Due to all I have learned since starting my 365lessthings resolution where I have taken a relaxed approach to a job that could otherwise be quite unpleasant I am really starting to mellow and learn to savour the good feelings evoked during the process rather than just being satisfied when I am done. Through links to minimalism and inspirational web sites that I have discovered along the way I am learning to live in the moment and enjoy the process.

If you approach an event with dread, determined that you will not get any enjoyment out of it, chances are it is going to live up to all your expectations. If you resign yourself to the fact that an event may not be your favourite way to spend your time but are determined to make the most of the situation there is a chance you may be pleasantly surprised.

For example, I set aside one day a week to do the bulk of my housecleaning, dusting, vacuuming, toilets, basins, showers etc. Every week I dread this day simply because it is what it is, a crappy job but someone has to do it. I have taken this attitude for the last 20 years which is quite pointless because I love the end result. I like the feel of the house being clean and tidy around me but I could not stop thinking this way until now.

Since I have learned to savour the moment my attitude to doing my housework is changing dramatically.  I find myself feeling the atmosphere clearing while I vacuum the floor as if the the vacuum cleaner is filtering the air as I work. I am noticing how my micro-fibre cloths start to glide more smoothly over the surfaces as they meet less resistance as the grime is wiped away. I delight in knowing that the freshness is returning as the clothes tumble around in the washing machine.

Strangely enough these kinds of feeling were there from the beginning when it came to my decluttering project simply because I was determined from the get go to take a calm and steady approach. I receive so much satisfaction from knowing that with each effort I make, my home is getting more clear and efficient. There is another level of satisfaction knowing that most of the items I no longer have use for found new purpose for someone else.

ITEM 162 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I had procrastinated for months over buying new bed linen. The old down comforter had seen better days  and the cover was too dark for our now tiny bedroom.  I finally made a decision but  now these cushions no longer match and I am sick of putting them on and taking them off the bed anyway so off they go to Lifeline.

Well the seasons are a changin’ now and the days are getting cooler here in the land down under. The winter woolies (clothing) have started to make an appearance and some of them are just not living up to expectation. I pulled a sweater out of the drawer today and within ten minutes I had had enough of the scratchiness of it so I took it off and put it in the donation box.

Winter can be uncomfortable enough especially when it is wet as well as cool like it has been here for the last two weeks so the last thing I need is to be made more irritated by clothes that don’t feel nice or are just not user friendly. As the cooler weather continues and I start to make my way through my winter wardrobe I will be assessing as I go and anything that doesn’t pass the comfort test will not make it’s way back  into my closet.

…Is it obvious I am suffering from a little cabin fever at the moment? I am missing my early morning walks for their fresh air and sunshine that gets my day going. If the weather doesn’t improve soon I am just going to have to buy a raincoat and rubber boots and start walking rain, hail or shine. Anyway now that I have got that out of my system….

Lets call the selection process above Natural Progression Decluttering. Instead of wasting a couple of hours going through my closet trying on my winter clothes and eliminating the ones that don’t make the cut I will just judge them as I get to them. I wish all my delcuttering was this easy at least that is something to be cheerful about. I will have to see if there is anything else I can adopt this strategy with.

ITEM 153 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here is the sweater mentioned above it was not a thing of beauty so it will be no great loss

Here is a section of an inspiring email I received from one of my readers last week.

Deborah Hayden writes….

Your blog inspired me to start what I call a Rathole a Day. Every day I take one area – a drawer, a shelf, a box, the refrigerator—whatever pops up and I declutter it. The rule is I take everything out, clean the space and put everything back. In the process, I throw away (recycle, donate) what is obvious but I don’t make myself crazy deciding about everything. This is a blitz first pass. When I have done everything once, I’ll go into Phase 2 and make more refined decisions, but in the meantime, I will have demystified all those ratholes and dark corners full of objects and everything will be clean. So far I’m up to Day 15– I started May 1 — and I’ve made amazing progress. Where will I be in 365 days I wonder? I’m keeping it simple.

