Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

Why work harder than you have to for the sake of keep items you don’t need. This week’s mission are designed to have you getting rid of items that you may or may not realise are adding to your work load. Perhaps doing these mission will help you identify other areas of clutter causing your workload to be heavier that it need be.

Monday – Declutter some things that collect dust.

Tuesday – Declutter excess items in a cupboard that make it had to get at what you need.

Wednesday – Declutter items from counter tops that require moving in order to clean the space properly. This may require decluttering some less useful items in cupboards to make room for a little reshuffling.

Thursday – Declutter some things piled on floor making it difficult to vacuum or sweep easily and efficiently.

Friday – Declutter your handbag so it is easy to find what you need in there when you need it.

Saturday – Declutter excess clothes in your closet so it is easy to organise what you do use.

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

It is obvious from the title of today’s post that we are going to focus this week’s mini missions on paper clutter. Quite often we keep, generate and ignore this kind of clutter but a large amount can take up a small physical space while weighing heavily on your mind. And the longer you put off dealing with it the more complicated the task can become. So chip away at it this week and then keep up with it on a regular basis in the future.

Monday – Declutter old receipts that are no longer needed for proof of purchase for the sake of returning items.

Tuesday – Declutter expired warranty papers and manuals for items you no longer own or that you can access online.

Wednesday – Declutter old school papers of either the adults or children in the house.

Thursday – Declutter paper keepsakes that no longer mean that much to you.

Friday – Declutter some paper reading matter such as books, magazines, comics…

Saturday – Declutter some account papers that are past needing keeping. Scan them and save them on your computer if you are concerned you may need to refer back to them.

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

This weeks missions reflect the kinds of thing that I have decluttered in the last week. Lets see if you can find some similar items to declutter.

Monday – Declutter a small piece of furniture or a storage container. I decluttered two bedside tables that had been storing DVDs.

Tuesday – Declutter some digital media, CDs, DVDs, CDRoms, old VHS tapes… . Due to the bedside table declutter some DVDs also were decluttered.

Wednesday – Declutter and item of clothing. I decluttered a dress, not because I wanted to it simply worn out. Split down the back worn out and not worth repairing because the fabric had worn so thin.

Thursday – Declutter an item of jewellery. I decluttered a necklace that I had put aside to deconstruct for craft purposes but never have.

Friday – Declutter a kitchen utensil or two. I decluttered two utensil holders that had served me well in the past. I’d kept them in the back of a cupboard for a while “just in case” but am now satisfied that I have no further need for them.

Saturday – Declutter a couple of toys. I let go of two largish plastic animals, once again kept for craft purposes. Due to the reshuffle that inspired the decluttering of the bedside tables some things had to be fitted in elsewhere. The obvious choice to look and use was my craft storage area, so some things had to go.

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Eco Tip for the Day

Go digital for as many paper items as you can ~ Bills, reading material, recipes, communication…

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

My friend Wendy sent me a photo the other day of a box of magazines she was decluttering. Wendy is very practiced at decluttering, having been reading 365 Less Things for many years. It is how we met in fact. So I was a little surprised at how many magazines she had to declutter. She has been renovating for some time, which is now about finished, and these were home decor magazines for inspiration.  As it turned out she didn’t reference then at all for the reno so out they went while she was decluttering her bookcase.

I am glad she sent me the photo because it inspired me to write this post on my opinion of magazines in general and why I  feel they are such an insidious form of clutter.

My first thought on this subject, judging from past experience, is that magazines are expensive to purchase and usually contain more advertising than actual interesting articles. Once you also eliminate the articles you aren’t interested in, all you are left with is about one third of a magazine that you paid good money for. And then I doubt there is anything in that one third that you couldn’t have sourced free on the internet. And that advertising I mentioned is there to tempt you to acquire stuff that is likely to later end up on your declutter list

Then there is the futile exercise of saving magazines for those few articles that you might want to refer back to later on. Or cutting them out and filing then in plastic sleeves in a folder somewhere. My experience of this is, without proper, time consuming indexing, it is difficult to find those articles again when, or if, you ever do want to reference them. This is another form or aspirational clutter. And once again it is so much easier to find this information on the internet, with a few key words typed into your computers search bar.

