Here in the southern hemisphere we are heading towards Spring and I cannot wait for the days to get longer and the temperature a bit warmer. As we have trudged through Winter we have had our share of coughs and flu’s doing the grand circuit through the household. I am, as usual, the last person to go down with the flu and just back on my feet again after two days in bed. Of course, my husband is sure I (Moni) could not have had what he just had because he couldn’t get out of bed for five days whereas I (Moni) seemed to be able to roll out of bed to collect the girls from school and to deal with dinner and laundry. Surely, I must have something less severe. 🙄

So the medicine cabinet has seen a bit of action lately but I am rather pleased with the lower level of stock that we are managing on these days. In previous years our medicine cabinet has rivaled a Pharmacy (Drug Store in US) for the variety and quantities of over the counter meds we had – my annual decluttering of the medicine cabinet was a joy because everything had an expiry date which meant justifiable expulsion from the household. Earlier this year I noticed how many similar items could be found in our medicine cupboard and usually within 3-6 months of each for expiry date. Two lots of antihistamine, three lots of the identical headache/pain tablet, four lots of similar flu meds and so on and so on. I gave this some thought but couldn’t explain the phenomenon until eventually I caught myself in the act. My daughter was sent home from school with a head cold and I beelined for the Pharmacy on the way as I couldn’t recall if I had anything suitable at home already. This is how the fourth set of head cold meds entered the house to sit between an identical half empty packet and two other rival brands containing the same active ingredients.

My daughter is a rather logical thinker and was highly amused in a clogged up, watery eyed sort of way, and suggested I write a inventory of what we have and keep it on my iPod Touch since it goes everywhere with me now that I have discovered Notepad and “Things” app (my iPod is my training ground for an iPhone) . So I did so and included any extra details that were included on the packaging plus the expiry dates. From that day onwards – which fortunately was early Autumn – I have carried with me an inventory of medicines already in the house and thanks to a damp cold Winter and a lot of flu’s going around, a noteable reduction in our stock levels.

This method is working well for me, but it could be as simple as a piece of paper slipped into a pocket of my wallet. What I am doing is Decluttering 101 in that I am reducing the amount of incoming items and hopefully it will reduce the amount of medicines that I have to dispose of at expiry time.

What other clever ideas are there for managing the medicine cabinet?

The Weekend’s Mini Missions

Saturday – Declutter a electric cable that serves no purpose.

Sunday – Declutter something made of 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

We live in a world ruled by excessive consumerism.

Everyday we receive hundreds of messages that try to make us feel incomplete. They try to sell us the idea that we don’t have enough stuff, so that we go buy more stuff to fill the void and be happy.

These messages use the influence of scarcity to trigger your pains and fears.

The question is: how can you protect yourself from the negative influence of the scarcity mentality.

The answer lies in your ability to sacrifice.

When you make a small sacrifice by getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter, by eliminating the unnecessary and by decluttering your environment, only then simplicity will take over and you’ll experience a major difference in your life.

When you let go of the clutter, you realize that you already have enough and that your soul enjoys more and breathes freely in the new open space you’ve created.

The belief that you already have enough is the essence of minimalism.

“Minimalism is realizing that what I already have is enough, and that adding clutter to the pile won’t make it any better. And chasing a dream of more minimalism is, ironically, not what I’m after either.” – Sarah Peck

When you sacrifice the things you think you need, but never actually use, you will discover and connect with what you truly need, use and like.

There is a very interesting experiment that I’m currently doing and would like to invite you to do it with me. I call it The One Week Closet Experiment. I learned about the idea from Dave Bruno’s book The 100 Thing Challenge.

Here’s how to do this experiment:

1. Open your closet and pick up enough clothes for one week.
2. Store these one week clothes in a separate section in your closet.
3. Over the next week or two, only wear from the items in this section.
4. Share your conclusions in the comments below.

I promise you’ll be hugely surprised by what you’re going to do with the rest of your clothes!

If you’re joining this experiment, please leave a comment now to let me know you’re in.

