The hardest part of decluttering happen in you mind. The clutter itself isn’t really the problem it is the preconceived ideas we have about what we should, could and must keep and what we think we can’t live without. If these thoughts are hindering your decluttering perhaps it is time to declutter your mind.

Question every thought about what you should, must and have room to keep even though you don’t really need or want them. And rethink what is really important to you when it comes to those items you feel you can’t let go. We are often in a tug of war over wishing we had the space or that our space was less complicated with stuff, but at the same time want to hang on to things out of habits of a lifetime.

Set your priorities, make your choice, trade off, call it what you will but your life will be enriched, not deprived, by creating a simpler, more serene living environment. Who wants to come home to a cluttered untidy home each day? Who wants to constantly feel that there are endless arduous tasks to be completed, within the home, due to the volume of stuff to maintain? Who wants to sit in permanent limbo procrastinating over what needs doing and getting nothing done?

There is nothing I hate more than reaching the end of a tiring day and seeing mess all around me, either begging to be done now or having to be dealt with tomorrow. It is a tormenting situation to be constantly feeling under pressure like this. It isn’t conducive to relaxing downtime and especially not to a good nights sleep.

So decide what is truly important to you and what isn’t. If the stuff in more important than happily live with it. But if your subconscious is constantly nagging you do simplify your possessions then perhaps it is time to do something about it. Like I told a friend this weekend ~ “Once you feel you are making progress, working on it doesn’t seem like such a chore.”. And the joy of accomplishing something is always good for one’s psychological health.

Today’s Mini Mission

 Declutter something you keep telling yourself you must keep even though you don’t want to.

Eco Tip for the Day

When boiling dried pasta, bring to the boil then turn the temperature down to low and once settled put a lid on. It will boil quicker and at a lower temperature this way thus saving electricity. When you think it is almost done turn off the heat and allow the residual heat to complete the cooking process. The same method works for rice. Rice will usually take 12 minutes to cook this way.

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

Here is a great comment from Kimberley that I didn’t want anyone to miss…

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter some paper clutter ~ magazines, paperwork, old tax papers, expired warranties…

Eco Tip for the Day

Organise your weekly menu prior to grocery shopping. This will help avoid extra trips in the car to the store.

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 received an email from a new minimalist blogger on the weekend. His name is Marco Laberge and his blog is Toward Minimalism. He asked me to check out his blog and give him some feedback. I am a busy lady these days with my blog, my craft making and selling, my other volunteer work, friends and family, so reading is just one things I don’t have a lot of time for. Most of the posts, from blogs I subscribe to, that appear in my in-box are deleted without receiving any of my attention due to these other commitments. However I was intrigued enough to take the time out to read some of Marco’s posts.

I have to say I was suitably impressed. Marco, like myself, focuses on the mind rather than the clutter itself. As I have said many a time, clutter is all about mind set and not the items. The items are just the material manifestation of a skewed attachment and want for stuff. His post ~ Are you too attached to your possessions ~ sums up one aspect of this thinking beautifully. I urge you to read it.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a sentimental item that habit says keep but your mind says is just wasting space.

Eco Tip for the Day

Use a microfibre mop to clean your floors. All you need is a little water, no harmful chemicals. Even green cleaners have to be manufactured so why use them if you don’t need to.

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

Have your ever been or are you currently in denial about the state of the clutter level in your home? Do any of the following scenarios ring true for you?

1. I am happy with the clutter level in my home. ~ While at the same time you wish your home was easier to keep tidy.
2. I am comfortable with the level of clutter in my home. ~ But what you really mean is ~ you feel more uncomfortable with the thought of letting go of more of your precious stuff than you do of living with the resulting discomfort of keeping it.
3. I am more careful about what I bring into my home. ~ But really you’ve merely lengthened the time it takes to satisfy your desire to buy things. Taking longer to acquire but all the while still bringing in just as much. You think you are more responsible but in fact it only seems that way because you feel like you have deprived yourself by waiting.
4. I don’t care what other people think about what I own. ~ When in fact you are still struggling to keep up with the Joneses. Needing this fashion item, or that decor item or jewellery… , when you have perfectly adequate numbers of all of these things.
5. I need this item or this number of items. ~ When in reality it has simply become habit to provide for unlikely scenarios where you will need such things. Habits of a lifetime, or indeed previous life situations, are hard to break if you don’t realise they are a habit in the first place.
6. I can buy happiness. ~ Happiness never has and never will be dependant on how much unnecessary stuff you own. Trust me there are a lot of very rich unhappy people out there.

