Sometimes when it comes to clutter it takes a major event to force you to deal with it. Sometimes we chip away at the clutter slower even than a thing a day, letting go of an item here and an item there. As we all know at that pace there is often just as much stuff coming in and all you are doing is marking time. Then something happens or you make a decision that finally forces your hand.

We have at least two long time readers and their spouses who have found themselves in the position where they decided to downsize their homes. In both cases these couples have been reading and decluttering along with us here for some time. I dare say they even thought that they had done a pretty good job of letting go of their excess stuff. But the prospect of trying to fit into a smaller dwelling with what they have left is not at all desirable or probably even a possibility. My brother and sister-in-law also put themselves in this position and did a remarkable job to prepare themselves, over twelve months, for a move from what had been their family home for many many years to a new city and a new two bedroom apartment.

I am sure that each of these couples learned to become far more ruthless with their declutter decision making when the stakes were this high. There are so many things that we all find sentimental and vaguely useful enough to cling on to until such an event occurs. In fact in some cases I wouldn’t even be surprised if people sometimes make these big potentially life changing decisions intentionally to force their hand. I guess I was just fortunate enough that, both my husband and I, had the foresight to glance further into the future than most and decided to get on with the task well ahead of time.

It is my experience that many people, when they learn that I write a blog about decluttering, express a desire to also declutter. They want this, they may even need it, but for some reason just can’t bring themselves to do it. I am sure many of you can relate to that. Even I had thought about the idea and chipped away at it for a couple of years prior to actually getting started in earnest. Then the thought struck me to take it easy and declutter slowly but consistently, rather than having to do it in a big scary rush some day in the future. This epiphany literally happened for me in the blink of an eye and I never looked back.

I have encountered several people who procrastinated over starting their decluttering journey, then one day just found their trigger to get started. Fortunately, for them, this meant that the task was done ahead of any big life change that would have found them floundering with a monumental task with a deadline. And that trigger can be the strangest of things. Observing someone else who was forced to undergo a downsize under pressure is just such inspiration. In at least one case the person simply found an easy way to make some money out of their stuff and that was inspiration enough. For others it was just getting to the point that enough was enough and things had to change.

Sadly I also know more than a few people who ignored the desire to declutter, then found themselves in the very stressful situation of trying to make fast painful decisions of what to keep and what to let go.

For those who have found this blog and are still procrastinating please don’t be that last person I mentioned above. Begin now with the easy stuff, find a variety of good ways to send your clutter on to be useful to someone else, recycle what you can and throw away that which is not useful to anyone. The decisions do get easier over time. Get your home in order now before your hand is forced. Because you just never know what life has in store for you just around the corner.

Today’s Mini Mission

Sometimes we buy a new item of clothing without letting go of the items that it replaced. Items that are a little shabby. So now is a good day to let go of some of those items.

Eco Tip for the Day

Recycle all that you can.  Don’t make excuses, don’t be lazy, just do it.

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’s set of mini missions is all about those things that build up until you can’t help but notice. You generally notice when you feel like the clutter is closing in on you again but you don’t understand how that happened. So I have listed some areas for you to check on and declutter if necessary.

Monday – Declutter a couple of items you have just lost interest in. Don’t be concerned about what they cost or how little they were used. Just get them out of your life if you have no use for them.

Tuesday – If you are like me and keep the odd, seemingly useful, container and then later on find they are building up and not being used then declutter a few today. Jars, plastic containers, cans, folders, plastic sleeves…

Wednesday – Sometimes we buy a new item of clothing without letting go of the items that it replaced. Items that are a little shabby. So now is a good day to let go of some of those items.

Thursday – If you have children declutter some items they have grown out of.

Friday – Declutter some entertainment items that you no longer care to enjoy. Board games, digital games, outdoor fun equipment etc

Saturday – Declutter shabby linens that have hung around too long waiting to be used as rags.