“I think we have to be not so afraid of scarcity. We have to be willing to give away all things.” – Sharon Stone

Bio: In his blog,  Midway Simplicity, Mohamed Tohami shares mainstream simple living ideas that are not too harsh for your lifestyle.Visit his blog now to grab your free copy of “The 30-Day Simplicity Challenge” ebook.

Today’s Mini Mission

There is usually at least one make-up item among the others that we once thought suited our pearticular kind of beauty but now wonder where we got that idea. If you have such an item but haven’t had the sense to throw it away yet, today is the day.

Today’s Declutter Item

One more kitchen item that wasn’t much loved or much used.

Cane Basket

Eco Tip Of The Day

If you have take-away coffee on a daily or regular basis take your own reusable cup.

“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

I sat in tears at a friend’s home. Finally confessing to the state of my apartment. I said ‘Have you seen that TV show ‘Hoarders’ well that’s me!’ I don’t think they really believed me. On the outside I was always so well-groomed and professionally dressed, but inside I was an emotional mess.

My friends offered to come around and help me ‘ tidy up’. But they had no idea as to the extent of the problem. I was so ashamed. Too ashamed to let them see how bad things were. My lovely two-bedroom apartment had become a one-bedroom disaster zone, where I needed to navigate every step just to get into bed. I felt so overwhelmed I seriously just wanted to hire some men with a skip and throw EVERYTHING out of the house.

And I mean everything: everything heaped in cupboards; everything stuffed and spilling out of drawers; everything askew in kitchen cupboards and benchtops; everything littering the floor – clothes, clothes and more clothes, bags of craft supplies, mounds of books, broken electricals, old computers; everything hanging over chairs and door frames; every mountain of “stuff”; even the furniture.

Getting rid of every thing. Just leaving me with walls and carpet and empty space. Luckily a friend was a bit more level headed and investigated some other options for me. I took one week off work and with the help of a professional company, we decluttered – room by room, bit by bit.

I donated or recycled 30 packing boxes of all sorts of things and gave away bags of clothing, a couch, a sofa bed, an outdated computer and an old TV. Everything that remained was given a dedicated place. Clothing hanging in order in the built in cupboards – summer in one closet, winter in another, necessary daily items packed in see- through boxes or allocated drawers, rarely used or specialty items vacuum packed and neatly labelled, even necklaces hanging on a rack in the closet with matching earrings and bracelets neatly beside, ready to go.

What a sense of freedom!

I could then start fresh and create a home to be proud of – some minor renovations : new internal doors; new light fittings; new bathroom vanity; new lounges; new rug; and ‘voila’ a place to feel good about coming home to.

I had my first visitors dropping in for a cup of tea or a simple dinner or drinks with nibbles. Opening my home for the first time in over 2 years. What a celebration.

I hope the before and after photos below will encourage you.

If I can do it, feeling broken and overwhelmed, the ultimate hoarder, you can too.

Have courage. Nothing is impossible!!

From Colleen: I would like to thank our fellow 365er for sharing her story of hope and success in this post for us today. For obvious reasons she would prefer to remain anonymous but her contribution could possibly be a great help to someone out there in the same position she was in. So if you feel that your clutter has gotten our of control please follow this example of how you can find your way out with one simple step of getting professional help be that physical help like our reader or psychological help if you are having trouble letting go.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter papers and the necessities for storing them ~ If you can be realistic about what papers you really need to keep or are even still relevant not only can you get rid of a lot of aspirational and sentimental clutter you can also reduce the space and containers in which they were stored.

Today’s Declutter Item

I bought this binding machine for $6 in a thrift store in America years ago. I thought at the time that it would be so useful for both crafting and for my children’s school projects. I have used it many times over the year but not enough to justify the space it was taking up in my craft room. I was comforted in the fact that both my son and I were of the opinion that if we wanted something bound we could just get it done at our local office supply store.

Binding Machine

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Feeling like I had a productive day yesterday and not suffering physically in the evening for the effort.

