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 I have tried to put together six missions involving items that you may not of thought to declutter as yet. They, like last week are items that I don’t mention very often or perhaps, in some cases, not at all. As usual, if you have already decluttered these items or never had them in the first place, perhaps they will jog ideas of similar items you haven’t dealt with yet.

Monday – Declutter any too large suitcases you avoid using because of their bulk. Firstly there is rarely a need to pack so much stuff. Want maybe, but need, not so likely. Secondly, once these cases are packed they are too heavy to manoeuvre.

Tuesday – Declutter any saucepans or frying pans you simply don’t use. These are bulky items that waste a lot of space if they are kept for those just-in-case moments. They are also items that can easily be borrowed from a friend, relative or neighbour in the rare case they are necessary.

Wednesday – Declutter disposable items from your home and your shopping list. For example ~ Cling film, aluminium foil, paper napkins, paper towel, dryer sheets, wet wipes. Utilise other items in your home that can easily take their place. The environment and your bank account will be all the healthier for it. I haven’t eliminated all of these things from my home but I use so little of the ones I do still keep (paper towel and aluminium foil) that I buy them in small quantities and only replace them when they totally run out. And before anyone tells me that these things are cheaper in large quantities, think for a minute about how easy it is to be wasteful with stuff when there is plenty on hand.

Thursday – Declutter parts of sets that aren’t being utilised. It isn’t compulsory to keep sets together. In the past I have sold or donated attachments to kitchen gadgets, a strainer from a pasta pot, saucers from a dinner set…

Friday – Declutter items adorning benches that just make cleaning more of a chore. Kitchen benches and bathroom cabinets are  areas prone to this nuisance clutter. In bathrooms particularly there is not need to keep everything you use, once or at best twice a day, sitting on the bench top. It takes a fraction of a second to open a door or a drawer.

Saturday – Declutter an item that you keep as a backup for something similar. One reader last week said she had a backup electric kettle. If she disliked it so much there is a good chance she isn’t going to revert back to it should the better one stop working. Cell phones are another item that people tend to have several of. One is fine, more than that is just excessive. These are both cases of buying something when the current one was perfectly fine. We are all guilty of this I am sure.

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

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 for our mini mission I tried to come up with suggestions that I don’t cover very often. Some things like kitchen, linen, stationery and beauty items, knick knacks and clothes appear here often so I thought I would steer away from them this week. I hope you can find an item appropriate to each day’s mission but if you can’t just come up with your own idea. Good luck!

Monday – Declutter some printed photos. Poor quality images, duplicates and images of stuff you care little or nothing about.

Tuesday – Declutter a sports related item. No longer used equipment, uniforms, souvenirs or even trophies.

Wednesday – Declutter a music related item. Old records, cassettes or CD’s you no longer listen to. When I occasionally feel like listening to something that isn’t among my usual selection I just go to YouTube. There is no need to keep once-in-a-while music on hand these days.

Thursday – Declutter excess cushions and throw rugs. The ones you sit or drape on furniture as a decor item. They are a pain when you want to sit down and are just in your way. Perhaps a few of those six cushions/pillows on your bed that you pull off and put back on every night and morning.

Friday – Declutter a few excess picnic items that you keep for those rare occasions when you actually do eat outdoors. Or ones that are completely unnecessary even if you do picnic often.

Saturday – Declutter one or two storage containers that you have eliminated the need for through you decluttering efforts. Having these items hanging around gives you permission to fall off the decluttering wagon. You don’t want to do that now do you?

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 mini missions are all about bringing your attention to items that have a tendency to unnecessarily build up, be decluttered and build up again. I made that sound like this happens without our being responsible for it but we all know that we are. We succumb to the temptation to replace perfectly serviceable items with something new whether we need it or not. Lets see how many of these items you can find to declutter in your home. But more than that, become aware that you are doing this and consider a change in this behaviour from here on.

I am not going to mention clothing or shoes in this list because that would be the most obvious choice for this category. However give some thought to your habits in this area and consider what you might do to improve on your initial choices that might help help avert this happening in the future.

Monday – Declutter a decor item that has been stashed away out of sight. ~ Do you find yourself refreshing your decor with an endless parade of decorator items. I would suggest displaying meaningful/sentimental items rather than hiding them away in a closet somewhere. You will be less inclined to dismiss and replace them so easily.

Tuesday – Declutter any pet toys that are overabundant in your home.  ~ Do you buy a new toy to amuse you pet with on a regular basis when their old toys are still in reasonable condition. Slowly they build up and then you find yourself throwing away the oldest or less loved items whether they are worn out or not. Think of the money you could save.