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

When I began helping my friend, S, declutter, there were decades of paper archives: phone bills, utility bills, bank statements, medical papers, taxes papers, magazine clippings, newspaper clippings, catalogs, travel memorabilia, recipes, greeting cards, letters, and hundreds of photos (organized by year). Much of this was stacked in boxes in the garage or office with various other locations for smaller boxes or bags. It was a nightmare of unorganized, mostly unneeded paper.

Looking over the mess, it was apparent that this was going to be a huge undertaking. How did this happen? Why would someone let things get this bad? It all comes down to priorities, understanding and dreams. Too many times we feel we don’t have time to deal with something at a specific point in time. Once we put it off, things tend to pile up and become something we really don’t have time for. Other times we may not know what we need to keep and what is no longer important. We often cut out an article or copy down a recipe with thoughts of using it soon only to find that months or years later it is still in a pile of to-do’s. Referencing saved articles, magazines, newspapers, and recipes seldom happens.

The first step in decluttering my friends mountain of paper was to open all the boxes just to see what was in them. It turned out that in this case most of the boxes were all a jumble with no organization whatsoever. Ugh! This represented more hard work. What needed to be done was to deal with one box at a time and sort all of the paper into piles of like topics. All of those piles then needed to be sorted to decide what to keep for tax or other official purposes. Once all this was done the shredding started. Hour after hour of shredding at intervals produced over 14 big trash bags.

When it came to the photos, while sorted into years, nothing else had been done to them. Tossing all the photos that were blurred, too dark, too light, duplicates or with poor composition was the first task followed by sorting according to event. Since S is a scrapbooker, she now has her photos ready to be placed in layouts.

S has no children that would have inherited this mess but here would still be someone who had to deal with it all. Paper is now one thing that will cause fewer issues for the person who is left with the job. Having been through the death of my father and dealing with all that entails, I am glad I was able to guide S to declutter the paper.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter some wall art or empty picture frames you have never use. Another thing my son let go of last week.

I received the following message some weeks ago. I am not sure now who the author was but please feel free to identify yourself if you recognise it.

“I just read an interesting book called the KonMari method of Tidying Up. Her take is that for lasting change you have to do  the whole declutter in one  go, although her “go” can be 6 months. I don’t necessarily agree with her but it was an interesting read. I’d love to hear your opinion if you have read the book.”

I personally have never read any of Marie Kondo’s books but several of my readers have mentioned them in the past. One concept that my readers mentioned, that appealed to me, was the idea of being grateful for the  service of each and every item that is being decluttered, and then happily let it go. That is regardless of how much or little of a service they have been. I like this idea. It is positive and I dare say uplifting. Which is a far better attitude to approach decluttering with than negativity.

Lets face it being negative gets you nowhere. Right? From the very beginning I approached my decluttering process as a positive move. A move towards a new way of living and consuming. I focused on the positive change rather than the scale of the task. After all, how hard can it be to set aside one thing a day. Sometimes in the first year I had to restrain myself from decluttering more than just that one thing. A thing a day was the challenge after all and I wanted to stick to the guidelines.

There have been so many things that have passed through my hands over the years as I slowly reduced my belongings. For many of them I was truly grateful for their service. Others, not so much, but that is OK because I am still grateful for whatever joy I received from them. From these items I learned the purchasing pitfalls to avoid in the future. I also learned a lot about what kinds of things I had a hard time resisting in the past. Once these things are identified it is easy not to make similar mistakes.

Through this blog there are so many ways that I have tried to nurture a positive attitude towards embarking on the task of decluttering your home. If you still need some more inspiration I would recommend reading one of Marie Kondo’s books. And if my local library ever stocks any I will also read them. Here are a few on-line articles about this Japanese decluttering expert for you to get an idea of her methods and philosophies.

• Konmari method declutters homes and changes lives
• Konmari method closet cleaning
• tidyingup.com

So be grateful and happy decluttering.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter some items of jewellery you don’t like so much. My mother-in-law was doing this.

