Recall for a moment an event where you received a gift that you really wanted. The perfect give that you used and enjoyed for some time. Remember the delight at the sight of such a gift when you opened the wrapping. Can you recall how wonderful you felt in that moment? Can you also recall the gratitude you felt for the giver? That positive energy returned each time you used and enjoyed this gift, right?

Now remember receiving a gift you didn’t particularly want. Not necessarily something you hated, just something you didn’t care about or have a use for. You were thankful that someone cared enough to give you the gift but didn’t really want to keep it. Do you still have that gift simply because you feel you can’t get rid of it for fear of offending that person? Now consider the negative energy that holding on to this item causes you.

Which of these two energies do you really want to surround yourself with. Be grateful for what you receive but let go of items in your home that do not exude positive energy for you.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter electric cleaning tools that haven’t proved all that effective, are an indulgence or are simply unnecessary. Suggestions ~ Steam mop, jewellery cleaner, home scrubbing tool, steam cleaner, floor buffer, leaf blower, high pressure water cleaner, dust buster, robot vacuum cleaneretc. . I currently own only the usual items, a washing machine, one vacuum cleaner, a dryer and a dishwasher. Aside from the robot vacuum cleaner that I did love and the dustbuster, both of which I now happily manage without, I did not find any of the other gadgets highlighted all that useful and some not effective at all. I did try a steam cleaner to determine how effective it was but found it wanting.

Eco Tip for the Day

If you are one for ironing just about anything ~ sheets, underwear, pyjamas, tea towels etc ~ do yourself a favour and give it up for the sake of the environment. Electrical energy won’t be the only energy you will be saving.

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

This morning, I heard an interesting article on time use and efficiency on the local public radio station. You can read the article here. The gist of it was that of the 8 hours most Americans are at work each day, only 5 of it is spend in productive work. Various guests had different solutions for this perceived problem. My favorite was from Teresa Amabile, a Harvard Business School professor. She said that “documenting progress on work, no matter how minor, is by far the most effective tool [to increase productivity].” Just staying motivated, she says, is still the best way to get work done.

Of course, I tried to imagine how this information could be applied to decluttering.

It seems to me that those of you who keep lists of the things you are decluttering, which I did for the first two years, are off to a great start. Every day when you record what you’ve decluttered, you are documenting your progress.

Also I find that making a list of what I want to accomplish each day keeps me focused on those tasks. Crossing off after a job is done is another documentation of progress.

Taking before and after photographs of a cluttered, then uncluttered, space definitely creates motivation and documents progress.

Successfully selling your decluttered items and keeping a record of the money you’ve earned is another doubly positive form of documentation.

Is there some way that you document your progress so that you stay motivated?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter an unwanted gift ~ No explanation necessary, sell, donate or regift it.

Eco Tip For The Day

Eat at home more often. The food has to be cooked either way but going out to eat usually required driving which wastes fuel.

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

Once clutter has built up in ones home there is no doubt that it is going to take some effort to expel it all. This task can appear  monstrous, frighteningly so,  which is likely to set off the fight or flight reflex in our minds.

Most people have either one tendency or the other, fight or flight. If their natural reflex is to fight then they will likely just knuckle down and get on with the task. The most distasteful outcome facing these kinds of people is being beaten, so watch out clutter, here they come. However, there is a chance that, approaching this task in an easy come easy go manner will not be very thought provoking and it is likely that, these brave folks may be back to square one soon enough. So don’t feel bad if you are not the fighting kind. I used to fight my clutter but it always used to return for a rematch.

Then their are the people who tend mostly towards the flight reflex. In this case they can’t very well run from the clutter so instead decide to just try to ignore it rather than confront it. Naturally this option will be totally unproductive unlike the attack mode which at least for a while will yield the desired result. It is also highly possible that the clutter situation will only get worse while these folk drown their sorrows by buying more stuff, only making the situation worse.

But never fear there is a third alternative. It is kind of like the one a stage performer might deploy to alleviate stage fright. In this case though we aren’t going to pretend our clutter is naked, that won’t work. 😉 But we can convince ourselves that it isn’t as scary as it might originally appear. Lets face it, you are the one who fed that big scary clutter monster so you can slowly starve it to death as well. Firstly you stop feeding it and then you quit looking at it as one big scary thing but instead as small individual battles that you can fight and win. Then one day you will realise that the big scary clutter monster has shrunk in size to something not quite so foreboding. No longer appearing that it might swallow you whole.

