Every home has items that are never considered for decluttering. Mostly useful items that are in service continually but also beautiful items that are admired or sentimental items that you wouldn’t dream of letting go. These items never feel like a burden to the household because they are a valued part of everyday life. They are used and used again, used up and then replaced or on display somewhere where they can be admired or remind us of happy times, successes or loved ones.

Then there are those items that are only lingering because we haven’t got around to donating, selling or tossing them. Stuff we’d have no qualms about decluttering if we could face the prospect of weeding them out and dispatching them. These items are the easy ones to let go of when we finely decide enough is enough it is time to declutter. Parting with them is only a physical thing no a metal challenge. These are the items to concentrate on first when we begin our declutter journey.

And then there are the problem items, these are the ones which we have trouble letting go. You know the ones.

• Items you keep out of obligation, such as things that have been gifted to you by someone else and you feel obliged to keep them even though you don’t really want them.
• Aspirational items that your inner most being craves to make use out of but the right time or creative inspiration never seems to strike or has long ago left you. Memory tells you these items are useful and that you should hang on to them but all they do is linger and make you feel a that you have failed them in some way.
• Then there are the sentimental items whose lesser significance to the truly loved memorabilia merely relegates them to a box deep in the attic somewhere. Sure when you pull them out you oooh and aaarh over them remembering good time but then they get sent back to where they came from for another ten years.
• And lets not forget the I might need you one day items. Sure you may have a use for some of these items one day but to say you may need them could be stretching reality a little. Stop and think about the things you do use all the time, even some of those are things you could live without. So don’t allow the thought of future regret plague your decision to let go of stuff the isn’t being used and hasn’t for a long time.

This blog post was inspired by a segment in Gretchen Ruben’s new book ~ Happier at Home. She talks about engaging with the items that you haven’t used or appreciated in a while. If you are having trouble deciding whether to keep them or to let items go try putting them into service ~ use them, bring them out and put them on display for a while. Give them one last chance to redeem themselves and if you still aren’t loving them or finding them particularly useful then just liberate them to someone who may find them more useful that you do.

This process can be applied to a few items at a time so you can focus your attention on them for enough time to assess their worth. This can be done while you continue to declutter the items that you are happy to remove immediately. With the slow and steady approach both processes can go on simultaneously so no time is wasted.

I have done this with many items over the last three years of my possession downsize. Some things I have used up and not replace. Some things I have put into use but not found them useful while others I discovered a newfound appreciation for. Things I have kept out of obligation have been viewed with a new neutral mindset and have either past muster or been added to the donation pile. Either way I have been satisfied that I am making the right decision for me and my home at this time and followed through on that decision.

So if in doubt give the item one last chance, in other words either use it or lose it.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a pair of shoes that you no longer wear. Perhaps ones that are pretty but a torture to wear. Ones that are old favourites but are really so shabby you never, or shouldn’t, choose to wear them anymore. Or maybe a pair that are so ugly you wonder why you ever bought them in the first place.

Eco Tip for the Day

Add a few one pot meal to your weekly menu. Cooking everything at once saves on electricity and your precious time. I often also cook the meat portion of my meals separately but cook all my vegetable together one way or another. A slow cooker or a set of steamer saucepans come in handy for this method of cooking.

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 brought this blog post up from the archives to once again make the point of what need really is as that is the theme for today’s mini mission.

I mentioned many time how little we really do need as opposed to what we “think” we need. We really only need food, water, shelter and love, it is a little more complicated than that but not as complicated as we tend to make it for ourselves.

You only have to look at the photos of all the things I have decluttered from my home to see how much stuff we had that we thought we needed or wanted, only to find that sooner or later we discovered we didn’t need it after all. Somethings took longer to get rid of than others and that was often due to not being quite ready to part with them because we though maybe we still need them. Here are some examples…

• Some we haven’t used for sometime but maybe one day we just might.
• Some had been in use until recently but even though they were useful we really weren’t going to need them.
• At least one was something I thought would be so useful when I acquired it and I used it once in about seven years.
• One just didn’t really fit in the house anywhere anymore.
• One got used once a year to cut leg ham at Christmas.
• Two never did perform the job well that they were designed for.
• Changes of diet, climate and dwelling had a hand in some of them not being used anymore.