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.

Just for something different, as I have never done this before, this week’s mini missions are based on what me and my family have been decluttering. This includes children and in-laws. It is always exciting to see those you love embracing int the idea of living with less. So here goes.

Monday – Declutter of CDs or DVDs. My son was doing this last week.

Tuesday – Declutter some craft supplies. Easy to guess who was doing this, me of course.

Wednesday – Declutter some items of jewellery you don’t like so much. My mother-in-law was doing this.

Thursday – Declutter some clutter in your home that once was someone else’s clutter. The jewellery mentioned above was just such clutter.

Friday – Declutter some wall art or empty picture frames you have never use. Another thing my son let go of last week.

Saturday – Declutter something you have been unsuccessfully been trying to sell. I did this with some items that have lingered too long in the art space where I sell my handmade cards.

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

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

I had a reader back in the early days of my blog who seemed to have trouble letting go of her clutter. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep the stuff, or found it difficult to make the choices as to what to let go however she balked at getting on with the task. To me it was obvious that her problem was that she didn’t like seeing anything go to waste.

You see she was very eco friendly, to the point where it was a mission to throw nothing in the trash. And I think this noble goal interfered with her goal to rid her home of clutter. As you all know I am not a lover of waste myself and do what I can to refuse, reuse, reduce and recycle.  In a way I am pleased to say that 99.9% of what I have decluttered has been rehoused, reused, recycled or repurposed. Pleased, because I didn’t just have a house full of trash but sorry that I had so much useful-to-someone-else stuff sitting around unused for long periods of time.

And just because some things don’t work as they should doesn’t mean they aren’t useful to someone. Below are my suggestions on how to deal with such items.

The best way I found to pass on items that have faults is to list them on freecycle or local buy-swap-&-sell or similar web sites, utilise the curb side giveaway method or word of mouth. Explain the fault/s clearly and allow people to decide for themselves if they care or even possibly have the ability to repair them. Through the avenues mentioned above I decluttered all of the following items.

1. All the parts to my malfunctioning Kenwood mixer, then gave the mixer to the last guy who came along who was keen to dabble with it to see if he could get it working or use the parts.
2. The hutch section of a buffet and hutch to a guy who did cabinet making as a hobby. He had a use for the parts and wood while I had a use for the buffet. Everyone was happy. He even asked to let me know if I ever wanted to part with the matching coffee table. I eventually did and he paid me $40 for it.
3. I advertised a lamp, which was unwired, on freecycle and a lady took it with the hope that her electrician son would rewire it for her.
4. I put a trampoline on the street with a FREE sign on it. It needed some restitching but everything else about it was great. It disappeared quickly.
5. I gave an old vacuum cleaner, whose insulation was degrading and blowing out through the air vent, to a lady who was sure she could either clean it up or use the parts.
6. I sole an iRobot vacuum cleaner for parts on ebay.

And these were just the items I could remember in a hurry.

There is usually someone out there who can find a use for things, working or not. Should it not work out for them you will be non the wiser and be happy that you did your best to find a new home for the item. And the stuff that no one wants may just have to end up in the bin. Just remember it is just stuff after all and possibly not wise purchases in the first place. Let it go and learn from the experience. You will hopefully just be a bit more discerning about what to purchase in the future.  Some, on the other hand, are well used items that might just have come to the end of their usefulness and there is certainly no shame in throwing them away.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter your handbag so it is easy to find what you need in there when you need it.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

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.

Why work harder than you have to for the sake of keep items you don’t need. This week’s mission are designed to have you getting rid of items that you may or may not realise are adding to your work load. Perhaps doing these mission will help you identify other areas of clutter causing your workload to be heavier that it need be.

Monday – Declutter some things that collect dust.

Tuesday – Declutter excess items in a cupboard that make it had to get at what you need.