“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

As a child I was quietly confident that if there was actually a bogey man, he definitely couldn’t live under my bed or in my wardrobe. My mum liked a tidy house, but any storage space that could be kept from eyesight was fair game. So my wardrobe had boxes stacked from the floor up until the hems of my clothes hit them, and up each side of the wardrobe and in the storage area above the hanging rack. Under my bed was tightly packed with yet more boxes containing goodness knew what but it wasn’t anything that belonged to me personally. I even have memories of boxes being jammed so tightly that my dad had to physically lift the bed on one occasion to get something out. When I consider that houses were smaller then and that storage generally wasn’t built into houses, there was probably some logic to this arrangement, but my parents were raised by parents who’d lived thru the Depression and World War 2 and hanging on to things was almost the 11th Commandment, so I imagine most of it wasn’t necessary.

In recent times Colleen added some links to her daily post and one took me to a site by Sue Rasmussen and I have to admit I was feeling a little smug reading thru her recommendations for the bedroom, as my hubby and I had prior to this eliminated the TV, knick knacks and both chests of drawers from our bedroom leaving only our bed and a small bedside table each. We had de-cluttered our clothes to the point where all our clothes fit easily in our walk in wardrobe and we are very pleased with this arrangement. So here I was feeling clever that I had all of Sue Rasmussen’s recommendations sewn up in advance, when I tripped at the finish line. She said to “Remove everything from under the bed; from a Feng Shui perspective, things stored under the bed restrict the flow of energy and abundance in your life”.

 Obviously my childhood had instilled an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy to under bed storage as I had not included these areas in my War Against Clutter. A quick reconnaissance of the household discovered that underneath bed areas ranged from not too bad to oh my goodness. The War Against Clutter had obviously overlooked a whole cluster of insurgents. Or maybe it was The Lost Tribes of Jumble huddled beneath the slats. However I describe it, I obviously still have work to do. One daughter had so much stuff neatly packed and stacked with no space to spare, it was like looking under my childhood bed again. I have had to promise the kids I wouldn’t supply a full inventory to 365 but one daughter agreed to share that she had kept all her retired ballet pointe shoes in a box under the bed as she didn’t know what else to do with them, when in reality the preferred option would have been to bin them and my other daughter had a box of clothes she didn’t like but had forgotten about, so are going directly to goodwill, without the parental complaints of wastefulness that she had been expecting.

 So I am glad I read an article that I thought I didn’t need – it may have generated me an unscheduled project – but it will be nice to know that space is clear, and how much easier under bed vacuuming will now be.

And if clearing out under the bed provides us with better energy and abundance – though hopefully not the possessions type abundance – then that will be even better!

So what’s under your bed that needs de-cluttering?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something that you are keeping “just in case” it fits you again some day.

Today’s Declutter Item

No these ropes weren’t hiding under by bed but they were hiding unused in the garage for quite a while.

Rope

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Today my daughter, her boyfriend, my husband and I were all grateful the the pilot in the fighter jet made it down safely after hearing over the two way radio at the Fighter World museum that he was having a problem with his landing gear.

“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

Due to a system error yesterday that didn’t allow comments on this post I have chosen to repost it today in an attempt to fix the error and to give Moni the joy of responding to your thoughts on the subject.

We’ve all said it. “I’ll keep it just in case I need it again”. That moment of hesitation where our de-cluttering confidence wanes and doubt creeps in and prevents us from parting with something that serves no functional purpose.

Recently fellow 365’er Dizzy pushed me in the direction of a book called “Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui” by Karen Kingston, I bought it as an e-book as it was only $8.00 as it was not available in my local library. Karen talks about the reasons people hang onto clutter in chapter six and “Just in case” was especially interesting for me as it might as well be the family motto for many of my relatives.

Karen feels that keeping things ‘just in case’ indicates a lack of trust in the future.