They all look useful enough right? It could be very easy to hang on to all of these things with the idea that our circumstances might change and we will “need” them again. Circumstances such as lifestyle, living arrangements, interests, returning to old habits and the like. But please take another look at all of that stuff. What among it is necessary to survival. None, thats how much. And there is still plenty more where that lot came from like the crutches in the garage cupboard that have come in handy three times in five years, the spice chest that only half the drawers hold items that could easily be stored elsewhere, the wine glasses we really have too many of, lots of craft supplies etc etc.

How many items such as this do you hold on to because you think you might “need” them some day. As Lena said in a comment once “Everyone chooses their own games.” The beauty is you can change the game rules if you want to or even the game itself if you like. Take a chance and play the declutter game instead of the clinging to things of limited use

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something of little value that you think you might have a use for some day. If you haven’t used it for some time the chances are you never will have a need for it and if you do you could either borrow or buy one. Hint ~ Be realistic about the difference between need and want.

Today’s Decluttered Item 

Earring I no longer wear

Eco Tip for the Day

Another workplace eco tip ~ Instigate a recycling bin in the lunch room for cans etc. Even if you have to bring the contents home and dispose of them in your own recycling bin, at least you will know they aren’t going to landfill.

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

A place for everything and everything in it’s place!

• If you always know where everything is you won’t need to replace it because you can’t find it.

Know the difference between need and want

• It is easy to convince yourself that something you want is something you need. Don’t be fooled by this.

Only shop for what you need

• This one speaks for itself, if you aren’t bringing anything you don’t need into your home it will stay uncluttered.

Make it clear you don’t want clutter gifts

• It is possible to convince most people not to buy you gift or at least insist that people only give you consumable gifts or gifts of experience such as movie tickets etc.

Remove clutter receptacles in your home

• Adding clutter is difficult if you have no where to store it. Things such as bookcases, display cabinets, baskets, shelves and storage containers are clutter receptacles. Get rid of them as soon as you get rid of the clutter that was in them or you may just fill them up again.

Don’t sacrifice your principals for the desires of others

• Don’t accept other peoples clutter just so you don’t hurt their feelings. Your feelings matter too and you shouldn’t be expected to sabotage your lifestyle in this way.

Remove any items that become useless immediately

• Lifestyle changes are inevitable as time goes by. Once an item become of no further use to you remove it from your home or once again clutter will start to develop. Just because something wasn’t clutter once doesn’t mean it won’t become clutter in the future.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter the kids toy area to make room for the inevitable influx of new fun things. Regardless of how much you manage to contain the influx you will still need room. Kid will be kids and it is there job to have fun.

Today’s Decluttered Item

 It is amazing how little stationary one needs when most all data, correspondence or bills that comes into your home comes in digital form. Needless to say these folders and filing supplies are no longer needed.

Stationary

Eco Tip for the Day

When entertaining, rather than resort to disposable crockery and cutlery, use all the non-disposable items you have on hand, if necessary borrow more from family, neighbours or friends or get the guests to bring their own. I put on the occasional neighbourhood get together and all guests are instructed to bring their own cups, plates, and cutlery. They never turn down the invitations so I guess they don’t mind.

I read this quote last week when it arrived with my latest update to Gretchen Ruben’s ~ The Happiness Project ~ newsletter.

   “Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.” ~ Gertrude Stein

The part that struck me mostly about the quote was this “Anything one does every day is important …” which said to me ~ Whatever you do today make it something good because it is important either way. Important because no matter what you do it will have either a positive or negative effect on either you, those around you, the planet you live on and all that inhabit it or possibly all three. I am sure you have all heard of the butterfly effect.