I am sure there are many more scenarios that I could add to this list but these are just a few that I encounter at times. Don’t get me wrong, I am not expecting all or any of my readers to live a minimal lifestyle. I don’t believe even I live such a  lifestyle so why would I expect such things from others. But I urge you to really search inside yourself and be honest with yourself about what it is you want out of your mission to declutter. You might find that one of these scenarios matches your situation well. Or even once confessed to yourself you decide you can live with that. But please don’t continue to live in denial of  being in a situation that has a negative effect on your life and possibly on the loved ones around you

Today’s Mini Mission

Take a look in your closet. Take out the three least used items of clothing. Declutter the least likely ever to be used again.

Eco Tip for the Day

It is possible to live without cling wrap. Put a plates on top of a bowls or use existing lidded containers to store things in the fridge rather than cover food in cling wrap. I haven’t had a roll of cling wrap in my house for some time now and I have never missed it.

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

Have you ever enjoyed one of those TV series where the two main characters have a love interest in each other that takes episode after episode to come to climactic fruition. The build up is intoxicating. It is almost a shame when they finally succumb to their lust for each other. In fact that is often when the series also comes to its finality and if it doesn’t the show is never really as appealing from that moment on. It is like fairytales where the endings are “…and they lived happily ever after. Clearly the teller these stories know that the buildup is more interesting and tantalising than the actually partnership beyond that point.

Well your decluttering can be like this. I revelled in the joy of each item I sent on its way rather than lamenting daily not being at the end of my decluttering journey. Even now that I am almost fully decluttered I still look for items on a regular basis to send on their way because I know, from experience, that the less stuff I have the easier it is to keep in order, the less time I waste choosing between items and the more breathing space I have in my home. It still gives me a thrill to flirt with the idea of living with even less. 😉

So don’t look at decluttering as a chore, think of it as a thrilling adventure that will lead to a satisfying climax.

And for those of you who are thinking “Does this mean that the end of our decluttering journey will be an anticlimax?”, the answer is no. I means that once you make the conquest you can settle down into a very comfortable, happy and loving relationship with you stuff, not wanting to ever return to your past lifestyle.

So enjoy the journey and reap the rewards.

Today’s Mini Mission

Another obvious clutter magnet is the junk drawer. I am pleased to say I don’t have one of these.  “Why do junk drawers exist anyway?” Surely all the things we put in there have a home elsewhere but we are just not putting them away properly. Maybe once it is emptied you should remover the drawer for a week and attempt to learn to live without it. 

Eco Tip for the Day

If you do iron clothes don’t turn on the iron to do one thing. Designate a regular iron session so you aren’t wasting electricity reheating the iron over and over again.

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

Cindy

Recently a friend was cleaning out items from his mother’s estate, a chore than sadly has stretched on at least two years now. He brought over a bag of craft supplies, jewelry, and a peanut butter jar full of needles and other small sewing items.  In pretty short order, Dan and the girls and I sorted through the jewelry and craft supplies. Only the peanut butter jar remained. Specifically, it remained on my desk for weeks. Finally I got sick of looking at it there, so I moved it to the kitchen island to motivate myself to sort through it. There is remained for another month. I looked at it yesterday and realized that I still hadn’t sorted through it and that, more importantly, I obviously didn’t care. I don’t need any needles; I don’t need any pins. I suppose it’s possible that there is some tiny sewing item in the jar that might make my sewing box better and more complete, but I don’t know what it is and (say it with me) I don’t care. It’s just clutter. I don’t know everything that’s in that jar, and I just don’t care. It wasn’t my clutter, but then I let it become my clutter. I put it into the thrift store bag without opening it. Problem taken care of.