Wednesday – Declutter items from counter tops that require moving in order to clean the space properly. This may require decluttering some less useful items in cupboards to make room for a little reshuffling.

Thursday – Declutter some things piled on floor making it difficult to vacuum or sweep easily and efficiently.

Friday – Declutter your handbag so it is easy to find what you need in there when you need it.

Saturday – Declutter excess clothes in your closet so it is easy to organise what you do use.

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

We have all seen the magazine articles, books and TV programs on organizing.  They tell us that if  we buy these particular products or use these particular items we will go from a cluttered mess to everything organized in a snap.  The problem is that out of sight doesn’t mean it’s out of mind or make clutter any less clutter.  Making it pretty doesn’t make it go away.

Over and over many of us have bought and used multiple storage solutions trying to make things look like those magazine pictures.  Unfortunately, these solutions are only as good as how good everyone is at putting things back where they belong.  They are only good as long as you can find/remember what you have and where you put it.  I know that for myself.  I have spent hundreds of dollars over the years trying to keep a handle on all the stuff.  I even bought into the idea of a “craft room” with hundreds of “organised” craft supplies is ok so I’d have exactly what I needed when I needed it. But what I ended up having was a lot of stuff I didn’t need and never used.

There is nothing wrong with storage solutions as long as we really need them. When they hold only what we need and aren’t so numerous that we can remember what we have and where it all is.  Storage is not always a solution.  In many cases, it is a mask, a way to not have to deal with the work of making choices and counting the cost of what we have.

I came one day to the point where I realized I needed to stop using storage as that mask for my clutter.  I needed to not only declutter the storage solutions but I needed to declutter the things going in them.  When it came to my creativity why did I need all those excess stickers, stamps, embellishments, tools, etc?  What made me think I needed all of that paper?  Scrapbooking is an industry, with blogs, magazines, and other forms of media to keep crafter informed about all of the products out there and all of the ways “scrapbook artists” can store these supplies.  I came to the realisation that if I do not scrapbook as a career, I do not need to have so many supplies. Supplies that in my case would last for years.  I don’t need to have hundreds of dollars sunk into supplies for my hobby.   

There are numerous reasons we buy storage solutions for our homes. Yours may be quite different to mine. But do you need storage or less stuff. As Colleen always says “Get rid of the clutter and the organising will take care of itself.”  Which means, when the excess is gone what is left will have a logical, easy to access position in your home. Simply because what is left ought to be constantly useful to you so close at hand. No stored away in sealed boxes in hard to reach places. I hope this will help you to count the cost before your next purchase or stuff or storage to keep it in. 

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter old school papers of either the adults or children in the house.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

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.

It is obvious from the title of today’s post that we are going to focus this week’s mini missions on paper clutter. Quite often we keep, generate and ignore this kind of clutter but a large amount can take up a small physical space while weighing heavily on your mind. And the longer you put off dealing with it the more complicated the task can become. So chip away at it this week and then keep up with it on a regular basis in the future.

Monday – Declutter old receipts that are no longer needed for proof of purchase for the sake of returning items.

Tuesday – Declutter expired warranty papers and manuals for items you no longer own or that you can access online.

Wednesday – Declutter old school papers of either the adults or children in the house.

Thursday – Declutter paper keepsakes that no longer mean that much to you.

Friday – Declutter some paper reading matter such as books, magazines, comics…

Saturday – Declutter some account papers that are past needing keeping. Scan them and save them on your computer if you are concerned you may need to refer back to 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.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Gift giving and receiving can be a touchy subject for 365’ers and their relatives. The best compromise to date, is the gift card or vouchers. However, reports show that $1 billion dollars worth in 2013 weren’t redeemed and $2 billion dollars worth in 2014. No wonder retailers love gift cards! Money for nothing!