So, today,  with that thought in mind would you rather…

• Buy something new today that you really don’t need ~ or ~ donate something today that you already have and barely use to someone who might have a use for it. (This choice will affect you, others and the planet)
• Today would you rather continue holding on to stuff, that you don’t need, that your family will have to deal with someday when you are gone ~ or ~ start getting rid of the excess stuff today so you family don’t have to in their time of grief. (This choice will affect you and your loved ones, those benefitting from your purging and untimately the planet)
• Add to your debt today by buying something new that you want but don’t need ~ or ~ sell something of your excesses and pay a little off your debt. (This choice will affect you, your loved ones, others and the planet)
• Continue to live in a cluttered, oppressive and possibly unhealthy environment ~ or ~ start purging items that are violating your space, depressing you, collecting dust and possibly hindering your cleaning process. (This choice will affect you, your loved ones and anyone living with you.)

This list could go on and on but I think you get the idea.

So what are you going to do today?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a shirt, pair of trousers or jacket that you no longer fit or like to wear.

Remember the November keep it tidy challenge

Today’s Declutter Item

With two people eating mostly a low-carb diet one set of measuring cups for baking is enough these days as there is very little baking done.

Measuring Cups

Eco Tip for the Day

Remember that every little thing you can do today to lessen your carbon footprint will have a positive effect on the environment.

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 problem with long term decluttering is that you lose the heady gratification of sending car loads of stuff off to goodwill or recycling depots and you no longer find yourself staggering to the counter of the post office with arms full of ebay sales heading off to their new owners. Yes the house might be looking streamline but now that we have been honed into Olympic level declutterers, every now and then we still need a metaphorical shotput to throw or a marathon to pound out so we can still have our gold medal moment.

Slow and steady is always a guaranteed method to get across the finish line, but for today I’d like us to take on a challenge to stretch our muscles. This idea came from a recent post by Colleen where I stumbled onto the idea of “Lazy Clutter” and was defined as “no attachment, you just haven’t got around to getting rid of it”. I identified with this as I have plenty of space now in all my cupboards, but there are probably still things which don’t have any reason to stay either. The bar of deservedness (as in deserving to stay in my house) has risen and what was middle of the field a few months ago, is now sitting in a marginal position. It is just a few things, here and there, and over there, oh and over there too. Some of them missed first, second and third culls of that particular cupboard or drawer as they were found elsewhere more recently and returned to their correct place since. Maybe now that the cupboard has more room it stands out as the anomaly on the shelf. Maybe we’re just waiting for the right mini challenge to dig them out and send them on their way.

During this post I commented on Lazy Clutter and pondered the idea of getting some red X stickers made (as in CONDEMNED) and to slap them on everything that I felt constituted lazy clutter. Fellow 365’er Anita added that she uses dated post-it notes to do this and Fruitcake evolved/simplified my idea by saying she was going to use red tape. And just like that, the idea was launched on its maiden flight.

So your challenge is to grab some red tape – I’m using electrical tape as it is easily removable – and blast through the house and slap a piece on everything that wouldn’t be in your dream home anymore. You don’t have to eliminate it or list it on e-bay or freecycle it or anything else today or anytime in the near future if you don’t want to. You just have to slap on a piece of tape or a post-it note or a piece of paper and cellotape. Then you need to count up how many in your house and report back.

Those who know I am on a mission to eliminate a bookcase – well I don’t think there is enough tape on the roll to do that, so I’ll just count that as one, but the old glass measuring jug in the cupboard that I bypass for the newer one, that will also count as one. The vase in the bathroom that I have put off making a decision about, well today is D Day and the extra mop I have in the cleaning cupboard (I have no idea why I have more than one mop or where it surfaced from) that is getting slapped with a bit of tape too.

The purpose of this exercise? To get a visual idea of just how many items that have Lazy Clutter status, to see how many items I know I don’t really want but either haven’t gotten around to eliminating or possibly haven’t been able to justify getting rid of up until now or maybe have been avoiding making a decision on them.

