Ahhh, procrastination how that can clutter up your mind and paralyze you into ineffectiveness. I can spend days on procrastinating about something that will probably physically only take ten minutes to deal with. How crazy is that.

At this moment there are four little white dishes on my craft table with unfinished projects, repair jobs and samples that await my attention or for the artistic inspiration to create something with. I look at them quite regularly and they annoy me no end yet I leave them sitting there taunting me day in day out while I find “better” things to do with my time.

At lease one of these projects is something that will be leaving my house once it is completed therefore designated to the title of  clutter while sitting there. I think today is the day to do something about it.

I challenge you to find some clutter in your house today that you have been procrastinating over and do something about it.

This is the necklace I created from one of the dishes on my craft table. I am sure my friend will love it and I am glad the procrastination is over and there is a little less stuff cluttering up my craft room. I also repaired one pair of earings, finished making a second pair, completed a necklace I had started months ago and packaged up some beads of my mum’s that I will start on today (hopefully).

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

I find the easy way to clean metal window frame channels is to use a stiff bristle artist brush and a vacuum cleaner. Scrub the channel with the brush and suck up the dust with the vacuum cleaner as you go.

Forgive me for being a little deep and meaningful with today’s topic but there is plenty of truth in the message I am trying to convey.

Clutter is often the physical manifestation of something Psychological.

Three examples of the psychological motivation behind accumulating stuff

• Vanity : “Showing off” stuff because you think it makes you look somehow better to others.
• Insecurity : “Keeping” stuff to make you feel like you are prepared for any situation that may arise.
• Unhappiness : “Substituting” stuff, to make up for, something else missing in your life.

I am sure we have all fallen prey to at least one if not all of these weaknesses at one time or another.

Take a look at the stuff you are having trouble parting with. Consider for a minute why you acquired these items in the first place and what is stopping you from parting with them. Acknowledge the emotions at play here and free yourself of the burden that binds you to the object. You are better than that and you don’t need it so let it go.

But in the case of this drill, we just have more than one so this one has to go.

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.