This made me consider the gift cards that were floating around my kitchen drawer and decided to use these as part of my decluttering mini-missions. It turns out I had three – one for $25 to a supermarket, one for $20 at the shopping mall and one for $100 dinner at a local restaurant.

The restaurant one (received Jan 2014) was due to expire later this week so we made a booking. As for the supermarket gift card (May 2014) – it isn’t my usual supermarket, which is why I didn’t have an arrangement in place to redeem it and the shopping mall one is fairly recent (Nov 2014) but I didn’t have anything in mind for it.

Why do so many gift cards expire?   Why did what amounted to cash sit in the drawer?   Dollar notes wouldn’t lie around for 6-12 months.   Colleen noted that once upon a time such things would have been a gift from heaven for the average family, especially the grocery card.

Colleen brought to my attention an interesting angle.  Why do we keep so many ‘just in case’ items in our house, if we struggle to use up virtual money, surely this proves we don’t need to keep stuff we don’t use.

So how do we avoid expiring gift cards?

Keep gift cards in your wallet, not the kitchen drawer and try to plan purchasing around them.   My usual supermarket sends loyalty vouchers twice a year and I wrap it around my loyalty card so it gets used at first opportunity.  If it isn’t a store that you frequent, note the expiry date and load a reminder into your phone.   There are also sites such as Cardpool.com, Swapagift.comand GiftCardRescue.com to sell or trade, but as I live in New Zealand I checked on Trademe (like eBay) and people are selling their cards there too.

Another idea I feel deserves mention, for small residual amounts left on a card, instead of letting that money expire, use it to make a donation.Websites such as…

Charity Choice ~ www.charitygiftcertificates.org/GCE/default.aspx

and Gift Card Giver ~  http://plywoodpeople.com/projects/gift-card-giver/

…stockpile cards and combine them into higher-value gift cards that are donated to the needy and worthy charities.

Is there something as a gift card giver that I can do to make it easier for the receiver to redeem?   Low end cards got the thumbs up in my research.  A $25 Wendy’s gift card is more ‘do-able’ than a $25 gift card to an expensive fashion store which will require the receivee to spend more than they were gifted to buy anything. Cards that required the receivee to travel out of their way to redeem were listed as the next most likely to expire and ‘unlikely candidate’ also got a mention ie if Grandma isn’t an iPad aficionado, don’t give her an iTunes app card..

So what did I do with my remaining two gift cards?   I don’t actually need anything at the moment but my daughter is off to Tech this year and needed to set up an iCloud account which required her own Apple ID which in turn required some sort of credit card to attach to the account.   As she doesn’t have a Visa card, she was unable to complete the setup.   I had a moment of inspiration, what if I used the two gift cards to purchase iTune gift cards to load against her AppleID? I purchased two $20 cards and a chocolate bar, both of which were gratefully received.

I’m not sure what to call this….re-gifting-gift-cards? Re-purposed-gift-cards? Re-redemption-cards? The gift-card-that-kept-on-giving?

I wasn’t keen on the swapping this bit of plastic for a new bit of plastic, but on the other hand I didn’t receive gifts that I didn’t need and I am grateful as I was able to use them to create a solution and saved me parting with cash.

 As for the restaurant voucher, I’m looking forward to dinner on a balcony overlooking the white sand of our local beach, and even better to express her appreciation my daughter has offered to drive us to and from the restaurant, as long as we don’t mind travelling in her ancient two door small Nissan Pulsar with no air-con and listening to her music. Eminem is a small price to pay compared to a taxi in the holiday season in a beach town and it means my husband and I can both enjoy a bottle of wine that was also a gift.

So 365’ers, what gift cards and vouchers do you have lurking in your home that you could set a goal to use up over the next week or two?   Do you have any clever suggestions for gift cards whether as the giver or the receivee?

Today’s Mini Mission

Wednesday – Declutter and item of clothing. I decluttered a dress, not because I wanted to it simply worn out. Split down the back worn out and not worth repairing because the fabric had worn so thin.