So my fellow Olympic level Declutters…..on your marks, get set, GO!

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter excess kitchen items. This is one area of the home where people seem to think ~ “The more the merrier!”. For me it is the more the messier. I bet many of you could use up a lot of red tape in this area of the house. Especially if that red tape was to mark items you rarely use.

Today’s Declutter Item

Here are some items that had my imaginary Red Tag on for some time. They weren’t mine to declutter though but all good things come to those who wait. That’s one more box of stuff off to the thrift store.

Books etc

Eco Tip For The day

Keep a jug in your kitchen sink to save the water that would otherwise go to waste when waiting for the hot water to come through. This water can be used as drinking water, to fill the kettle, rinse dishes, water plants, rinse the sink etc.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Many a time when I have put together the Monday Mini Mission posts I have included a mission about adjusting your possession to reflect your current situation. I mostly relate this to changes in locality, particularly ones that includes a climate change. For example thick winter jackets become clutter were you move to a warmer climate. I am very familiar with this concept having been through this process several time during the somewhat transient nature of my twenty five years of marriage.

There is another perhaps even more radical change that families go through that warrants some serious decluttering and that is when the children leave home. Yet in my experience no such transformation takes place in many households. Ten years, twenty years or even more later the home is still containing sufficient equipment to constantly cater to a full household. This isn’t so bad if there were originally just two children in the family but if there  were four or five what was once constantly useful has become clutter 90% of the time.

This post relates closely to Tuesday’s post about over catering for guest except that it often stretches further than just the linen closet, pantry and kitchen cupboards. Some grandparents houses contain enough toys, children’s books, board games, televisions, luggage, old unused sporting equipment, toiletries, stationery and even space than is sensible to maintain. This is especially so as age creeps up on us. It is simply a fact that as we get older keeping cleanliness and order just gets harder.

Now back to the concept of ~ “…what was once constantly useful has become clutter 90% of the time.” Once the children leave home there is a good chance that if they haven’t moved somewhere just down the street or across town they are going to want to come home to visit. Even with the possibility that they will eventually have your grandchildren in tow that doesn’t mean you need to have a houseful of stuff all year while most of it is only being used occasionally when family arrive to visit. With three or four adults in the home during visits to maintain order the household can run efficiently with less stuff for short periods of time.

Here are some examples ~

• You don’t need a ten seat dining suite. When the guests arrive sit the adults around the ~ smaller more appropriate for you ~ table and let the kids eat in front of the TV or bring in the outdoor setting in for them to sit at.  This will probably become one of the things the grandchildren love about coming to grandmas.
• You only need enough cutlery and crockery to cater to yourselves and your visitors at one sitting. They can be washed and dried before the next meal. If something needs reusing in the same sitting then give it a quick rinse.
• When the grandchildren come to visit I will almost guarantee they will bring plenty of entertainment with them. iPods, PSPs, Nintendo DS’s, perhaps a book to read and maybe even iPads or laptops. So there is really no need to stock enough toys to cater for them living there permanently. I remember visiting my grandparents when I was young and we always managed to entertain ourselves with the few toys they had to offer. We mostly made our own fun, digging in the dirt, pottering around discovering what was in the back sheds, helping bake, visiting other relatives, playing with the kids next door who we only saw two or three times a year and going to the local park to play on the swings.
• We discussed towels, sheets and other bedding on Tuesday so we should be savvy about that now.  In the event that lots of visitors converge at once they can always bring sleeping bags for the kids who can then camp out together on the lounge room floor or the sofas.
• One pot cooking is a great way to cater for guests with the odd roast dinner thrown in and a takeout meal every now and again to relieve the pressure of a kitchen that isn’t overflowing with equipment.
• People generally bring their own toiletries so there is no need to be overstocked in this area. An extra bar of soap or two should be all you need.
• When you had a houseful of kids attending school it always paid to carry a good stock of stationery items However those days are gone and now this equipment rarely leaves the home so just the few items you use all the time and a couple of spare pens is all you will likely need.