We think that we have to sort, and categorize, and make a wise decision about every item that needs to be decluttered. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you; maybe you don’t care.  Do you need to look through each craft supply, each ball of yarn, each set of beads and make a separate and independent decision? Not if you don’t care. Just get rid of the whole lot and be finished with it. Same with books, tools, cookware, collectibles – anything that you feel this constant, aching need to “deal” with when you just really don’t want to. Let me free you from that nagging thought. Who cares if you could make a few bucks on Ebay? Who cares if one of those 100 books might be worth more than 25 cents at a garage sale? Just free them from your life. Sometimes it’s okay not to care.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a souvenir.

Eco Tip For The Day

Drink tap water in preference to carbonated beverages. It doesn’t take a genius to work out how much better that is for the environment. Your waistline and your teeth will thank you for it as well.

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

Cindy

Every time you see something fun, intriguing, clever, imaginative, or functional at a friend’s house, are you tempted to buy one for yourself too? When your child loves a toy that he or she has played with at a friend’s house, school, or the doctor’s office, do you think he or she must surely want one for your house as well?

This is a trap. Don’t fall for it.

In my experience, parents and grandparents are the first and worst to fall into this trap. If junior loves a toy elsewhere, he/she will surely love one at home too. Not necessarily. Instead, by buying a duplicate, you’ve removed the thrill of the toy at the other location as something special to look forward to. Now it’s at your house and is just one of the many, nothing special about it. I’ve even seen duplicates occur when the child already owns a toy. In my own life I can think of some wooden dolls with magnetic clothing that the girls enjoyed. Somehow, by the time they were ready to get rid of the sets, my two daughters had five different sets of these dolls. They didn’t enjoy their five sets any more than they enjoyed their original two though. So why did I, and others, think that if some was good, more was better?

My husband recently tried to go down this path. He has made a new friend Joe, and Joe likes to play strategy games and owns an extensive collection of them. First game they played together, Dan wanted to buy for our house as well, even though the chances of playing it without Joe are negligible. In fact, a big part of the fun is that the two fathers and the two oldest kids play together. Owning this game isn’t going to make the playing happen more frequently or make it more fun. In fact, if Dan insisted on playing it at our house, it might make the times we get together with the other family less enjoyable.

Can you look around your house or garage and see something that you felt you had to have too, and now it’s just sitting there, mocking your decision? Get rid of it, and remember: You don’t have to have one too.

Today’s Mini Mission

Today clear off and declutter the floor in your chosen room. Pick up anything that doesn’t belong on the floor and find a home for it. Once again move any unwanted clutter to its departure point.

Eco Tip For The Day

Use washable dishrags in your kitchen rather than paper towel or chemically saturated wet wipes.

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

CiI read this great little

I read this great little post the other day – 46 ways to increase your happiness. Of course, I wasn’t surprised at all to find that reducing clutter was on the list (number 31). I followed the link to the summary of a University of California Los Angeles study about “crushing”number of possessions in the households of 32 Los Angeles families. I highly recommend you read the whole article and examine the photos. I’m going to highlight some of the portions that struck me as particularly important.

First of all, only we know what goes on it our home; only we can tell (or hide) the truth about our clutter and excessive purchases. “Marketers and credit card companies record and analyze every nuance of consumer purchasing patterns, but once people shuttle shopping bags into their homes, the information flow grinds to a halt.”

“Managing the volume of possessions was such a crushing problem in many homes that it actually elevated levels of stress hormones for mothers.” Later in the article, it says that men do not  see or respond to mess like women do.

Today’s Mini Mission

Eco Tip For The Day

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

Cindy

I went to high school with a girl named Helen, who was extremely petite and wore a very tiny shoe size, 5 I believe. In college, Helen and I lived in the same dorm. Her room was remarkable because it contained the largest shoe collection in the dorm, probably in the entire school. Why did Helen own so many shoes? Because she wore a tiny shoe, many stores would only get one in her size when they ordered a style. Helen was constantly afraid that she wouldn’t be able to find shoes that fit. As a result, she bought every shoe she found in her size. Clearly, the idea that there was a shortage of size 5 shoes was all in Helen’s mind, since she had several dozen pairs stored in their boxes in her very space restricted dorm room.

