I know that I have written about procrastination causing delays in the decluttering process but that is not the only role that procrastination plays when it comes to clutter. In many cases procrastination actually causes the clutter in the first place.

What starts out as a good intention can soon turn into a failure to carry out a particular task that leaves in its wake a pile of clutter. For example…

• The hem on your daughter’s dress has fallen and you put it aside to restitch but 2 months later it is still lying in an ever growing pile of other good intentions next to your sewing machine. Now the dress is not only still in a state of disrepair but it no longer fits your growing child.  Result – one dress that is now clutter.
• You bought that new novel that everyone was talking about but lets face it you are a doing person – not one for sitting around reading. Six months later the book in still on the shelf unread. Result – Bookcase clutter.
• You decided try a new hobby/sport and it seemed like a good idea at the time. You bought all the gear required to give it a go but alas you still haven’t taken that class you meant to take to get you started or made one step towards joining a team . Result – hobby supply/sporting equipment clutter.
• The monthly bills came in but why should you let those companies make interest on your money – better to wait until the due date to pay them right? Not if they just get lost in a pile of clutter on your desk you kept putting off tidying  up. Now the due date has passed and you are have to pay a late fee. Result – money down the drain and a bad credit history.
• You bought a new laptop but kept the old one with intentions of selling it on eBay to recoup some on the money you spent. Where is that old laptop now? Still cluttering up the desk while you procrastinate about a starting price and finding the box for it in the garage. Result – Desk top clutter, less dollars in your pocket and another empty box littering up the garage.
• Putting things off until you have more time, are more relaxed, feel up to it, are fitter, happier, healthier, the kids are grown…are some of the endless procrastination excuses that lead to clutter.

I think you can see where I am going with this. The solution is to make time immediately to deal with those small tasks around the home instead of putting them off until it is too late. You may be surprised at how little time it actually takes. And limit your financial commitment (eg. buying equipment and supplies) prior to learning the skills involved in starting a new hobby/sport etc. You may find that you don’t have the skills or patience for it after all or are just not as enamoured with the idea once you’ve tried it. Otherwise before you know it you are surrounded by unfinished tasks, unread books, magazines, sales catalogues, expensive tools, hobby supplies, sporting equipment…

Take some time out to identify some of this type of clutter in your home and deal with it immediately. I am sure you will be relieved to eliminate the guilt that comes hand in hand with it.

Item 355 of 365 less things

What used to be a pile of unused craft supplies is now a set of monogrammed birthday cards for the male members of my family. It will take twelve months for them to disappear altogether but I have saved several dollars by not having to buy cards, nibbled away at my abundance of craft supply clutter and had some crafting fun all in one effort.

5 Things I am grateful for today

1. Craft – I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t making something.
2. Getting lost in what you are doing – Especially if it is something you didn’t want to do and the next thing you know it it is done.
3. Free access to things better than shopping – parks, the library, beeches, walking trails…
   
4. Dinner is over the kitchen is tidy and I can sit back and relax for the evening.
5. Imagination
   

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

How many times have you heard or said “But I’m no a morning person”? You know the story “not being a morning person” is a great excuse for continually having a messy bedroom. As a result of “not being a morning person”  the bedroom turns into a disaster zone in the attempt to get ready for work each day. Needless to say when the “not a morning person” finally gets around to cleaning up the mess the very next day it’s back to square one again.

As for not being a morning person:-

• This is just a state of mind which can be reversed if you just let it go. The only reason a person isn’t a morning person is because they have convinced themselves they aren’t.
• Getting a good night sleep is key to being a morning person. I would probably not want to get up in the morning either if I stayed up after midnight every night. This can be fixed by changing night habits. Start going to bed about 15 minutes earlier each night until a more suitable bed time is reached.
• Unless you have a job that changes shift all the time it should be relatively simple to attempt to set a routine in place that better suits your daily requirements.

Simplify your morning routine

• Set out your clothes for the next day before you go to bed at night. That way you aren’t wasting precious time rummaging through your closet and hurling clothes all over the place in a panic. You will cause yourself a lot of extra ironing if you leave your clothes crumpled on the floor.
• Set out all the accessories to match the clothing selection you have made above – shoes, jewellery, belt etc.
• If you are a woman have your make-up neatly arranged so everything is easy to find. Put things back in their proper place so it is easy to find what you need the next day. It takes no longer to do this than to put it in the wrong place. After a short time you will be so familiar as to where the right place is you won’t even have to think about it.
• Have your shower the night before if climate allows so there is one less thing to do in the morning.
• If you take 15 minutes or more to do your hair consider a new easier-to-maintain hairstyle.
• If you take your own meal to work make sure you get it ready the night before.

Set your alarm a little earlier if all else fails and you are still finding yourself running late.

Important: You should always leave time for breakfast in your morning routine it is the most important meal of the day.