So if you are in this position ~ where the kids have left home or even if the kids have just moved to another stage in life within the home~ take a look around you home and determine what you really need 90% of the time and minimise the rest.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter tools or equipment you rarely if ever use. Consider that you could borrow these items when you are in need from those who do actually use theirs. In some cases these items are so expensive that it would be cheaper to pay someone to do the job for you when the rare occasion arrises rather than maintain ownership.

Today’s Declutter Item

Let’s face in the unlikely event that we were to have so many guests that we didn’t have enough wine glasses I am sure no one would mind drinking from our water glasses. These two glass are odd ones out and excess to our usual requirement so they are off to the thrift store.

Excess and odd wine glasses

Eco Tip For The day

Consider online magazine subscription rather than wasting paper.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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 have been doing a bit of visiting lately and during that time I have been observing areas of clutter that seem to be familiar to nearly all homes no matter what level of stuff or tidiness therein. So this weeks mini missions will reflect those observation and consist of common clutter. I hope that many of you will find that you have already taken care of these areas as I have included them all often in past mini missions. If that is the case invent your own mini missions for the week.

Monday – Clothing items, be that shoes, general clothing, outer clothing, underwear or accessories. I know this subject gets mentioned over and over again but that is because it is an area the needs addressing by most people. Taking a look back at Mohamed Tohami’s recent guest post it would seem that most of those who comment here regularly have this area well under control.

Tuesday – Declutter something that has been relegated to the garage because it has been replaced with a better model or has broken down altogether.

Wednesday – Choose and begin to use up an item that you have more than enough varieties of. This could be something in your pantry, your bathroom cabinet, your store of cleaning products…

Thursday – Tools or equipment you rarely if ever use. Consider that you could borrow these items when you are in need from those who do actually use theirs. In some cases these items are so expensive that it would be cheaper to pay someone to do the job for you when the rare occasion arrises rather than maintain ownership.

Friday- Declutter excess kitchen items. This is one area of the home where people seem to think ~ “The more the merrier!”. For me it is the more the messier.

Saturday – Leisure activity items, be that sport, craft, digital media, reading material etc. There are nearly always items among these collections that are less utilised than others or in some cases not at all. To narrow down the selection makes the things you do use easier to find when needed. Superseded equipment is a good place to start the weeding out process.

Sunday – Declutter your excess linen. I fact rethink how much linen you really require to cater for yourself your family and a couple of guests. Some people seem to stock enough for the All Blacks (New Zealand) rugby team. This really isn’t necessary especially if you have a dryer and even if you don’t a laundromat is never far away should you have a houseful of people and the weather turns foul.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

Due to changes in our household this is one less garbage bin that is required. Through incremental changes we tend to generate less rubbish in our household these days. I donated it to the thrift shop.

One excess garbage bin

Eco Tip For The Day

Challenge yourself to put every piece of recyclable material in the recycling bin no matter how small.. It is easy to be blasé about small pieces of paper or plastic but so long as they can be recycled they are best kept out of landfill.

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

In the spirit of todays mini mission I have dug up from the archives a post I once wrote about identifying and disassociating from guilt clutter. I hope this helps you achieve your mini mission for the day as well as assist you in finding a few more of these annoying items to rid yourself of.

Guilt clutter are items you regret having acquiring in the first place but now feel you should keep in order to justify their purchase and/or get your money’s worth out of them. Just about anything can fall into this category but they are usually items that you…

• Spent a lot of money on and haven’t used much.
• Spend money on you couldn’t afford to waste.
• Really didn’t need in the first place.
• Or a combination of the above.

Some of these purchases are aspirational in character such as that fishing boat that sits in the back yard out in the weather unused week in week out, decreasing in resale value everyday. You had good intensions when you bought it but really didn’t put enough thought into it. Your wife doesn’t like fishing that much and the kids aren’t as keen as you thought they would be because they have their own intests. You soon discovered that fishing isn’t that much fun alone and launching the boat can be a challenge on your own also. Fishing really was more fun that odd weekend that your mate Bill would take you out in his boat.