Years later, I was girlfriends with a very tall, long-limbed woman named Lanette. Her husband was even taller and even longer limbed. Lanette was an every weekend, very systematic garage saler. Now because they had such long arms and legs, Lanette and her husband understandably disliked wearing too short shirts and pants. As a result, Lanette bought every shirt and every pair of pants that she found every Saturday morning that were long enough. The result? A wardrobe stuffed full of clothing. There was no real shortage of long-enough clothing, except in Lanette’s mind.

Are you guilty of creating a shortage that exists only in your mind? Do you have an excess of toiletries, food in your pantry, clothing, collectibles, or great deal you bought on sale because, you believe, there may not be enough, so you better grab some now, over and over again? I challenge you to declutter at least one of these “rare” items today and to start talking to yourself about how there is, in fact, no shortage of material goods. The store can store your extra food and toiletries; a person can only wear so many items of clothing; with the Internet, there is no material good that cannot be found. Don’t panic, don’t buy. The shortage is only in your mind.

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

Cindy

I have been thinking a lot about efficiency recently. We are constantly told by ourselves, our friends, and the media that we don’t have enough time. Is this true, or are we just deeply inefficient and distracted?

In my house, during down times, I have notices that all four of us have our “go to” strategies, none of which are very productive: I check my email and Facebook for the millionth time; Clara listens to music and plays solitaire; Audra watches TV; Dan fools around on his computer.

All electronic, all non-productive.

My girlfriend Sherri addressed this on Facebook recently. (Okay, I realize that does seem a bit ironic.)  “No thank you “Yammer” I do not need an app to help me get things done FASTER. I need an app to slow things down. Oh wait, I have that! It’s called my frontal lobe! I can use it to make decisions about what is important, decide to turn off the gadgets, and tune in to my family, friends, God and nature! All with no monthly fees or penalties! Count me in!”

I have been trying, very consciously, to do two things: Sit around less and fill the small gaps in time.

Sitting around fooling around on the computer – what a waste of my life’s most valuable resource – time. Now when I truly have business to do that involves the computer, I sit at the dining room table. It turns out that our dining room chairs, which have rattan seats, really aren’t that comfortable for extended sitting and having that rattan pattern pressing uncomfortably into my thighs keeps me focused on plowing through the business that I need to attend to, rather than drifting off into the No Man’s Land that the Internet can be.

The other thing I’ve been trying to do is to fill small amounts of time. It’s like me to pace around feeling aggravated while waiting for someone to brush their teeth before we can leave. Now, I try to fill that time by doing something: wiping the kitchen counter, putting away some laundry, loading the dishwasher. I’m still by the door ready to leave, but I’m not just pacing and feeling irritable.

Yesterday it was ridiculously hot. Even in the house, I felt hot. I was sitting (just sitting) in my favorite chair feeling hot. After 15 minutes, I consciously decided that I was wasting my time, and that I could be hot and get something accomplished, or I could just be hot. I got up and got some things done. In fact, I probably cooled myself a bit because part of what I did involved wiping the kitchen counters, and the cool water felt nice.

Consciously trying to be more efficient can apply to any task you want to accomplish. Often we wait for a big block of time before we tackle a project. As Colleen has often said, decluttering a thing a day only takes 10 minutes, although frankly, I think it only has to take about 2.

What could you get done if you decided to be more efficient today?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter electric kitchen tools that aren’t that useful to you. Suggestions ~ Grater,food processor, blender, mixer, juicer, coffee machine, coffee grinder, can opener, pepper grinder, bread machine, ice-cream maker, donut cooker, popcorn machine, panini press… this list could go on forever. After going through my kitchen last week I have found that I have the usual suspects ~ toaster and kettle ~ plus I also have a hand blender with one accessory, a coffee grinder and a panini press. All these items are used regularly enough to be safe from decluttering for now. 

Eco Tip For The Day

When buying bars of soap, by ones without wrappers or multipacks that come in a simple cardboard box. Every little bit of plastic saved from landfill counts.

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