Hi folks, well all good things must come to and end and my vacation is one of those things. We had a lovely time in Japan but it is always nice to be home again. And now it is back to the decluttering.

We arrived in Japan not long after Christmas and departed in mid January, and what a crazy time it is over there at that time of year. There are lots of New Year celebrations that, among other traditions, seem to involve the purchasing and, I assume, consumption of sweets. I have witnessed the shopping frenzy that goes on in Australia and the USA at this time of year but nothing compares to what I witnessed in Japan. And especially, it seems, at theme parks such as Disneyland. Seriously you can hardly move in the souvenir shops at opening and closing of these parks, and sweets seem to be the main purchasing goal. Given that the word compact would probably describe the majority of homes in Japan, giving consumable gifts would seem a very sensible option. Although I am a little confused as to why there a so few overweight people to be seen, considering the vast quantities and variety of sweet purchases. Clearly the shopping frenzy is not equal to any sort of eating frenzy and these gift must surely be shared among many. However there was still plenty of non consumable souvenir purchasing going on and I am just glad I feel no need to indulge in it.

And on the subject of gifts, I am pleased to say that my family were true to my wishes and did not over endow me with them. Our daughter is going to take us to dinner the next time she is in town and our son and his family gave me mostly items that will be used up (candles, chocolate, wine) and another very small non consumable gift in the way of a key organiser, that is not only minimal in size but practical too.

As a result of my lack of desire for stuff and a little decluttering along the way, I am happy to say that I have made it through the holiday season and a vacation with no more possessions than when I started.  Maybe even fewer.

And today’s decluttering item, which will be going out to a relative, will result in two less skeins of yarn in my meagre yarn stash and has given me something to fill my downtime with (including waiting in cues at theme parks and during train rides and flights) while on my vacation. They are a strange combination of yarn but that is because I didn’t have enough of either to make an entire pair of socks so I simply combined the two. When they are covered with a shoe no one need ever know there is a hidden secret in the way of a splash of red.

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

Wishing all my lovely readers all the very best for the holiday season. 

It is such a busy time of year to be spent with friends and or family and also a good time to take a break from work and other commitments. That being said, as of today I will be taking a one month break from the blog to prepare for my Christmas celebrations and then I am off on a three week vacation. I will be back in the new year, around the end of January, until then I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season and return with great enthusiasm to declutter in 2017.

Cheers from Colleen

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

Hi again folks. The days keep slipping away from me while I have been spending them mostly not at home. This week should be different so I’ll hopefully have time to play catch up and maybe even post more often. Last week I managed to declutter a few things. Actually, as you can probably tell from the mini missions this week, I decluttered a lot of things, however they weren’t from my house. So I have been very busy decluttering one way or another. I certainly have inspired my daughter-in-law. She got so into declutterin in her daughter’s room that I though the poor kids was going to have to run around naked. Well, that may be a bit of an exageration because she still has enough underpants and socks to sink a battle ship so purhaps only half naked. Needless to say the charities will be doing well out of that room alone. Which reminds me, all that stuff is in the trunk of my car so I had better drop it off today.

But back to my decluttering. as I said above it has been a struggle to find the time but I am constantly on the lookout. I found a shirt that I got secondhand, I think for free from a friend, that I was going to alter but have now decided that the colour is too drab so out it goes. I also emptied some more of those spice containers that don’t work well and will be giving them to my friends Wendy F. Then there was the second batch of Christmas cards for the season, which will not be replaced as I stil have an abundance. I’ve used the same photo as the first batch because I forgot to take one in my haste to get them in the post.

“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.

I have been decluttering at my son and daughter-in-laws house while helping take care of my grandson as his mum has just had knee surgery. I am somewhat limited in the areas I can work in while the little guy is napping, so the kitchen has been the focus much of the time. However I have gotten to one other area plus I have identified two others that need serious attention. So all these spaces will be the focus of our mini missions this week. So here goes.

Monday – Declutter at least 5 things from a child’s bedroom or playroom. If you don’t have children then declutter 5 items from your own “play” area.

Tuesday – Declutter some items from your garage or similar storage area.

Wednesday – Declutter some items from your pantry.

Thursday – Declutter out of date medicines.

Friday – Declutter some clothing items.

Saturday – Declutter old bath towels or bed linens.

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

Actually I am not even sure what day I am up to with the Thing A Day mission. I have been so busy with grandparenting this week that I don’t know if I’m coming or going. So lets call it 12, 13 and 14 and I’ll go back and do the count when I get a spare minute. 

Here are the three items for those days and then I want to talk just a little about a non related subject to my items.

Now on that non related topic. The kitchen and all it’s clutter. So while grandparenting I have taken it upon myself to do some decluttering at my son and daughter-in-law’s house. And being that the baby is asleep a lot upstairs, the kitchen, which is downstairs, has been the centre of my attention. So far I have focused on pantry items and have thrown out a far quantity of out of date food stuffs and also began some use it up challenges on things that will expire soon if not eaten.

And once again it has come to my attention that not only are kitchens one of the most likely places for clutter in any home but they are also often so poorly designed. Clutter is bound to accumulate in cabinets of any kind that have deep shelves so why they have so many in the basic kitchen I will never know. This is why I have converted a lot of my shelves to weight bearing drawers. These can be slid out to reveal everything at a quick glance. Unfortunately the home the I am working on is even more poorly designed than most and doesn’t even have a proper pantry, has a very deep corner cupboard where plastic containers, pot and pans are kept and one very tiny thing deep cabinet in an odd shaped corner and way too many high cabinets that are hard to get at.