Other purchases come in the form of bandaids to mask disappointment, insecurities or other feeling of dissatisfaction that occur in life. Like that new handbag you bought to compensate for the fact that you hate your job ~ That new dress you bought so you could feel better about yourself even though what you really want is to loose 20lbs ~ The diamond ring you treated yourself to because you husband doesn’t pay enough attention to you any more. Once the novelty wears off these items you are back at the store looking for another hit because you still have that crappy job, the excess weight and the unappreciative husband and now also some very unhealthy credit card debt and a cluttered home.

Sometimes purchases can just be an honest mistake. Say for instance you need a new appliance in the home and you make what you think is a considered purchase and it turns out not to be what really suits your needs. You though you had all the information you needed to make a good choice but six months down the track you are sorry you ever laid eyes on this thing. You couldn’t live your choice any longer and bought a replacement and now that other reject is sitting in your garage taunting you every time you see it.

There are many more stories behind why we purchase these items of guilt but the fact is that is does no good to keep them in our homes if they aren’t being used. They are never going to realise their worth and it is best to cut your losses now and try to sell them on to someone who may appreciate them more. You may only get back a fraction that you paid for them but that is better than wallowing in regret. The grief they are giving you far outweighs the joy they every gave you and it is time to move on.

What is important here is to learn from your mistake/s. Should you make a habit of this vicious cycle then you are really in trouble but if you realise the error of your ways and address the issues that inspire these kinds of purchases instead of running away from them then you will be on your way to recovery.

So if you have any items in your home that you feel may fall under the category of Guilt Clutter it is time to disassociate from them. Take a long hard look at these items and …

• Recognise why you think you bought these objects in the first place.
• Understand the mistakes you made.
• Promise yourself to make more considered choices if you find yourself in a similar position in the future.
• Forgive yourself.

Now use whatever method suits you to remove this object from you life, whether that be to recoup some of you losses or donate it to charity as penance for your transgressions but either way let it go.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a Guilt item. Something you feel guilty about acquiring in the first place.

Today’s Declutter Item

Another handmade necklace donated to the thrift store. I finished this one off with a clasp to make it saleable so I could declutter it from my craft area. A little more aspiration clutter out of the way.

Handmade Necklace

Eco Tip Of The Day

Decide what you need from the refrigerator before opening the door. Standing there with the door open while you think about what you want to eat just lets the cold air out. Then the fridge has to work harder and waste electricity to regain its optimal temperature level.

* * * * * * *

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

My husband and I had a garage decluttering session the weekend before last. Let me just say that the garage gets regular attention as we get more and more ruthless with our decluttering. It is also the holding area for the items decluttered from the house ~ prior to trips to the thrift store and ebay auctions and for those procrastination items awaiting decision ~ so the landscape is constantly changing out there.

There are also items that have been stored there for some time that, if we are to be honest with ourselves, are really just “I might need/want it someday” items. Some of those items didn’t make the cut this time like…

• Ikea peanut table that gets used maybe twice a year when we have a neighbourhood get-together. I can always borrow a table for this purpose from one of my neighbours or friends.
• The original boxes for packaging up small electronic items when we move. Small items that aren’t really that fragile don’t need to be packed in their original boxes.
• The folding photo screen that has been in the house for several months that I put aside for my daughter. The reality is that it will probably always be harder to get it to her than it is worth.
• Tools and other equipment that are never used. Unused items that came in sets of which only some items are helpful to us and other items that were useful to us in the past but are no longer.
• Like the picnic rug that hasn’t been used in the five years we have lived here. We really aren’t picnic people and even if we do decide to dine on the grass we can always use a couple of old towels or other more versatile rugs in the house.
• The clothes rack that I would have a use for on ironing day if it fitting in the house but it doesn’t so there isn’t much point it keeping it.