I am speaking from experience here. I once used to save every issue of several paper crafting magazines and save clippings from catalogues etc. Now I find all the inspiration or information I need with the tap of a few keys. No, heavy lifting, no allergy issues from the dust when dragged out after long periods, no having to dust them in between times, no big bulky bookcase to store them in, no wasted money, no wasted trees, no frustrating advertising, no agonising over if and when to declutter them, and no constant aspiration of actually doing something with the information in those articles I once thought I couldn’t live without.

So tell me why is it that you buy and save magazines, though I doubt you will tempt me to return to my old habit.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter, by recycling, some old plastic containers you kept aside for storage but find they are building up over time and you now have too many. This used to be a mission I carried out on a regular basis but I don’t seem to buy as much takeout anymore so the containers get used until the wear out.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

Eco Tip for the Day

Think twice about buying paper products. Natural old growth forest is better for the environment than cutting them down to make way for fast growing trees for paper pulp. Even the recycling of paper is a water and power intensive process.  Mind you this tip is a bit hypocritical of me being as I am a paper crafter.

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

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

When beginning this post I didn’t have a theme so I thought I would just begin making up random missions. However the very first mission yielded me a theme so I ran with it in the hope I could come up with six missions to match. As it turned out this was an easy set of missions to come up with. Good luck finding your examples of these and happy decluttering.

Monday – Declutter, by recycling, some old magazines that you no longer reference. I don’t have this problem because I find magazines to be a complete waste of money these days. You can read about that in a later post this week.

Tuesday – Declutter, by recycling,  some glass bottles or jars that you thought might come in useful some day. I found several of these building up in one of my upper kitchen cupboards last week.

Wednesday – Declutter, by recycling, some old plastic containers you kept aside for storage but find they are building up over time and you now have too many. This used to be a mission I carried out on a regular basis but I don’t seem to buy as much takeout anymore so the containers get used until the wear out.

Thursday – Declutter, by recycling, packaging materials that you haven’t got around to using for a long time. My hubby took care of this mission last weekend.

Friday – Declutter, by recycling old plastic plant pots. I recycled a few of these last week.

Saturday – Declutter, by recycling, old papers from your filing system or keepsake box that no longer need to be kept. Be ruthless about this because paper is one of the most insidious kinds of clutter that can be a pain to deal with if you don’t stay on top of the task by eliminating on a regular basis.

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Eco Tip for the Day

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

I received this story from Claire at the bottom of a long list of comments to Wednesday’s post. It is a cautionary tale of a near catastrophe all in the attempt to save some meaningless stuff. She learned more than one lesson through this experience. One is don’t risk your neck to save something far less important, and the other, sometimes you must make a choice of what is more important in your life. In her case the choice was pets or stuff likely to be damaged by said pets. Here is what Claire wrote.

“Colleen, I have a decluttering story I don’t know where to post but knew someone here would appreciate!  It goes along with a recent comment where we were discussing how many vases we all have in a different post.  I remarked that we have five vases that I could think of and could probably get rid of one or two of those.  

Well, last night at 11 pm my cats decided to chase each other onto the dining room table which they have done several times since I have been letting them play together (one is 2 years old and one is 6 months).  I have two matching vases on the dining room table – I used to have three but the 2 year old knocked one off when he was 6 months old…..and then there were two.

Well, as you can guess the cats knocked over both vases last night and I spun around from the kitchen sink to see this and ran into the dining room, about a distance of only 10 ft.  The vases were rolling across the dining table – when I bit the dust and slipped on our polished concrete floors.  I landed on my leg, rear and bad arm.  Thankfully my husband was running in from the other room and caught both vases before they hit the concrete.  I sat on the floor another 5 minutes laughing and crying.  It was pretty comical – if it hadn’t hurt so much!  I’m lucky to be just a bit sore today but I cringe at how close I came to hitting my head on the stone countertop or corner of the glass dining table.  