Along the way, my mantra is if I have it in my space, it must be beautiful or useful. That means sometimes upgrading instead of just getting rid of.

I was so happy to receive this email as I am to receive any encouraging feedback and stories of people who have been inspired to make their homes simply comfortable, peaceful places to be. Deb is well on her way to doing this and I look forward to hearing more about her progress as she continues in her quest.

I very much agree with Deborah’s mantra. My husband and I have been making great progress with the decluttering but every now and again we come across an item that has for one reason or another become not quite right for us and rather than getting rid of altogether needs upgrading or downsizing. We are comfortable to do this as they are usually items that are used constantly but are outdated or not fulfilling our needs anymore. Examples of this are the stereo from Day 73 and the today’s item.

ITEM 142 OF 365 LESS THINGS

A computer tower and monitor which we sold on eBay for a mere $30.00. The tower was replaced with an Apple Mac Mini which measures 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 inches a considerable bit smaller that this tower.

Today I applied my 365lessthings approach to my housework.

I have had my sister visiting for a six days and we had a lovely weekend away in the middle of that. I hate to waste time doing housework when I have visitors because I would rather spend time with them than doing chores. Needless to say this neglect had taken its toll on how my house was looking by this morning and I was feeling quite tired and lazy after all the activities of the last few days and wasn’t feeling up to a hard day of cleaning.

I decided to take the one step at a time and don’t focus on the enormity of the task ahead approach like I do with my decluttering and I must say it has made my day a lot more pleasant than it could have been. I just flitted from one task to the next and didn’t give a moments thought to what else had to be done. Another task magically presented itself each time I was finished with the previous one so it was a smooth transition until everything I wanted to get done was done.

Now I am quite satisfied with my efforts without even feeling like I have worked hard and it has left me with enough time and a topic to write about for today’s post.

ITEM 126 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This is the first of the eBay sales of our snow gear. I will post all about how well we did with the sales and how much space has been made by finding these things new homes once they are all posted or collected.

Remember my blog way back on Day 86 when I decided to find a way to use up all my gift wrap items that seemed to be multiplying rather than diminishing in the linen closet.

Well this weekend I attended a lovely get-together in the wine region of the Hunter Valley to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday. The weekend which included wine and cheese tastings, a lovely lunch, a bus to take us to all our destinations  and overnight accommodation, cost us all $270 each.

I felt inclined to provide a gift even though I was sure one wasn’t expected due to the financial outlay for the event. So I decided to find something within my home rather than resort to outlaying more funds. I had a few bottles of red wine that we had been cellaring for a couple of years and a lovely decorated  cylinder for the purpose of giving wine as a gift. I have had the cylinder for about five years, it was one of those items I bought but found were too nice to give away (How silly, I know). I also had an extra pashmina my husband had picked up when buying gifts for my work friends while on a recent trip to the Middle East.

I put the wine in the lovely cylinder and the pashmina in a small gift bag from my collection of recyclable gift wrap items and felt quite satisfied with the present I had to offer and at the same time had removed 4 items from my home that had just been lying around waiting for someone to appreciate. To top it off I printed a copy of a secret family recipe she had been wanting for years ( I may be in trouble with my Mum for that) and put it in with the handmade birthday card my mother had made for her.

Needless to say it was a wonderful weekend. She was happy just to have all her friends around her and as I thought she wasn’t expecting any gifts and she enjoyed a little too much making a phone call to my mother dobbing me in for giving her the secret family recipe which she was more impressed with receiving than any other part of the gift. I am happy to have had the wonderful experience and to be four items lighter in the quest to clear my house.

ITEM 124 OF 365 LESS THINGS

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I check the bathroom cupboards I always come up with one more thing that (or in this case three more things) that are for some reason of no use to us or past their used by date.