Wednesday – Declutter excess bath towels and in future only replace them when they wear out ~ Judging from many of the linen closets I encounter, during visiting friends and relatives, I would say the people generally replace towels on a far too regular basis. Not because they are no longer capable of the task of drying but simply because they are considered decor items that are to be replaced when tired of.

Thursday – Declutter any kitchen utensils or gadgets that you don’t use often enough to warrant keeping. ~ Who isn’t on the lookout for something that can make our workload lighter. When it comes to the home the kitchen is a major source of this focus. The problem is that many of the gadgets on the market don’t live up to their promise to lighten that load. The utensils drawer ends up with three different styles of peelers, can openers, potato mashers etc and the shelves are packed with all manner of electric gadgets. I must say that some credit has to be given to anyone who still believes on home cooking rather than caving into buying, not always healthy, prepared meals, but be sceptical about the usefulness or such gadgets.

Friday – Declutter any stationery items that are overstocked in your home. Especially if they were purchased for their novelty factor. Cute pens, pencils, erasers, notebooks, thumb tacks, paperclips etc. ~ You may think this is an odd thing to suggest but you might be surprised at how often inexpensive items such as these are purchased when they aren’t needed.

Saturday – Declutter any children’s toys that are neglected, broken or perhaps never were enjoyed.~ Children don’t need more and more toys they need to be left to use their imaginations with a smaller selection. And they aren’t a substitute for quality time spent with parents and friends. If you find it necessary to allocate a room in your home just to store toys then you most likely have too many.

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

Reduce the number it items you buy just for the novelty factor, be they for you or as a gift for someone else.

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

Deb J

I have never been very sentimental toward things. I have had a few collections over the years and they kept mostly because I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of those who had given them to me. I found myself attaching to people. I never wanted to let go of anyone once they had been in my life. I wrote letters for years to many of the people who had come and gone in my life. When email came along I switched to emailing them and then later to Facebook (FB) if they had an account.

In mid May someone made a comment on 365 Less Things that set me to thinking. I wish I could remember who and could quote the comment. I just know I suddenly realized that I had a clutter area that I needed to work on. It was my email list and FB list. I realized that I had a lot of people on both and that I was spending a lot of time reading status reports and sending emails. I also realized that I had a pretty long list of people I sent homemade birthday or anniversary cards to. With some of the other changes I am making in my life I had to examine these areas to see why I was so dutifully engaged in this.

One of the first things I realized was that many of the people I emailed or send cards to never responded back. Oh, they seemed to like reading my messages but I never heard anything about their lives. I had the same thing going on when it came to FB. Many of them would have all of these pictures, jokes, etc. they posted but little about themselves and their actual lives. I sat down with these lists and began to set some priorities and guidelines. I began to delete friends and addresses.

On FB I had 93 friends when I started this process. I now have about 40. I am part of a FB group for our church so anyone who is in that group is no longer a FB friend in the regular friend area. I don’t need them in two places. It’s the important stuff they put on the church group page that is what I want not the games, likes, jokes, political stuff, etc. In the regular area I have kept my few family members who have FB accounts, some close friends who I hear from all the time, and a few friends who only post on a occasional basis but who are very important to me. I read FB once a day now.

In my address book I removed everyone who I have not heard from in a long time. As I went through that book I realized I had 20+ names of people who I had been sending a Christmas card to plus quarterly emails and not once had I received more than maybe a Christmas card with nothing but their name signed. Hmmm! I don’t seem to be important to them. That’s okay. Things change in our lives and that means we even lose some friends we cared about and were close to at one time. I took those names out of my Outlook address book. I also went through and deleted a number of email addresses for this same reason.

The last thing I went through was my list of birthdays and anniversaries. I realized that only a few of them really cared about receiving a homemade card (or any card). These were mostly family. So I took all those names and listed most of them either FB or email birthday/anniversary greetings. Less postage was a bonus benefit, and better for the environment

Does this sound unfriendly to you? Do you have the same dilemma? Have you even considered this as a place to declutter? I have to tell you that it was a huge change for me. It took lots of consideration. I was so used to making the effort to keep up with people. I had all of this done near the beginning of June. It’s been quite feeling of freedom since then. I expected guilt or something to overtake me. It hasn’t. I feel like this was long overdue. I don’t think anyone will notice.