A similar defence can be used against those occasional frightening individual items that the thought of dealing with fills you with dread. Items like that thing your mother gave you that you don’t want, you never liked, but you are afraid to get rid of for the fear of upsetting her. Don’t beat the object up to be something it isn’t. It is just an object. You don’t like it, you don’t want it, it now instills fear in you. Is that the sort of object that any sane person would allow to linger in what should be their tranquil living space? No of course it isn’t. In this case the monster is either your mother or your own mind playing tricks on you. Either way the goal is a tranquil home and this object is not contributing to that. Worse still it is having the opposite effect. Take your chances and let it go.

So as you can see clutter doesn’t have to be scary. A tweak of your mindset can make all the difference. I am not going to pretend this is as simple as I make it sound. Perhaps a revolt against ones default setting would be more accurate, but if that’s what it takes then it is worth the fight.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter and reshuffle a drawer that is such a shambles you can never find what you need in it. Junk drawers are not a necessity, in fact they can be a nuisance.

Eco Tip for the Day

Today I will share a recipe for a friendly all-purpose spray. I put this together using two recipes/ideas from a great web site called One Good Thing by Jillee. You will need…

• A 500ml Glass Jar
• Skins of a least 3 lemons (collected from previous cooking sessions)
• 250ml (1 cup) white vinegar
• The 600ml trigger spray bottle from your last all-purpose spray.
• a good squirt of dishwashing liquid (environmentally friendly of course)
• 1 cup of water

1. Put the lemon skins in the 500ml jar and top it off with the cup of vinegar.
2. Leave this to steep for a few days. This softens the vinegar smell to a nice lemon fragrance and I dare say the lemon also adds grease cutting power and more.
3. Strain the vinegar from the lemon skins and pour into the spay bottle.
4. At this point prepare your next batch of lemon vinegar reusing the same skins. I have been using the same skins for months now.
5. Add the dishwashing liquid to the the spray bottle and top off with the cup of water.
6.  Put the lid on and give it a little shake. Now it is ready to use.

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

In a bid to empty my inbox the other day I came upon this post from over at The Change Blog. It is titled ~ Why I stopped chasing happiness. I wanted to share it with you because the principle behind it is something that we should apply to our decluttering efforts. Take a read of it now if you like before you read what I have to say on the subject.

The problem that Isis was dealing with in her life is similar to when people just like you or me decide that the clutter in our homes has become overwhelming and we need to do something about it. Immediately most people get a vision in mind of what they want their homes to look like at the end of the process. They focus on how happy they are going to be when they meet that goal. The “reality”, however, quickly sets in when they start to think about what it will take to achieve this goal. They become focused on how much work will be involved, get confused as to where to begin, get frustrated over what their plan of attack should be and agonise pessimistically over complications they may encounter along the way.

The good news is that this doesn’t have to be the “reality”. This is just the reality that we conjure up in our minds because of the instant gratification society that we live in in this modern age. It has become apparent to me that instant gratification is not all it is cracked up to be. Ultimately it only teaches us to take everything for granted and not appreciate how lucky we really are all of the time not just when we accomplish the big end goal. But I digress…

Instead of being frustrated, impatient and miserable with the process of decluttering we can actually choose to enjoy it. Get your mind around the following ideas rather than the self defeating ones that may be going on in your mind.

• Be joyful each time you identify the next thing you choose to declutter.
• Be happy that every little thing that you remove from your home leaves it slightly less cluttered.
• Feel strong and free when resisting the temptation to bring something new into the home.
• Gloat a little on the space you have freed up with every item you remove, no matter how small.
• Let “Take that clutter!” to be your new war cry.
• Revel in the fact that not rushing the process gives you time to cement this new habit of living with less as a new way of life rather than just an occasional nasty chore.
• Feel generous when donating your items to a charity where they will become useful to someone else and the funds raised will help others.

It is possible to enjoy the process if you can believe it is so. I have to say the I have thoroughly enjoyed my declutter process. Yes there are elements of it that I find less appealing than others but in the end even they feel like great individual little achievements once done. S

o enjoy the process by thinking positive and being happy with every little successes every single day.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a gadget that you no longer use. Maybe something from the kitchen that you thought would make foodpreparation easier but fell short of your expectations.

Plastic String Bag

Eco Tip for the Day

Reuse all plastic that comes into your home. Little mesh bags like the one in the photo are great to reuse for bagging little grocery items like snap peas or mushrooms.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

 

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

I’m about half way through the book The Hoarder in You by Dr. Robin Zasio. Dr. Zasio is a psychologist who specializes in anxiety and compulsions with a sub-specialty in hoarding; she is a consultant on the TV program Hoarders.

