Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Last week, I talked about shopping at the Goodwill, and we all felt a bit of dread: what happens to our stuff when we let it go? I know the definitive answer to this question: It's not yours any more. I came to this perhaps obvious realization last week. For years, I have had a queen size air mattress with a leak that I have never found. I've tried to find it while using it (and slowly, slowly getting closer to the ground), and I tried to find it earlier this year when I blew it up just for the purpose of locating the leak. I was not successful. So last week I … [Read more...]
Change your focus
First read this comment by Jane from last week in response to Cindy's Weekly Wisdom ~ Mental Clutter It is interesting how one simple transfer of focus can make such a big difference to someone's life. Think about it for a minute ~ Jane has transferred her focus from avoiding unpleasant tasks to finding a reason to cross something off her to do list. She naturally got no joy from knowing there were unpleasant tasks awaiting to be done but she gets a great deal of pleasure eliminating things from her to do list. The pleasure can not be achieved without the task being done. Nothing has become … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Decluttering Shame
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom A book, and its identical twin sister, have been both a clutter and a shame over the past half decade. When I purchased the pair, probably for a premium, since they came from a pricey, wooden-and-organic on-line toy store,  I thought they were pure genius, and I was a genius too. "Pocketful of Memories Book": oversized pocket folders, one for each school year kindergarten through eighth, with room to fill in fun information such as "my autograph," "my pets," "my favorite places to visit." How fun! How Simple! How never really used! It seemed like a no-fail system. … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Breakin’ Up Is Hard to Do
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Are you hanging on to old boyfriend /old  girlfriend / ex-wife / ex-husband clutter? Breakin' up is hard to do, and breaking' up with the ex's stuff can be even harder. Some of the things you may have that remind you of him or her: fancy underclothes photos greeting cards and letters jewelry vacation souvenirs music (what do they call mix-tapes in the days of CDs and iTunes?) toiletries food that he/she preferred debt from outings or vacation that you took together or from his/her bad spending habits. a phone or texting bill that went way over … [Read more...]
Digging in the Archives ~ Disassociation Part 1 ~ Guilt Clutter
This post from the archives was the first in a series of five about disassociating from you clutter. I have added links at the botton for the other four post in case you would like to read them all. Disassociation Part 1 ~ Guilt Clutter I was intending to write a post today about disassociating with your clutter emotionally but once I started to think about this issue I decided it deserved a whole series of posts. So I have divided this subject into catergories such as Sentimental, Guilt, Obligational, Aspirational and Security clutter as each one affects people in different … [Read more...]
See the cup half full side of your clutter
Sometimes when you visualise the declutter task ahead it is easy to focus just on the sheer size of the task. How much there is to move, the logistics involved in disposing of it responsibly and how on earth you are going to find the time to deal with it. These would have been my thoughts too had the brilliant plan of tackling it slowly but surely not popped into my head on the third of January 2010. Admittedly I wasn't overrun with clutter but it was there hiding in every storage space in the house. To begin with, in 2007, when we moved into this house it was stacked two packing cartons high … [Read more...]
Disassociation Part 1 ~ Guilt Clutter
I was intending to write a post today about disassociating with your clutter emotionally but once I started to think about this issue I decided it deserved a whole series of posts. So I have divided this subject into catergories such as Sentimental, Guilt, Obligational, Aspirational and Security clutter as each one affects people in different ways. Decluttering isn't just a physical activity, in fact the metal strain of letting go of certain items is where the real challenge comes in for many people. For others letting go can be quite easy, in fact too easy in some cases, learning not to … [Read more...]
Don’t let it linger – Donate
Inspired by Tuesday's post responses I thought I would like to just give a little more encouragement for people to donate items that are lingering in their homes. We all have items that were given to us as gifts that we feel guilty about giving away. Just as we have heirloom items that we feel the same way about. We keep them out of obligation rather than for the love of the item. There are also those guilt items that we spent good money on but never really used as much as we thought we would. There is no better way that I can think of to rid yourself of this guilt or obligation than to … [Read more...]
Day 284 The joys of decluttering
With fear that lately I have started to sound like some of the nuns I remember from my school days, preaching hell and damnation day in day out, I thought I might write something a little more upbeat today. I'd like to point out the joy that can be found in decluttering your home. This joy can be appreciated from day one, not just at the end of the journey. See if you can identify with the joy of..... A Fresh Start - It is never too late to begin a new phase in your life. Cut yourself some slack and don't dwell on the past. Acknowledge the things you got right and learn the lesson of … [Read more...]
Day 282 The seven deadly sins
Pride    Envy   Gluttony  Lust   Anger   Greed  Sloth If loosely translated you could associate five of the seven deadly sins to clutter. This may seem a bit like hitting below the belt but sometimes that's what it takes to make people realize the error of their ways. Pride - otherwise known as vanity is a sure trigger to the collection of numerous unnecessary items. How many things do we buy just because we want others to see how trendy, clever, sporty, rich, beautiful... that we are. We don't use these things in the privacy of our own home, we just want the world … [Read more...]