Here’s the decluttering part – I KNEW this would happen!  I knew someday the cats would knock over one or more of those vases again and just assumed that at most I would lose another vase and would have to clean up 1,000 pieces of pottery from the concrete floor. That would have been bad enough.  But I didn’t calculate that one or two of us would be risking our neck to run to catch them.  Something told me when the first one broke that the others were an accident waiting to happen, I should have gotten rid of them then.  So last night, when I finally got up off the floor, I put both of those vases in a box in the give away pile!  Bummer is, I still think they are pretty and really like them!  They are just too unstable for a house with cats.  Lesson is, I guess, what you think might happen probably will, and might even come with a consequence or two that you didn’t imagine!  Stuff isn’t worth a broken bone or worse……”

Have you ever encountered a clash between lifestyle choices and your home setup ~ pets and breakables on display, kids and pale carpet, allergies and furnishings, furniture and floorspace, kitchen gadgets and cupboard space, fashion and closet size, husband and decor choices (ha ha), laziness and tidiness, convenience and order… .  No matter what the situation there are choices to be made. We need to decide what is more important to us and then take the necessary steps to act of those choices. For Claire it was the cats, the vases or be prepared to clean up the mess rather than risk life and limb the next time the cats are up to mischief. I sure, she loves the cats, and it is hard not to act on impulse in the face of calamity so the safest thing to do was to declutter the vases. Yes she could store them in a cupboard somewhere, but for what? To bring them out when there are flowers to display and add extra potential mess to the inevitable. I don’t think so.

So be realistic about what is most important to you. There are always compromised to be made. Consider all those compromises when choosing what to keep in your home. I know I would choose piece of mind over stuff any day.

Today’s Mini Mission

If you have stuff stored under beds in your home take a look and see if you can find something there to declutter.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

This week some out of sight our of mind items have been decluttered from my home. Actually in my case they were out of sight but there isn’t much I own that is out of mind, but you get the idea. My husband reassessed our storage cage in the garage and threw out lots of boxes. On my quest to answer Moni’s question about how many vases do we all own, I found some utensil stands I am sure now that I will never use again, and more empty jars than I realised I had, up in the deepest depth of the highest kitchen cupboard. So what do you have lurking in those out of the way places that you rarely look in? This week’s mini mission will help you find out.

Monday – Declutter an item lurking in your attic, basement or garage space.

Tuesday – Check if there is something in your keepsake box that you are willing to let go of.

Wednesday – Declutter something hiding, and rarely if ever used, in the back of a kitchen cupboard.

Thursday – Declutter something other than clothing on the floor or high shelf your closet.

Friday – If you have stuff stored under beds in your home take a look and see if you can find something there to declutter.

Saturday – Find something to declutter in your laundry or linen cupboard.

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Eco Tip for the Day

Learn some simple mending techniques so you can get the most our of your clothing.

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

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

If you only took a stocktake of everything in your home that is only there out of convenience rather than necessity you would shocked. And if only you could convince yourself as to how inconvenient, and sometimes costly, those convenience items really are then you would probably be able to find a lot more stuff in your homes to declutter. I am going to be keeping and eye out for such conveniences in my home this week. And today’s mini mission will drawer your attention as to what some of those items may be in yours. So, happy decluttering.

Monday – Declutter a small single use gadget in your kitchen. Really consider how much time it saves you, on what sort of frequency and whether the time saved is then wasted on the awkwardness to clean the item or in finding it among the plethora of other equally not-so-convenient items.

Tuesday – Declutter or start a use-it-up challenge on consumable items that you have multiples of. Toiletries and cleaners are always a good example of this. Because they generally last a while so there is no need to have a replacement on hand until these items are in imminent likelihood of running out. Anything beyond that is a waste of space in your cupboards.

Wednesday – Declutter or start a use it up challenge on gift wrapping items. Usually one needs to leave the home to acquire a gift so why not acquire a gift bag at the same time in future. There is really no need to keep a large assortment of these items in your home.

Thursday – Declutter some excess crockery items. If you have layers of crockery that you never get to the bottom of then you have more than you need. Toppling layers of plates, variations of items that perform the same task, rows of coffee mugs that you never get to the back of… . Yes it is convenient to have lots so you don’t have to clean them too often but that just makes for a cluttered, messy and unhygienic kitchen.