Early in the book, there’s a box: Do You Have Hoarding Tendencies? Of course, I answered “no” before I read the checklist. In fact, according to Dr. Zasio, I do have some. Well that’s a disappointment. Here is her list along with the paragraph that follows and my answers in blue:

1. Do you have a hard time parting with items, even if you never use them or they’re broken? No.
2. Do you have many items around your house that don’t have a permanent home? No, but I did before I started decluttering.
3. Do you tend to make pile of things, to be dealt with at a future time, and these piles often linger for more than a few days? Hey, has she been looking at my desk? The rest of the house is okay.
4. Are there areas in your home (the dining room table, for instance) that must be cleared off before they can be sued for their intended purpose? Possibly yes, although generally those items are being actively used up until the time that the table needs to be cleaned.
5. Do you save things often because you are concerned about how you will feel if you need them in the future and no longer have them? Rarely.
6. Do you often save things without a clear idea of how you’ll use them in the future? Only art / craft type items.
7. Do you still have items that you once bought with the intention of giving them away as gifts? Yes, from the generic kid gift box that no longer gets used. Blue Santa, here they come!
8. Do you have boxes of possessions that have moved with you from home to home but you’ve never gone through? No.
9. Do you often buy multiples of the same items because you’ve forgotten you have it? Only very rarely.
10. Are you helpless when faced with a “good deal,” even if it’s a good deal on something you don’t need? No.
11. Do you take free things, like shampoos from hotels or packets of soup crackers, that you never wind up using? Yes, I sometimes take them, but yes I use them too.

The more questions you answered yes to, the stronger your hoarding tendencies, and your environment is likely cluttered accordingly. If you answered yes to all of them, it does not mean you are a hoarder; many of us have hoarding tendencies, but because they are kept in check, things don’t escalate to the point where your life is greatly affected. Still, the more you have, the more mindful you need to be of your habits so your environment does not cause you undue stress.

I wonder, how many of these tendencies do you have, and what are you doing to keep them at bay?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a canvas wall art piece that you don’t love.

Today’s Declutter Item

These multi-purpose tools can be mighty hand but keeping one in my handbag or pocket can become complicated when trying to board and aircraft. As a result it was constantly left at home where there are plenty of other individual tools to use. Hence it didn’t get used much.

Multi-Purpose Tool

Eco Tip for the Day

Loath as I am to bring attention to sales catalogues I find it my duty to inform you that you can probably access them online rather than receive them in your mailbox. In Australia catalogues can be accessed at www.lasoo.com.au . So to my Aussie readers who haven’t yet put a NO JUNK MAIL sign on their mailbox bookmark this site and go yet yourself that sign. If any readers know a web site in their country for this purpose please fell free to share. Personally I would prefer just not to read catalogues at all.

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

On Saturday while writing my gratitude list it occurred to me that one could apply the feeling of gratitude to their decision making process while decluttering. It really is a very simple concept. If the item you are considering doesn’t make you feel grateful that you own it then it probably isn’t something that you need to keep.

There are many reasons to be grateful for things that you own. You might be grateful that an item makes a task easier. You may receive pleasure from the beauty of another item which is also something to be grateful for. Other items may bring you warmth, comfort, joy, security, happy memories or their purpose may be purely utilitarian but help keep your home in order. All these are good reason to be grateful and retain certain items.

Why not give this test a try. Just remember the gratitude must relate to the present. If you find yourself keeping things because you are grateful that they were useful in the past ~ the past being months or years ago ~ then it is time to let them go and just be grateful that you got your money’s worth out of them. Similarly if you find yourself thinking you will be grateful you kept this or that item only when you find a use for it in the future ~ a future that may or may not occur ~ then I think you need to reconsider this decision.

Just imagine your household only containing items that you are grateful that you own. How wonderful would that be? Everywhere you turn and every time you use something you get a warm fuzzy feeling of satisfaction and thankfulness.

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Quick question :~ Are any readers having problems with accessing 365 Less Things at the moment. I am seeing no problems at my end but one of my readers is. Please let me know if you are experiencing problems so we can investigate what could be causing it. Thank you.

Today’s Mini Mission

 Declutter craft fabrics that you haven’t had inspiration to use in a long time.

Today’s Declutter Item

Now here is an item that I was grateful to have while it was useful to me. I was also grateful that it cost me next to nothing and I more than got my money’s worth out of it. Now that I have decluttered so much I no longer have a use for it. I have given in to a friend who hopefully will appreciate it as much as I did.