We’re not talking about the necessities of life here, or something that has a high chance of re-use or an upcoming specific purpose – we’re talking about items where the words ‘might’, ‘maybe’, ‘possibly’ apply or where the scenarios or people are imaginary. They may even have names such as ‘someone’ or ‘somebody’ and the time frame for their use is usually ‘sometime’. My husband recently wanted to keep our Lego for our grandchildren. We have no grandchildren. They are imaginary people born to adult versions of our currently teenage children. What is reality is that we have a young nephew who will get hours of fun out of the lego now. I recently heard from a friend that “someone might want to use it someday” and although I gently pointed out that no one wanted it today, he couldn’t comprehend the idea. You can’t win them all.

Karen goes on to talk about how people worry that they will need something after it has been moved on, then sure enough, very soon afterwards, your subconscious mind will create a situation where you “need” that very thing, however obscure it may be. In actual fact you could have averted this need by thinking differently. This was very interesting to me as I have a friend whose work centers around the subconscious mind, and she has told me that our subconscious takes everything that comes out of own mouths, quite literally. Getting back to Karen’s perspective on this topic, it may on the surface sound like a good thing, something may get re-used, however, the 200 other items stashed in the household will not, and it encourages future hoarding. Most importantly it reinforces a frequency of not trusting, vulnerability and insecurity about your own future.

A light bulb moment for me recently was a 365er comment, I’m so sorry I can’t recall who – but please put your hand up and take a bow – that the things we get hung up on getting rid of, generally are worth less than $20. This is so true. The only item that I regret getting rid of in the last year is a ring binder, and when I say regret, it was more of a ‘damn’ moment, not sorrow. Only because 9 months afterwards, my daughter broke the mechanism on hers. Would it have been worth hanging onto the 10 or so empty ring binders just in case we needed one? It cost less than $5 to remedy and it was one less box hanging around my garage floor. Having clear space in my garage is certainly worth the $5 to me, it actually feels like a thousand bucks!

After reading Karen’s comments, I came to another realisation, over the last few months – obviously I have grown more confident in my de-cluttering – but I have developed this little ritual when I am umming and ahhhing over something where I say to myself “you know you won’t even miss it when its gone” – and guess what? I never do, in fact I can’t even bring to mind the items I said this about. Whether it is me programming my subconscious to not miss it, or very simply out of sight, out of mind, it doesn’t matter it is all a step towards this clutter free home I really want to live in.

Apparently the key to finding out if something is a “just in case” is to not worry about possibly needing it in the future…..find out! Get rid of it and see if you actually ever miss it.

What “just in case” item are you prepared to let go of?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter items accumulating in or on the bedside tables.

Today’s Declutter Item

This little items had got lost amount some boxes in the garage. I found it while doing one of my periodical reshuffles  out there. After a quick double check with my husband, since it was something he owned before we were married ~ yes that long ~ it got moved to the donation box.

Framed Decor Item

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Trying a new recipe. Even though it didn’t live up to my expectations I was just glad to be adventurous enough to try. A few tweaks should make it better next time.

Happy 4th of July to all my American readers. I hope the weather is fine, the company is congenial, the food is good and the firework are brilliant.

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

I love games that use imagination, so let’s play a game.   A friend of a friend, six times removed had the opportunity to move to an island on a two year volunteer construction project a few years ago, but there was a catch…..apart from their checked baggage and their carry-on luggage, they were only allowed one tea chest of belongings to be shipped in advance.

They were given accommodation which included a table and chairs, a double bed and one set of drawers, a two seater sofa and a 14 inch tv, no DVD player.   The kitchen would have a stove/oven, basic toaster and electric jug, 2 pots and 1 frying pan, a basic dinner set and some glasses and mugs.  No dishwasher, no microwave. The laundry has a washing machine but no dryer, there is an ironing board but no iron.   No linens or duvets included.