Friday – Start a use it up challenge on a throw away convenience item that is not so environmentally friendly, and vow not to replace it. Paper towel, cling wrap, any sort of wet wipes, bottled water…

Saturday – Declutter a number of small items that you have dispersed throughout your home to save the small effort of walking from one room to another. Multiple trash cans, pens, notebooks, nail files, hand lotion, reading glasses, hair ties, charging cables…

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Eco Tip for the Day

There are many convenience items that are less than environmentally friendly yet are quite easy to live without. Cling wrap, paper towel, wet wipes, throw away shopping bags. Consider learning to live without them. Remember REFUSE, reuse, reduce, recycle.

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

I have experienced examples lately on how clutter can lead to disorganisation which in turn causes more clutter. Actually, in the cases I am thinking of, the clutter is useful and used stuff but in such abundance that it ends up scattered making items hard to find. This can then lead to acquiring more of the same because of the mistaken idea that things have run out.

Of course this isn’t something new to me, I have written about it more than once already. However it is worth a repeat mention on a regular basis. My own craft supplies can get like this at times. Usually due to the fact that I like to use up every square inch of paper or cardstock that I have, so I punch shapes from the little leftovers which build up if I don’t make a concerted effort to incorporate them into a card design. Also sharing supplies between friends can lead to the organisation of lots of little bits of this and that getting out of control. I am making that concerted effort to use up or consolidate such items at them moment.

But enough about my own example as I have encountered far worse in my travels. When it comes to supplies of any kind I have found it best to allocate a space for such things and be determined to confine my supplies to always fit within that space. As soon as there is an overflow, storage of like items become scattered. When required the first place to look is the usual location, and then it gets tricky, because you then have to remember where else you stashed the stuff. Inevitably the conclusion is arrived at that you are indeed out of a supply and a replacement is acquired. Then as sure as snow is white, the others shows up when searching for something else soon after.

In the case of large pantries things get lost behind other stuff. I find this is especially so if you are inclined to stock up on sale items of frequently used food stuffs. Inevitably these items end up at the forefront while less used items get shuffled back. Then on the rare occasion when the less used stuff is required it is so hard to find that a replacement is acquired. Thus cluttering up the pantry even more with things going out of date before ever getting used up. This is especially so if more than just grocery items are stored in a large pantry. Add paper towel, food wraps, medications, appliances, utensils, shopping bags etc and things can get really out of control. Being disorganised has its own cost on your time and sanity, so weigh up the pros and cons of whether cost savings are really worth it.

Then there is wardrobe overflow. Too many clothes equals not enough space in your closet, then items get stored in whatever spare space is available. When there is an abundance of clothing one can also get rather blasé about the necessity of regular laundering. Then when an item is needed, especially a work related item, it isn’t unusual for it not to be in immediate wearable condition. This is bad enough when the item needs ironing when you need to be out the door in ten minutes, but imagine the panic that sets in when an item is soiled beyond use in this situation. My experience is that a limited, organised assortment of clothing forces more attention on to the care of them, which generally results in keeping better control of their rotation through your wardrobe.

So think twice about overstocking. It really can add complication to your life that you may not even notice until you feel the relief when it is gone. If you don’t believe me try reducing in a small area ~perhaps your stationery supplies or your bathroom cabinet ~ and just see how much easier it is to keep the area tidy, find what you need and not waste time choosing when less variety is available.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter an item from a bedroom of your home.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

Eco Tip for the Day

Save on waste by not allow perishable supplies to go out of date in your home. The best way to achieve this is by not stocking an overabundance.

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

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

This week we are going to go from one room in the house to another to find random things to declutter. Each day will be a different room. If you haven’t got that room substitute it with another area of your home that isn’t already on the list of mini missions.

Monday – Declutter an item from the living room of your home.

Tuesday - Declutter an item from a bedroom of your home.

Wednesday - Declutter an item from a bathroom of your home.

Thursday - Declutter an item from the kitchen of your home.

Friday - Declutter an item from the garage, attic or basement space of your home.

Saturday - Declutter an item from the laundry of your home.

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Eco Tip for the Day

Experiment to see how little washing detergent/powder your washing machine really needs to get a load of washing clean. It is usually much less than the manufacturers suggestion. Just reduce it a little at a time. So long as the loads are cleaning then you need no more.

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