Item 348 of 365 less things

Hubby just keeps finding more computer bits to get rid off. These parts sold for $10 on ebay.

5 Things I am grateful for today

1. 6:30am cup of coffee – enough said.
2. Seeing outside the box – I love being able to adapt something to suit my purposes.
3. Steve has is stitches out and Liam looks like spending very little time at the brain injury clinic.
4. Evening walking – It’s actually too hot and sunny to walk at 7 o’clock in the morning at the moment. At 7:30pm I don’t need sunscreen and the temperature is much more pleasant.
5. Annabelle and her cute comment today – It gave me a little laugh and like my mum I love to laugh.
   

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

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

I’ve often seen this bumper sticker: “Not all who wander are lost.” I think when it comes to household chores, that’s just not true. While writing a blog every day allows you to crow about your successes, it equally allows you to reveal your foibles. Today is a foible day. Here is what I did after returning home from lunch with a friend. I was wandering, and I was lost:

1. Walk into the office, put down my purse, turn on the computer.
2. Walk to the bathroom at the other end of the house to get an OTC medicine that I promise to give to a friend; I’ll be seeing her later. I feel smart that I remembered.
3. While I’m in the bathroom, see the piles of laundry I’d divided earlier in the day. I had started one load and know it is finished washing. Carry a load to the laundry room. I have the medicine in my pocket. Still feel smart.
4. Drop the laundry on the floor, start to unload the dryer. Almost the first thing out is a rug that goes in the screen porch. Take it directly there.
5. While on the screen porch, look outside and notice that the bird feeder’s empty. Fill.
6. As I walk back through the screen porch, I notice Audra’s rug, which has been drying outside. Take it to Audra’s room.
7. Put the rug on the floor. The guinea pig squeaks eagerly at me. Decide to feed him.
8. Notice that his food is strangely clumpy. Inspect his food more carefully. Yuck – it’s got worms in it.
9. Walk to the kitchen and clean his bowl.
10. Load a few (but not all) dishes into the dishwasher.
11. Carrying the clean guinea bowl, swing into the office. Drop the medicine into my purse. Enter my password on the computer. This is the end of feeling smart.
12. Stop by Clara’s room and look at her guinea pig’s food. Yuck – it’s got worms too.
13. Pick up Clara’s guinea’s bowl and both bags of food.
14. Leave the second bowl in the kitchen and carry the bags of food to the office.
15. Sit down at my desk to call the pet food company. Start checking email.
16. Realize I’m checking email when I’m supposed to be calling the pet food company. Mental head slap. Call.
17. Transaction successfully completed, I carry the food to the front yard and pour it on the sidewalk. I figure the ground feeding birds will be happy to sample both the guinea’s food and the worms.
18. Come back into the house, through the garage. See the extra rolls of toilet paper sitting on a shelf. Remember that the office bathroom needs toilet paper. Grab it.
19. Stop by the office bath and leave the toilet paper.
20. Go into the kitchen, throw the empty food bags away.
21. Return to the office. Sit down at my computer.
22. Remember that I never started the laundry.
23. Return to the laundry room. Spend 20 seconds trying to remember why the dryer is open. Are these the wet or dry clothes? Another mental head slap.
24. Figure it out, start laundry.

While all this is embarrassing to admit, I know I am far from alone in my zig-zagged pursuit of cleanliness. One of my friends says that this is how she always cleans – haphazardly meandering from one room to the next.

How much time and energy do we waste bouncing from chore to chore, room to room, idea to idea? When I’m aware of being aimless, I say to myself. “Focus. One thing at a time. Finish what you’ve started.” How much more could we accomplish if we attended to each thing in turn? At a minimum, I’m sure we could declutter 10 things in 1 day, rather than 1 thing in 10 days.

Today’s decluttered item from Cindy: an ice shaver and 3 bottles of snow cone syrup.

ITEM 306 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This oven cleaner doesn’t have what it takes to clean my “oven from hell”. I have persisted long enough in the hope that the situation will miraculously change but of course it hasn’t. I have thrown it in the trash because if it doesn’t work for me I can’t imagine it would work for someone else.

5 things I am grateful for today

1. Clean floors – I made the effort today to vacuum and mop and my tiles are all shiny and clean. Luckily the house was impeccably clean and ready for a rental inspection when Liam had his accident so I haven’t needed to do much.
2. Air-conditioning – I don’t like to waste to electricity but it would have been unbearably hot in our bedroom last night if we didn’t have this luxury. We need to get a good night sleep especially at the moment.
3. Still so grateful for automatic washing machines – Liam breaks out in sweats quite often and goes through several shirts in a day. All part of the healing process.
4. Liam is having his best day since his accident today – one good one, one bad one seems to be the pattern. The little wretch has pulled off all the braces from this teeth that are supposed to hold his jaw in line but he seems pretty happy about it. I am happy if he’s happy even if he is naughty with it.
5. A rainy day to cool things off – we won’t need that air-con on tonight I don’t think.