So I am going to try to come up with some cheap, simple solutions to try to alleviate some of the issues with the kitchen at hand in the hope of making it more functional . Meanwhile I have at least cleared some clutter and identified items that are good for some use it up challenges.

Take a long hard look at your kitchen and see what you can declutter, consider getting it better organised ,maybe reconsider how you stock it, or perhaps all three. Because inefficiency and waste is a hard pill to swallow.

“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.

If you were around last Holiday season you might remember Nicole V making up a fun set of mini missions relating to Christmas. This year she has updated it so you can all have another shot at finding seven items to decluttering to match this theme. So here it is.

Mini Mission Monday – A-hunting we will go 

By Nicole V

Since Christmas is fast approaching, I thought that this week’s mini missions could take the form of a Christmas or festive season scavenger hunt of sorts. The letters of the alphabet, festive items, poems, stories, colours, carols, the 12 days of Christmas and Boxing Day will all be used in a merry mix of decluttering inspiration. Be as creative as you like and do let the rest of us know what you’ve decluttered.

Monday – Declutter something (festive or non-festive) that begins with any of the letters in the word “Christmas”. If you are game or are having a slow day or are simply an overachiever, then by all means declutter one item for each letter.

Tuesday – Declutter any item related to the season – this could be anything pertaining to

decorations, music, entertaining, gifts, or something from your festive to-do list, etc.

Wednesday – Pick any Christmas poem or story and declutter something associated with or related to it. It could be something mentioned in a line of the poem or story or a theme or anything, really.

Thursday – Declutter something in one of the colours associated with Christmas. Apart from the traditional colours of red, green and gold, this could also include silver (“Silver Bells”), white (“White Christmas”), and blue (“Blue Christmas”), etc.

Friday – Declutter something associated with any Christmas carol. It could be anything

mentioned in the carol or reminiscent of it.

Saturday – Pick a number from 1 to 12 and declutter that number of items. They do not necessarily have to be identical or festive items. If you really want to challenge yourself, go ahead and declutter 12 items.

Sunday — Declutter something from a storage box or from any “boxy-looking” item (such as your refrigerator, pantry or cabinet) in your home. You could also get rid of an item that you might have boxed up for a certain period of time as a “separation test” or simply declutter a box or container that you no longer need.

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.

The easiest things to declutter are the ones that are obviously clutter so lets take a look around our homes and see if we can find six such items that are no longer useful in our lives. Free up the space for a little breathing room.

Monday – Declutter something you just don’t like.

Tuesday – Declutter something that hasn’t been used in a long time.

Wednesday – Declutter some of a collection of things that don’t fit nicely into the space provided.

Thursday – Declutter some excess of any large collection.

Friday – Declutter a next to useless single-purpose-gadget.

Saturday – Declutter something from a past you that no longer fits with your lifestyle.

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.

I forgot to mention yesterday why it is, after so much decluttering has been done in my home over the years, that there is still excess stuff to be removed. And here is my explanation. 

My original goal was to reduce my belongings in order to fit into a smaller home. This goal was achieved with a little wriggle room. However I would like a little more than just wriggle room so the two bedroom apartment, that I now live in with my husband, feels a little cluttered to me. So this new goal of removing one thing a day for 30 days, and possibly more, is all about minimising further.

I imagine that this will involve a few harder decisions than before as I had reduced many areas to a point that I was happy with. Therefore I will have to get even more ruthless as to what I really get good use out of and what I don’t. I say this might be harder, but in reality I am keener to free up space than I am to keep things so it probably won’t be all that challenging for me. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Now a little about todays item. This pair of multi blade scissors was purchased, not so long ago, secondhand from a thrift store. I have a policy with items purchased this way and that is…

If it is cheap and secondhand then it is an eco-friendly purchase. If it used utilised enough within a certain amount of time then it can go back to where it came from.

I had purchased these scissors for crafting purchases for $1 at the thrift shop. They didn’t perform the task adaquately that I wanted them for so now they are being donated back.

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.

How many times have you kept something because you thought you might need it someday. Have you ever stopped to think maybe you never needed it in the first place. If it is an item that you might only need someday then chances are, if it is an item that only makes a job easier but you could manage without it, then it isn’t worth the space it is taking up. So lets see what we can find this week that you really won’t need someday.

Monday – Declutter a kitchen gadget that you use rarely but could easily manage without.

Tuesday – Declutter a tool from the garage or shed that is use too rarely to allow to clutter up the space.

Wednesday – Declutter an item of clothing that is used rarely if ever.

Thursday – Declutter excess sheet and towels that would only be needed should you house a much larger number of people than maybe even your house would allow comfortably.

Friday – Declutter crockery and cutlery that would only be required under the same circumstances as the Thursday mission.

Saturday – Declutter medication from your cabinet that you bought to have on hand when you needed them but now are out of date.

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.

The things we do usually require stuff. So this week we shall declutter items that relate to the things we do. Or maybe more to the point items we once used for the things we do, or did, but now just sitting around cluttering up our space.

Monday – Declutter something you use for cooking.

Tuesday – Declutter a sporting or recreation item.

Wednesday – Declutter something you clothe yourself in.

Thursday – Declutter something related to your beauty routine.

Friday – Declutter a hobby item.

Saturday – Declutter something related to your work.

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