I have decided rather than be sent to an island that has primitive or extreme conditions, I am going to send the 365’ers to Norfolk Island as the weather conditions sound quite even, the history very interesting and all rather civilised.  Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia, though it has much stronger ties to Australia than New Zealand. Do a quick google of general info and a search on google images and I’m sure you’ll agree that it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship to live there for two years. English is the common language although there is a local patois amongst the islanders. Population 2,302.    Supply ships arrive regularly and technology reasonably up to date. There are plenty of shops on Norfolk including a department store. I will admit that I have never been to Norfolk Island but it is definitely on my to do list.

So here is where the game begins – what would you take? You have your baggage allowance per person of two pieces at max 23 kilos each or 50.6 pounds.    You have your usual carry-on luggage which is roughly 7 kilos plus a handbag or laptop case because I am going to be kind and let you travel with the full allowance of economy rather than the budget-budget option. Plus you have your tea chest that is being shipped over which is 61x51x41cm or 24x20x16 inches.   There was no mention of weight on the tea chest and this is only an imaginary game so we won’t get too hung up over details with that.

I’m not going to put too many rules or perimeters on this game but I will remind you that you will be a volunteer for two years, so you won’t have the income to buy expensive items over there but you will have a small salary that will cover your basic living costs.

The friend of a friend who actually had this experience, struggled with this as she had a large well stocked home– but I think this will be easy for the 365’ers.   If you want to take your partner/husband/wife on this imaginary trip, of course they can come along, they can have their own luggage allowance but sorry the tea chest size doesn’t change.   You don’t have to be an imaginary volunteer construction worker, you can be an imaginary volunteer whatever it is you do worker if that has any bearing on what you would pack.

So what would you pack?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a pair of shoes.

Today’s Declutter Item

Here is my home decor item to be decluttered today. If I am recall correctly my husband bought me this on a trip to London once. It was very pretty and has adorned different houses and different area of those houses for many years now. However I have struggled to find a good place for it in this house so it is time to move it on to someone who might love it for some more years to come.

Framed Decor Item

“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

The following story was sent to me by Madeleine, one of our fellow long time 365ers from Guinea in Africa. I have written of many ways to decide whether to keep or let go of items in your home but this one is unique to say the least. Without further adieu please enjoy…

Madeleine’s Story

A few months ago, I decided to check if I could declutter something from my kitchen, I looked at the ustensils, and asked myself : do I really use this thing ? I answered yes for everything, but a long wooden spoon. I decided not to take a quick decision, but to wait a few weeks, and see if I would use it.

Some days later, I was cooking, when I saw something moving just near my left hand. A snake ! I jumped to the roof, wanted to run away, then thought better : if I had run away, the snake could have hidden anywhere in the house, what I surely did not want. So I grabbed the first thing I could find : the wooden spoon ! I chased the snake, and I could finally stuck it between the windows and the mosquito net. Then I could breathe, take some pictures, and fetch a neighbour who came with a bush knife and killed it. You guessed : the spoon stays. It could be one of the most useful items I have in the whole house. This day, I decluttered a snake. It did not take much room in the house, but it did take a lot of room in my mind !

In defence of the snake ~ it looks more frightened of Madeleine than she was of it.Â

The Weekend Mini Missions

Saturday – Something you keep for another’s benefit. This often happens with grown children. For example Dad has a bunch of useful tools that he no longer uses but his three sons often come over to borrow them ~ In this case divvy them up between the sons and let them borrow from one another. If they don’t want to do that then feel free to sell them or give them to someone who does want them. Once again your home isn’t a storage unit or a free hiring service.

Sunday – An item you keep out of tradition that you never care to use. This might be the usual stuff like the good china and crystal but it could be like my old BBQ ~ It is almost an Aussie tradition to cook lots of BBQ meals but if you don’t you don’t need to have a BBQ just because everyone else in the neighbourhood does. This also goes for a collection of tools when you really aren’t much of an handyman or a sewing machine when you send all your clothes out to be altered or mended. (Personally, judging from the price my friend was recently quoted to have the hem sewn up on an apron, I would suggest you learn to use it and save your money but that is just my opinion.) Some of these items actually seem to double up as aspiration clutter.