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

Deb J

All of us have varying comfort zones. There are just some items, people, ideas, and/or places that mean home to us. That doesn’t mean that home can’t be moved but when that happens there are certain accoutrements to making up “home.” This is our comfort zone. The things we fight to not change. If this is going to happen then this has to happen too. We tend to set those Comfort Zone (CZ) items in concrete. Unfortunately, many times this hinders us rather than helping us. In fact, it tends to keep us rooted in the past.

Along comes change. Someone/something wants to take us out of our CZ. We fight it. We drag our feet, wail, throw a fit, or just plant ourselves in one spot. Our CZ is just that. The things/people that bring us comfort. They give us a feeling of safety. But what if that safety is all a hoax? What if you were to find that the best time of your life was on the other side of the change you are fighting? What if you were to find that your present CZ was actually stunting your growth as a person, couple or family, was weighing you down so you couldn’t soar in your job, hobby or life, was preventing you from having the money for those bucket list items, or was just keeping you from something you never dreamed of?

I learned a lesson about this several times. Once big time was when my father died and I suddenly had a mother and her bills to take care of. It meant moving, keeping jobs I was not fond of at the beginning because I had to have a job and having less money than I would have liked. But it also led to living in places we loved, making friends we still have, and having 3 jobs that used my talents to the fullest and made me very happy.

The second time was when I went from having an upper middle class income, a challenging and interesting job, and fairly good health to a poverty level income, no job and diseases that make every day a challenge. I quickly lost many things that had been part of my life for a long time—season tickets at the symphony, enjoying a night out with friends, having a new car every two-three years, having whatever furniture or clothes I wanted. Not that I was into things that much but your lifestyle tends to follow along with the income you make.

Suddenly I no longer had any of those. In fact, I had way too much that no longer fit my life. So I started to declutter it all. Some of it was easy. Why have fancy work clothes when I didn’t need them? Some of it I fought. Why do I have to give up the symphony? Why do we have to move? Why can’t I have the doctors I want instead of having a small list to choose from? On and on it went. It has been 8 years since I was blasted out of my last CZ. It has not been easy and some of the changes have been very hard. Yet, here I am living in a new CZ. Things in my life are much different. Yes I am content. I have found I don’t need all those things I no longer have. I have found that little is much and enough. My CZ is different. It is no longer based on the things I have or how much of them, where I live, who is there. It is based on knowing I have enough to live. Oh, sure, there are some things I miss and would do again if I could but they are not so important that I get upset without them. I have a happy life because I have chosen it. All of those things I had were a way of keeping me from a path that is much more satisfying. I know that sounds odd but it is true. With fewer things to drag me down I am able to fly. It’s wonderful.

Perhaps your stuff has clipping your wings, think about it. Is your comfort zone smaller than you realise?

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

Deb J

I’ve been taking an inventory of what we own. I’ve never done this to the extent I am doing it right now. It’s for insurance purposes but also because I really want to know. What do we own? Do we need to own it?

I’m not listing every little thing. For instance, I listed things like 8 place settings of Corelle dishes rather than each individual one. I listed 8 place settings of Oneida stainless. I made sure to take pictures so that I could “show” what we own. I have a long way to go to finish the list as we still own lots of things.

When I started this list I took pictures first, pictures of the big pieces of furniture, shelving units, behind doors and inside drawers in cupboards, and in closets. Now I am in the listing portion. I’m excited to say that we have two empty cupboards—over the refrigerator and the stove. Then it gets complicated. We have all these other cupboards that are full. Not full to the brim but well populated.

As I was taking pictures I realized that we still had too much. That’s when I began decluttering more from the scrapbook supplies, the books, and the shed. But still we need to declutter more. Where do I see the issues? Books. Ribbon. Plastic food storage containers. Specialty dishes we haven’t used in the 20 years my father has been gone. Clothes in Mom’s closets. “Stuff” in the two bathroom closets. Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

I am glad to report that my mother is beginning to see that we have too much. It helps to have the pictures and all the pages and pages of inventory. I realized something. Anyone can see what needs to still be done in their home without going to the time and stress of making an inventory. You don’t even need to take pictures. Oh, I admit both help. But, the big thing is just looking. Really looking.

If you open a door and something at the back of the shelf has you wondering what it is, you probably don’t need it. If the only time you open a drawer is to see what is in it, you probably don’t need that stuff either. If you were to sit down and just list the hiding spots (drawers, cupboards, other storage) in a room and you don’t know what is in each one, you might need to declutter. Think about it a while. Go through your house and do a mental inventory by taking quick mental pictures. How many new things do you see that you can work on? Good luck!!