Storage Bins

Eco Tip for the Day

Don’t throw those old sheets, towels, blankets and pillow in the trash donate them to an animal shelter, humane society, wildlife rescue service, kennel or veterinary surgery.

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’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

My mother is a famous procrastinator, at least according to my father. He once bought her a t-shirt with a letter printed on it that said, “Ken, I promise to stop procrastinating. Later. -Rosalie.”

Considering that I think my mother never stops moving and doing, I’m not really sure what he was talking about. Maybe’s she’s changed over time. I know that in terms of procrastination, I can change from week to week.

What I find is that procrastination doesn’t save time; it creates work, clutter, and distraction.

Obviously we can’t do every single thing we think needs to be done the moment we think about it, but have you ever found a “to do” on your desk and realize it’s been there a month? How about two months or a year? I have. If it’s been there a year, maybe it never really needed to be done in the first place, or maybe you’ve got a bill or responsibility that is way, way overdue.

Simply in looking around my own house, here are some ideas about how procrastination creates trouble:

• Clothes left in the washer sour and have to be rewashed. Clothes left in the dryer wrinkle terribly and have to be ironed.
• Dishes left unwashed attract bugs.
• Paper left undone creates late notices from the bank and a feeling of shame and disorganization.
• A pile of stuff by the door that needs to go to the thrift store looks cluttered, encourages mess, and may start to shrink as people sneak items back out of the pile and into the house, where they’ll eventually have to be re-sorted again.

One of the things that amazes me the most about procrastination is often how quickly the job can be taken care of. Obviously, I’m not talking about cleaning the whole garage in 5 minutes. But you can pay a bill, hang the dry clothes, load the dishwasher, and put the items for the thrift store in your car, all within about five minutes.

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

A stitch in time saves nine.

If it only take 5 minutes, do it now and do it right.

Today’s Mini Mission

 Declutter something from your living room.

Today’s Declutter Item

Here is something that has been taking up plenty of space in my shed for some time. The friend I was giving it to finally came to pick it up and I am glad to see the back of it.

Corner Display Shelves

Eco Tip for the Day

As Cindy’s post indicates ~ Don’t leave tasks linger for so long that you have to redo them such as drying the washing or folding it. This can cause you to have to waste more electricity, time and wear and tear on your appliances.

“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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

Perfectionism. Can you be too perfect? Oh yeah. Ironically, many cluttered people are perfectionists. Certainly perfectionism was one of the anchors that used to hold me back.

Wanting everything to be perfect can keep you from making progress in a number of ways:

• You don’t have the perfect organization system, so you have no system.
• You can’t get rid of something because you need to determine the perfect person / perfect place for that item to go next.
• You know the perfect person – the exact perfect person – and the fact that you only see them once every two years is not going to budge you from hanging onto the item until that day comes around again.
• You’re afraid that you don’t have the perfect amount of time necessary to tackle a decluttering job as perfectly as it deserves, so you don’t start…ever.
• You fear that your efforts will get messed up – they won’t remain perfect, so why get started at all?

Good enough is good enough! Are your ideas about perfection – both its desirability and your ability to achieve it – holding you back from making progress? One day at a time, one thing at a time will get you where you want to go. No perfection necessary.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter one electronic gadget that really only added to your ways to waste precious time while not really improving or simplifying your life as promised.

Today’s Declutter Item

This fuel can is yet another item that has managed to escape my notice for a long time. Being as we no longer have a lawn mower and we have two other plastic fuel containers (one of those will be going to if I have my way) I am pretty sure we don’t need this one. Someone else will be glad to take it off my hands though I am sure.

Fuel Can

Eco Tip for the Day

Don’t ignore dripping taps. Replace the washers as soon as possible.

“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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. That’s a saying we’ve all heard and probably have said. I first truly appreciated the saying at the first garage sale I ever held as an adult. As we raised the garage door at 8:00 am, shoppers began ducking under the rising door, eager to be the first inside. The very first thing that sold was a men’s electric razor for $5. The next thing to sell was a rusted kitchen knife for 10 cents. That’s when I first came to believe that you really can sell anything.

But, of course, decluttering doesn’t have to be about selling, as we have discussed many times on this blog.

I think there are two things you need in order to make any trash to treasure (T2T) work. 1) a place for your “trash” to go and 2) and more importantly, a willingness to find that place.

Let’s start with the easiest examples.

Have Trash: your old clothes. Make Treasure: donate them to the thrift store. That’s how you turn clothing T2T.