6 Simple Ways to Simplify Your Life Today

A guest post by Mohamed Tahomi

Simplicity is the path to simplicity!

And that’s the beauty of simplicity.

You can simplify your life by taking small simple quick actions that make a HUGE difference.

Here are 6 simple ways to simplify your life:

1. Throw away what you’re worried about throwing away

This is a very powerful decluttering tactic. We tend to fill our spaces with too many things that we don’t actually need. And the only reason we keep them is that we are worried about what would happen if we need them in the future.

For example, are you worried about throwing away an AC adapter from an unknown item?!

2. Check for alternatives to maximize the experience

“How often we confuse the end result with the tools that get us there – especially when we’re making a purchase.” – Robert Wall of Untitled Minimalism

Before making a new purchase ask yourself, “Is there a cheaper or a free way to get the same experience or result?”

For example, if you followed Dr. Weil’s 8 Weeks to Optimum Health plan, you would know that a 10 minute walk is much better for your health than working out in a Gym.

So, save your Gym membership and replace it with a 10 minute daily walk in nature.

3. Eliminate your news media time

I know this one is hard because news are hunting you every where you go. But try as much as you can to decrease your news consumption.

Can you start by spending a week without news media? (I would love to hear your answer in the comments section below)

4. Share instead of owning

Everyone is obsessed with owning things, instead of sharing things.

Before you buy something ask yourself, “Can I borrow it?” Specially, if you’re not going to use it frequently.

Also, before you consume something ask yourself, “Can I share it?”

Share meals, apartment, free invites to places where you have membership, etc.

Think sharing instead of owning.

5. Make more heart based decisions

“Think of how amazing it would be to make decisions based on something besides money.” – Courtney Carver

Money is a big factor in our decision making process. Try once a month to do something out of pure joy and desire, and don’t make money as a deciding factor. If you really love it and want to do it, just do it.

Once a month or every quarter or whatever. Do something without much consideration of money.

6. Do work you love

This is a long term goal that you should set today.

Life is meant to be lived doing work we love, instead of work that pays the bills.

If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, start simplifying your life and making a safety net by saving one year’s worth of living expenses.

Once you have that, quit your job and pursue something you’re truly passionate about.

Live by Neil DeGrosse Tyson’s philosophy: “I’m driven by two main philosophies: Know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”

Bio: In his blog,  www.MidwaySimplicity.com, Mohamed Tohami shares simple living ideas that fall midway between extreme frugality & radical minimalism and the hoarder’s extreme fear of deprivation. If you’re looking for more mainstream simple living ideas that are not too harsh for your lifestyle, then give a visit to Tohami’s Midway Simplicity blog and grab your copy of The 30-Day Simplicity Challenge ebook.

The Weekend Mini Missions

Declutter something that matches with the questions below.

Saturday – What makes me think I need so many of these?

Sunday – What is this thing even used for?

A guest post by ~ Moni Gilbert

So you’ve caught the de-clutter bug and you’re slashing your way through cupboards, corners, shelves, nooks and crannies. And while you can see big inroads with your work, you also realize that on your journey to organization and simplicity you have generated a lot of chaos, which wasn’t really the vision. When this happens, people quickly turn to storage systems to combat the disorder, and swiftly things begin to look neat and organized again. Peace prevails, sanity is restored.

Storage solutions can be as simple as a utensil rack in the kitchen or extra shelves in the linen cupboard and whole industries have been built around creating effective wardrobes that utilize every last centimeter of space. It can be a series of storage boxes, vacuum pack systems, racks, etc. I find when I am flicking through storage catalogues or wandering through a shop specializing in storage solutions that I am like a kid in a candy-store. All these options and ideas to conquer disorganization and chaos! The problem is that we often use such storage solutions to move clutter from one place in the house to another storing it attractively but haven’t actually addressed the underlying problem ……………….. too much unnecessary stuff! Remember, organized clutter is still clutter.