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

Cindy

My family was on vacation for two weeks. Of course, that means we returned home to an empty refrigerator, or did it? Well, there was no fruit, vegetables, milk, dairy  or meat, but there sure were a bunch on condiments. This was made even more obvious by the fact that there was nothing else in there. I decided it would be a great time to give the fridge a big wipe out, and to see what was what among the condiments.

Yikes! And it turns out that there was still more in the fridge when I took this photo. Oh my goodness. There were a few things that passed their expiration date last year, and it was easy to get rid of them. Next, I looked at what I had and combined like with like. (Why did I have 2 jars of spicy peppers?) In addition, I found one jar that unopened plus one of the same that was opened. That’s a waste of precious refrigerator space.

When I was finished, it looked like this:

Now I can see, reach, and find everything, and I know it’s all safe and fresh. When was the last time you cleaned out the condiments in your refrigerator.

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

When we think of big decluttering tasks we often get deterred before we even begin. But the truth is just about every decluttering task can be broken down into smaller tasks. Below are some suggestions as to how you might break a bigger task down into manageable and less daunting segments. These are just suggestions you, however, can tweak them to suit your circumstances or method of storing/arranging things.

Instead of thinking about decluttering…

• …a closet ~ consider breaking it down to decluttering one shelf at a time, one section of a hanging rail or one area of the floor.
• …the Garden shed ~ one day remove any stuff you can see that needs throwing in the trash. Next day sort through the big gardening tools. Next day the pots etc.
• …the kitchen ~ commit to decluttering one shelf or drawer a day until the task is complete.
• …the linen closet ~ One day sort through the bath towels, the next day the sheets, the next day the face cloths and hand towels and so on until you are done.
• … the living room ~ first sort through the DVDs, then the coffee table, then one shelf in the china cabinet… until all is done.
• …the garage ~ break it down to sporting equipment, car related stuff, separate sections of tools, paint cans, hardware supplies and so on. Or simply divide the area into quickly manageable section. For instance if you have a double garage whose floor comprises eight concrete slabs use those as your sections.
• …a bookcase ~ one shelf at a time, one author, one subject, a dozen books at a time using a marker to indicate where you left off. A ruler is good for this.
• …a desk ~ clear one drawer at a time and then the top or divide the top into sections depending or how big of messy it is.
• …filing cabinet ~ choose one hanging file at a time and declutter its contents. Leave a post-it note or similar marker to indicate which file you are up to, so the next time you have time you continue the task where you left off.

Be sure to not leave too much time between sessions or you may get confused as to where you are up to, or clutter things up again before you complete the task. Hopefully recluttering won’t be a problem because you will have learned by now not to reclutter while you declutter. This is best achieved by not bringing new stuff in.

So if you find a task too daunting just break it down and celebrate each section you complete.

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

“I have appreciated my decluttering efforts when having a party, as I wrote before, but never thought I would be finding myself appreciating them in illness. Recently I had health problems that forced me to do some bed rest. I have two young children, so it was only a “kind of” bed rest. However I did not have much energy and the little energy I had was devoted to the children, in the time I had to care for them alone, and not the house.

As you may all imagine, the house was left “to its own devices”. After one week of me doing nothing (my husband washed the dishes everyday) I decided to do something. Surprisingly enough, I only had three loads of laundry to wash (including sheets) and not so many things out of place. Did the house clean itself up? No. As I don’t have as much stuff as I used to have maintenance got easier. Make the beds, wash dishes, sweep the floor, put clothes in the washing machine and the house seems fairly clean. It seems a lot, but as I was a person used to 3 days of mad cleaning to get the house in reasonable order, that really is something else. It also gave me peace to rest. My house was a little messy, but it was not unbearable. It was not cluttered and out of control. I can say that being ill made me want to declutter even more. It made me see that, if I have even less, I can calmly manage a house even if I am ill and depend on others for a while. They will have no trouble keeping my house in order because there is little to keep in order.

As I have chronic conditions now (not life threatening, but that require care), I have to be prepared for bouts of extreme pain that may keep me from most day to day house chores and that will be harder to deal with if I have a cluttered house I have to keep on top of. As I get older I know my body will be more fragile and I don’t want to waste precious energy and possibly putting stress on my body that I can’t take, because of clutter.

As I had time on my hands (arm was hurt and I could not move the mouse, so no computer or internet for me) I started to think about all that I was still keeping that I did not need to keep. I thought about all the stuff that could be decluttered and make my life even simpler. I calmly evaluated room by room in my house and discarded in my mind what was not needed.

So what can you declutter in your house that would help to keep it manageable if you are sick?”

Today’s Mini Mission

Absorb ~ Read a book that has been sitting on your shelf for a while and then declutter it.

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