Many of these things are useful items that once served us well and I find these old faithful items harder to part with than most other things including sentimental items. I obviously place a lot of worth in usefulness. But what better way to honour these items but to set them free to be useful to someone else.

At first I held back on the peanut table ~ which I forgot to photograph ~ and the photo screen but my desire to decrease the quantity of stuff in my garage overtook my desire to keep these things. This is usually the case with all of my decluttering. If there is a space that I want cleared my desire to minimise will usurp my desire to keep things just about every time. Items need to have a legitimate and immediate use once they are in my radar or they will most likely be out of here.

With that said there are still a few items in the garage that won’t be there for long. There is a corner display stand that is just waiting for a friend to scrutinise and possibly claim, two organising container that I am awaiting possible first dibs by friends, a box of books that I am going to double check to see if my daughter still wants and two bags that belong to my husband that may or may not also finally succumb to our decluttering efforts. I am also still looking forward to the day my daughter can finally collect her stuff which also resides on my garage shelves. My current goal is to reduce the garage storage to one set of shelves plus the under-stair cupboard that is in the back righthand corner. I am not far from that actually.

All I can say is it is an ongoing process. I am working at it at a speed that I am content with. The progress is evident from the photos below. And taking into consideration that there may not be a garage as such in the next home we live in I had better hope I can get it down to a least my current goal and perhaps even a  little further. Actually I have no doubt that I can achieve this and more. Already as I look at the last photo in the group I can see more things that I am confident will not be there this time next year.

The progress made over that last two plus years.

Today’s Mini Mission

What is on your walls? Is there something hanging there simply out of habit that you don’t really want or even particularly like? Now is the time to declutter it.

Today’s Declutter Items

Below are the items removed from the garage last week. They were all donated to the thrift store. What is not shown in the pictures ~ because I forgot to photograph them ~ was the recycling bin full of cardboard that was eliminated from the under-stair cupboard.

The items removed from the garage last week.

Eco Tip For The Day

Buy local produce where possible as this cuts down on fuel required to transport products from further away.

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“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Today’s Declutter Item ~ Make-up Mirror Cord

The inspiration for this week’s mini missions is today’s declutter item (see photo at left). This electrical cord from my magnifying make-up mirror has been a source of annoyance for some time. It gets in the way when I dust the space the mirror occupies and when I move the  mirror to use it elsewhere. It is a fine example of the kind of clutter that is right under your nose yet you do nothing about it and perhaps don’t even recognise it as such.

The mirror was bought when I lived in America so is made for use with 120v power supply not 240v like we have here in Australia. The thing is I never use the light feature of this mirror anyway, not now nor in the US because I don’t like the brightness of it for applying make-up.

So the question is why did it not occur to me years ago to just cut the cord off it and save myself a lot of bother. This sudden spark of brilliance only came to me a week or two ago at which time I immediately fetched  the wire cutters from the garage and took care of the situation.

One would think I’d have had this brain wave some time back when I read this post from Cindy about her reluctance to separating items that belong together as a set. I remember thinking at the time how I had no qualms about separating such things, like the extra attachments I was trying to find a home for that came with my new immersion blender. And the top section of a buffet and hutch set that I gave away on freecycle (I kept the bottom section to use as our TV unit. But separating a segment of one single object just didn’t enter my mind.

The point of this post is that not all clutter is obvious even though it is right under your nose. Also adapting something to better suit your needs regardless of how unorthodox that may be is not only acceptable but sensible. It never occurred to me that this small yet annoying part of an otherwise useful functioning object was clutter I could easily remove to improve its suitability to me.

So what do you have hiding right under your nose that could do with decluttering or, like my item, separating from it’s whole and decluttering the unnecessary piece.

Today’s Mini Mission

Remove any clutter on and in your TV cabinet or entertainment unit.

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Getting a visit from one of my Newcastle readers yesterday. Thanks Wendy F it was a pleasure to meet you.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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