Okay, duh Cindy, that’s obvious, but no one would want my XX. You think not? Let’s recall some of the tougher items I’ve decluttered.

Have Trash: 3 pounds of sour cream with about 1/2 C missing and a bottle of salad dressing with one salad’s worth missing. To make this into treasure, you are probably the biggest obstacle. Your embarrassment about offering slightly used food to others is holding you back from making this into treasure. I took a deep breath and offered these two things on my neighborhood list serve. Both had multiple people willing to take them off my hands. The person who took the sour cream just happened to be having a party that weekend and was pleased to have a base for various dips. She made a sour cream cake with the rest.

Have trash: Things which can be recycled, but it’s inconvenient. To make treasure: It’s your responsibility to dispose to things responsibly and in the best way your community demands. Batteries can be saved up and returned to the battery store, Home Depot or Lowes, and probably your community recycling center. The same with Compact Florescent Lightbulbs (except they go back to the lightbulb store, not the battery store). Try this mindset: You were perfectly willing to drive all over town to acquire these items. You should put at least this much effort into recycling them. (Or you can make battery art, like this creative soul.)

Have trash: Sentimental item you dislike. Make treasure: Again, you’re the obstacle here. You have to know that it’s not your responsibility to hang onto other people’s memories, stuff from the dead, or gifts you hate. Make treasure: As we occasionally say in our house, You gotta put your big girl pants on. Be okay with the fact that you don’t want these things. Then ask among the relatives (and don’t listen to their silly attempts to guilt-trip you into keeping the item), donate to a historical society (if appropriate), give to the thrift store, sell on EBay, donate on Craigslist or Freecycle. Recently my cousin has had great luck selling on Facebook classified ads, which I don’t know anything about. She lives in the country. Her rural location does not stop her from selling and buying used, and it shouldn’t stop you either.

Have trash: A wierd, awkward, or very one-of-a-kind item. Make treasure: These things are perfect for Freecycle or the free column on Craigslist. I have Freecycled battered used wooden fencing – twice (once it was used to make a goat pen and once it was used to make rustic mailboxes), and we let people pick through our construction dumpster for a single piece of wood they needed. A broken antique mirror frame with no mirror went to a furniture refinisher. Either he’ll fix it when he’s got time or he’ll use the pieces to fix up something else. A huge box of old cassette tapes were happily snapped up by a fellow driving a really old pick up truck – no CD player in that thing. All of our pencils that had been used until they were really short, and all the pens that worked but we didn’t like for some reason went to our daughters’ school. “Pencils of shame” we call them, because they were saved for girls who forgot to bring their pencils to class.

Have trash: Dirty, torn or stained clothing. Make treasure: Call around to your local thrift stores; it is likely that at least one of them is also in the fiber business. I had a hard time finding this information in my community, but it turns out that both the Salvation Army and Goodwill take items for fiber. I just need to label the bag clearly with “For Fiber. Do Not Sort.” and drop at any Salvation Army or Goodwill location. How easy is that? Now in addition to the bag I always have for items to donate to the thrift store, I have a bag for fiber too. Make treasure, part 2: In addition, when I converted my entire lawn to garden, I smothered the grass with layers of old clothing, sheets, and blankets that I have saved over the years. It made as good of layer as the cardboard I also used. Occasionally I dig up a button or a string of elastic from the garden from the fibers that have now decomposed.

What’s your hardest thing that you think you can’t find a good second life for? Let’s work together and see what we can come up with.

For more great tips on recycling your stuff check out 365’s Recycle Guide

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter one dust collecting ornament.

Today’s Declutter Item

I performed only one task with this mug, a task that could be performed by something else that had multiple uses. Hence this item was just wasting space in my kitchen.

Enamel Mug

Eco Tip for the Day

When doing your weekly shop put a shopping basket in your shopping cart to put your fruit and vegetables in rather than bag everything up separately in plastic bags. I have been doing this for years and only once has the checkout person given me grief about having to weigh it this way.

“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

If you have any doubts that you can change your habits of acquiring and keep stuff this link will set your mind at ease. It is always possible to retrain your mind to a new way of doing things no matter how old or set in yours ways you think you are. The desire to change is all it takes to get started.

Here is the link from Creative Affirmations.

The Weekend’s Mini Missions

Saturday – Declutter a Natural Progression item ~ Something that no longer fits, physically or intelectually or has simply been used up or worn out.

Sunday – Declutter a Location Inappropriate item ~ That is something the no longer suits your lifestyle since a location change. Perhaps snow gear if you have moved to warmer climes.

“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

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