods. The store can store your extra food and toiletries; a person can only wear so many items of clothing; with the Internet, there is no material good that cannot be found. Don’t panic, don’t buy. The shortage is only in your mind.

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

Have you ever had a craft/hobby that got completely out of control. Not so much the making of items but the accumulation of crafting supplies. I most certainly have. Through that experience I have learned a few things and here is my advice on avoiding this problem.

Always supply your craft hobby as though you are a beginner.

Any wise person who starts a new hobby generally begins with the minimum of supplies in order to try it out to see if they are really going to enjoy it. They buy or better still borrow the basic equipment or perhaps even take a class where the equipment is provided. Then they buy only the materials that they need for the project and give it a try.

Sometimes this hobby goes nowhere because they discover they didn’t enjoy it or didn’t have the aptitude necessary. Nothing lost here because they only bought the minimum of supplies. On the other hand sometimes the person finds they really enjoy the hobby and delve in enthusiastically. Hobbies can be so satisfying and are a wonderful way to reduce stress and fill your time doing something better than just sitting around watching TV in your spare time.

Where we then go wrong is to become overenthusiastic about buying up materials for our hobbies. Seeking out and buying materials in advance of even having a project in mine. This is so easy to do when you see that cute piece of fabric, that gorgeous piece of paper, that lusciously grained piece of timber… . You must have it now because you may never see anything like it again. Sound familiar? It certainly does to me. Then of course there are tempting sales and hobby show that also draw you in. Temptation is everywhere.

So I repeat again ~ Always supply your hobby as though you are a beginner. Only buy materials for the project you are doing this moment. Only buy the tools that you a sure you will use over and over again and always finish one project before you begin the next. This comment sense approach will ensure your hobby supplies don’t get out of hand and you end up giving away hundreds of dollars worth of supplies should the time come that you tire of it.

Today’s Mini Mission

Choose a few items to declutter prior to tomorrows mission that is delivering your donations to the thrift store.

Eco Tip for the Day

Share and borrow between friends and family rather than everyone owning/buying everything.

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