I know this is getting a little off subject and I had my doubts whether I should go down this path but it was just a thought I had the other day and I decided to run it by you all.

My thinking was that this slow and steady approach would probably work with changing a persons eating habits. The problem with most diets is the slap you in the face cold turkey approach where you change too much too soon and all you feel is deprivation. Couple this with the theory that it only takes two weeks of removing yourself from a certain temptation before the cravings start to disappear I believe a person could slowly eliminate bad foods from their diet with less difficulty and with a higher success rate of sticking with the changes.

Here is what I propose:-

Remove one bad food from your diet today. ***Do not eat any of that particular food item for two weeks by this time the craving for this item should be starting to subside. At the end of the two week period remove another bad food item from your diet. Repeat from *** until you are satisfied that your diet has improved to a degree that you are happy with. By this time you should be eating a much healthier diet and your weight should be improving.

Below is a list of the kind it items I had in mind…

• Soda / softdrink / pop
• Candy / lollies
• Chocolate
• Chips / crisps
• Ice-cream
• Butter
• Full cream milk
• Cookies
• Sugar laden cereal
• White Bread
• Beer
• I am sure you know what your own weakness is so I wont elaborate any more.

Replace these bad foods with a healthy alternative such as fruit if you are truly feeling hungry.

I would also suggest that you could still indulge in these foods in moderation as a treat occasionally so you don’t feel deprived causing you to give up.

Instead of choosing a particular food  item in a  two week period you could choose one of the following…

• Lower the portion sizes of your meals
• Cut out one snack a day
• Replace one beverage (tea, coffee, milk drink) with water
• Replace a heavy breakfast with a wholemeal cereal with low fat milk
• Start cutting back on the size of your coffee (from venti (20 oz/625ml )to grande (16 oz/500ml) to tall (12 oz/375ml)
• If you are a fast food junkie try replacing one meal a day or every other day (depending on how much of a junkie you are) with a healthy alternative such a lean meat and steamed veggies or salad (no dressing).
• Replace white bread and regular pasta with wholemeal alternatives. More info.

If anyone is game and gives this a try please keep me informed of your progress or lack there of if this idea was a complete dud.

Here is some inspiration for Tiny Buddha to get you thinking about making a change of anything in your life.

ITEM 151 OF 365 LESS THINGS

A book my husband sold on eBay for $5.00

How many of you have things lingering in your home that were bargains too good to pass on.
You know…

• that pair of shoes that really are a size to big but they were only $10 (you wore them once and they gave you such terrible blisters that you will never wear them again)

• the set of cutlery “they were just about giving away” that will come in handy when you have a dinner party for 12 even though your dining suite won’t accommodate more than 8.

• the tent that was half price at the camp shop (when you actually went there to buy a travel jacket) that you had to have for when you go camping one weekend soon (that was 4 years ago)

• that DVD you got for $5 on the clearance heap that you barely managed to tolerate the first ten minutes of which has been relegated to the deepest depths of the DVD drawer

Need I go on? There are no end of stories like these that I have heard or fallen prey to. There is a lesson to be learned here.

A bargain isn’t a bargain if you get little or no use out of it.

These things become like a house guest that won’t leave who’s just taking up space and not paying rent. You know they are there but you can’t bring yourself to tell them to leave but you feel guilty about letting them stay every time you come across them.

A couple of ways to avoid this trap are:-

• Don’t read the special catalogues
• Don’t check out the clearance bins in the shops
• Only go to the shop if there is something specific you are shopping for and stick to the plan.
• Never stop at garage sales
• Avoid seasonal sales

Sorry to all you shopaholics out their but admitting you have a problem is half the cure.

This is the DVD I mentioned above. Sorry Adam I really am a fan but not of this one. I love Mr Deeds though.

I heard somewhere recently that it only take two weeks to start breaking out of old habits. The idea being, if you can persevere and ignore the cravings to continue in your old habit for two weeks, you will start to notice physically and mentally the change in your behaviour at this point and start to realise you can cope with the changes.

Hoarding is a bad habit that most of us have an addiction to to some degree. A bad habit that for the sake of a neat and clutter free environment we need to break.

According to the two week rule mentioned above once we set our mind to de-cluttering instead of hoarding we should be able to break the habit in a very short time. So ignore the craving to collect and push ahead with the process of ridding your home of unnecessary stuff and before you know it you will be cured.

I must say after 87 days of my resolution to de-clutter I am surely cured and can’t wait to find the next thing in my home to give away, throw away or sell off.

Just to prove my point today I have sorted through my scrapbook magazines with a little more ruthlessness this time and found another pile I am willing to part with that I wasn’t so sure of only two days ago.