I read forums and posts on other blogs and I can’t help but think that people put themselves under too much pressure when it comes to decluttering. Below are a few suggestions I have to help release that pressure…

• The clutter didn’t appear overnight so don’t expect it to disappear overnight.
• Don’t look at the big picture it’s too scary sometimes.
• Pace yourself, there is no hurry.
• Don’t set a deadline.
• Save the hard to decide items until last. I find the further I get into this the more ruthless I become.
• Be rational, way up the pros and cons when it comes to what stays and what goes.
• One step at a time, whether that is one room one cupboard, one drawer or one item just so long as it is something at a pace you can handle.
• Give yourself a mental pat on the back with every item you send on it’s way.
• Stay focused on what you have achieved not the size of the task ahead.

One thing you must remember is to not replace the items you are getting rid of with some other thing that will soon become tomorrows clutter making your efforts useless because you are taking one step forward two steps back.

ITEM 113 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here are some of the ways I go about looking for areas in my home that need some de-cluttering attention

1. I set aside one day a week, usually Tuesday, to do my general housecleaning. On that day I keep a watchful eye out while working and write down the trouble stops in my trusty notebook so I will remember to come back to them later on.
2. While puting away the clean laundry is a good time to have a glance around in the closets for any clothing items etc that haven’t seen the light of day for a while. Even if you pluck out just one thing every now and again it all makes a difference.
3. Sometimes when I am looking for other stuff I may stumble upon something. Like the other day when getting my large cutting mat out from under the spare bed I found some old posters  that aren’t ever going back up on any walls in my house if I have anything to do with it.
4. Sometimes everyday conversations, actions or things I see may trigger random thoughts  about something I had forgot that is hiding away in a box somewhere  so I will either take action immediately or jot it down in my notebook for later on.
5. Of course moving house is one of the greatest catalists for getting your butt into gear and really have a good clean up so the clutter doesn’t follow you to your new home.
6. It may sound odd but sometimes I also kill a few minutes while I wait for the kettle to boil by checking in the kitchen/dining area for item I no longer use.

All of these actions take up very little time in your day but can make such a diffenence. Give it a try.

Here are the posters I mentioned in sugestion no.3 of todat’s blog, my husband has granted me permition to dispense of these as I see fit. It will be my pleasure!

Today I would just like to revisit the idea behind 365 Less Things. There are times when we all look at our living space and think it really is time I went through everything and got rid of all the clutter around here. The problem is that when we stand back and look at the job as a whole it becomes very daunting and quite frankly we give up on the task before we even begin.

The better approach is to tackle one small task at a time, in my case one task per day. I don’t even concentrate on one area at a time I might just see something during my daily routine and think “I don’t need that” or “I might just sort through that drawer today” and that becomes the task for the day.

If you keep the task small it never appears to big to handle and doesn’t become a huge chore. When you are doing the days task you will likely see something that you can deal with the next day and so then you have a task in mind for tomorrow and one task flows into another and suddenly you realize that it is no effort at all.

SOME SMALL TASKS TO GET YOU STARTED

• Clean out one kitchen drawer
• Take the accumulation of metal coat hanger back to the drycleaners next time you go.
• Go through your sock drawer and throw out the orphan  and holey socks
• Pick one pair of shoes you never wear anymore and toss them out or put them in the donation box.
• Empty one shelf in the pantry and don’t put back anything that is past its used by date or that you are unlikely to use.
• Go through the pens you have in drawers around the house and throw out the ones that don’t work.
• Fishermen, look in your tackle box, there are bound to be a few rusty items that are now all but useless.
• Check the coffee table drawers for old magazines that you haven’t looked at in ages.
• Get the kids to go through the toy box and throw away any broken items and donate the one they have grown out of.

All these tasks really take very little time but you will feel good about it and you will be inspired to move onto a new task tomorrow. And if you are feeling more energetic one day do  more than one task and stock pile a few of the 365 things so you can have a day off every now and again, I do.