My friend gleefully bought two handbag holders that hung from a coat hanger in the wardrobe, each held 7 handbags. Handbags aren’t my weakness but I am in no position to criticize as I have my own “vices” on the collection front. However the obvious question was……who needs 14 handbags? – and this wasn’t all of her handbags either, these were just the ones that were bought to match particular outfits. Just for fun we tagged them, to see how often they were used and a year later she realized that she didn’t even have most of the outfits that she bought them for anymore. So they all ended up auctioned on trademe (NZ version of ebay) along with the holder and the proceeds went to buying something else.

I was determined to buy a trolley designed to hold extra paraphernalia in the bathroom as the vanity cupboards were overflowing. I had measured the space available and carefully selected the model from the catalogue and was eager to do the purchasing when it occurred to me that it was an area I hadn’t actually de-cluttered. Suffice to say, by the time I removed the empty bottles, the expired medicines, the hair clippers that didn’t work, all the cleaning agents that had been shoved in there instead of being returned to the laundry shelves and realized that there were enough full bottles of shampoo and conditioner in there to last us months – we actually had plenty of room and didn’t need the extra storage trolley.

I have two friends who bought those vacuum seal bags that you store clothes or blankets in. A great idea.. Ironically the friend that lived in the warm North had more blankets and duvets (doonas) than the one who lived close to the mountains. So she decided to re-evaluate what she actually required and eventually donated a large number of blankets and quilts to the Christchurch Earthquake Disaster relief effort last year. However, the friend with the few blankets was attempting to store mostly clothes – and all from bygone eras and sizes. She got caught out when she asked the other friend for the now excess vacuum pack bags. She wrote out a stock take and quickly realized she wouldn’t wear the clothes even if she did get back down to those sizes. The final outcome was neither ended up needing any of the vacuum pack bags. But that’s not to say, someone with very little or no storage space, and living in a climate with extremes in temperature wouldn’t utilize them well.

So how do we know when we have crossed the line from a storage solution to attractively stored clutter? Only you can decide that. Don’t be surprised if a storage system that was going to be the answer to all your problems, is leaving the household a year later. Sometimes we just aren’t ready to let go of a particular area of our life and home, but as we peel back the layers of clutter elsewhere our ‘protected’ clutter begins to become more obvious to the eye and less necessary to us. Ask yourself, can I delay purchasing this storage solution for a month? If so, will I still need it? Am I simply trying to contain something that I just don’t want to sort out yet? Do I want to admit that I have too many whatever-it-may-be ? Am I just trying to make a quick fix in a tsunami of clutter I have unleashed on myself? If I revisited this collection of stuff over several weekends, would I be able to get rid of more stuff each time? Is its replacement worth more than the storage item would cost?

If the storage solution deals with, say, a laundry cupboard that has never had enough shelves, go for it. But if it is to support something that you just haven’t dealt with or is something you have an unnecessary emotional attachment to….then you probably should save your money, and work thru the issue separately.

I’m not telling you throw out precious items, or to leave valuable items unprotected rather than give them the storage they need. Only you can decide what your priorities are in your home. But a good indicator is that if your best friends tell you that you have way too many shoes, don’t buy an extra shoe rack. Or if you don’t actually know what is in those twenty storage cartons, don’t invest in that attic access ladder.

So my friends, I leave this in your hands to discuss. I am merely someone who is on the same journey as you are on, and this is only my opinion. I am open to other perspectives, or to answer questions. And if anyone in NZ would like a shoe holder that clips onto a wardrobe door…..mine has outlived its usefulness, and is free to a good home!

Today’s Mini Mission

Return something that you have borrowed from someone else that you should possibly have returned some time ago.

Colleen’s Decluttered Item of the Day

I so understand where Moni is coming from when she says… “I find when I am flicking thru storage catalogues or wandering thru a shop specializing in storage solutions that I am like a kid in a candy-store.” … I love storage solutions too. But without the clutter I don’t need the solutions. Now that I have less craft clutter I don’t need this set of storage bins to organise it in. It does take a little extra will power to let it go though.

You served me well storage system

“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