A guest post by Cindy Bogard

I’ve often seen this bumper sticker: “Not all who wander are lost.” I think when it comes to household chores, that’s just not true. While writing a blog every day allows you to crow about your successes, it equally allows you to reveal your foibles. Today is a foible day. Here is what I did after returning home from lunch with a friend. I was wandering, and I was lost:

1. Walk into the office, put down my purse, turn on the computer.
2. Walk to the bathroom at the other end of the house to get an OTC medicine that I promise to give to a friend; I’ll be seeing her later. I feel smart that I remembered.
3. While I’m in the bathroom, see the piles of laundry I’d divided earlier in the day. I had started one load and know it is finished washing. Carry a load to the laundry room. I have the medicine in my pocket. Still feel smart.
4. Drop the laundry on the floor, start to unload the dryer. Almost the first thing out is a rug that goes in the screen porch. Take it directly there.
5. While on the screen porch, look outside and notice that the bird feeder’s empty. Fill.
6. As I walk back through the screen porch, I notice Audra’s rug, which has been drying outside. Take it to Audra’s room.
7. Put the rug on the floor. The guinea pig squeaks eagerly at me. Decide to feed him.
8. Notice that his food is strangely clumpy. Inspect his food more carefully. Yuck – it’s got worms in it.
9. Walk to the kitchen and clean his bowl.
10. Load a few (but not all) dishes into the dishwasher.
11. Carrying the clean guinea bowl, swing into the office. Drop the medicine into my purse. Enter my password on the computer. This is the end of feeling smart.
12. Stop by Clara’s room and look at her guinea pig’s food. Yuck – it’s got worms too.
13. Pick up Clara’s guinea’s bowl and both bags of food.
14. Leave the second bowl in the kitchen and carry the bags of food to the office.
15. Sit down at my desk to call the pet food company. Start checking email.
16. Realize I’m checking email when I’m supposed to be calling the pet food company. Mental head slap. Call.
17. Transaction successfully completed, I carry the food to the front yard and pour it on the sidewalk. I figure the ground feeding birds will be happy to sample both the guinea’s food and the worms.
18. Come back into the house, through the garage. See the extra rolls of toilet paper sitting on a shelf. Remember that the office bathroom needs toilet paper. Grab it.
19. Stop by the office bath and leave the toilet paper.
20. Go into the kitchen, throw the empty food bags away.
21. Return to the office. Sit down at my computer.
22. Remember that I never started the laundry.
23. Return to the laundry room. Spend 20 seconds trying to remember why the dryer is open. Are these the wet or dry clothes? Another mental head slap.
24. Figure it out, start laundry.

While all this is embarrassing to admit, I know I am far from alone in my zig-zagged pursuit of cleanliness. One of my friends says that this is how she always cleans – haphazardly meandering from one room to the next.

How much time and energy do we waste bouncing from chore to chore, room to room, idea to idea? When I’m aware of being aimless, I say to myself. “Focus. One thing at a time. Finish what you’ve started.” How much more could we accomplish if we attended to each thing in turn? At a minimum, I’m sure we could declutter 10 things in 1 day, rather than 1 thing in 10 days.

Today’s decluttered item from Cindy: an ice shaver and 3 bottles of snow cone syrup.

ITEM 306 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This oven cleaner doesn’t have what it takes to clean my “oven from hell”. I have persisted long enough in the hope that the situation will miraculously change but of course it hasn’t. I have thrown it in the trash because if it doesn’t work for me I can’t imagine it would work for someone else.

5 things I am grateful for today

1. Clean floors – I made the effort today to vacuum and mop and my tiles are all shiny and clean. Luckily the house was impeccably clean and ready for a rental inspection when Liam had his accident so I haven’t needed to do much.
2. Air-conditioning – I don’t like to waste to electricity but it would have been unbearably hot in our bedroom last night if we didn’t have this luxury. We need to get a good night sleep especially at the moment.
3. Still so grateful for automatic washing machines – Liam breaks out in sweats quite often and goes through several shirts in a day. All part of the healing process.
4. Liam is having his best day since his accident today – one good one, one bad one seems to be the pattern. The little wretch has pulled off all the braces from this teeth that are supposed to hold his jaw in line but he seems pretty happy about it. I am happy if he’s happy even if he is naughty with it.
5. A rainy day to cool things off – we won’t need that air-con on tonight I don’t think.

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something that may be ridiculous. Ready? There are two types of clutterers – let it all hang out and hidden. There, I’ve said it. Let the eye rolling begin.

I am the first kind – the let it all hang out kind. While my cabinets and drawers are really pretty neat, and always were, every available surface used to be covered in stuff. Good stuff, junky stuff, stuff that has to be moved before anyone could eat, sit down, or visit.

BC (before children), I was very neat. I look back on the earlier days of my marriage when Dan and I would sometimes argue about who cleaned more. Ha! We hardly knew what was coming.

As I recall (any friend who is reading this, if you remember it differently, keep it to yourself), my house was pretty neat after Clara was born. Sure, the living room sometimes looked like a toy store had exploded in it, but the rest of the house was tidy.

It was when we moved to our current house four months before Audra was born that the wheels came off the bus. I am a fixer upper, and I can see potential in houses that others pass by, which is how we came to own an astoundingly dated but budget friendly house in the nicest neighborhood we could afford. It was plenty spacious with three bedrooms and an office, but it needed love, and lots of it. On and off, mostly on, we have been working on this house ever since, which has included serious remodeling – jack hammering concrete, moving walls, and adding a second floor.

Dan laughs that while we made a cocoon of safety for baby Clara, we happily birthed Audra in the middle of a construction zone.

I love talking about my house, but I’ve gotten slightly off-base. During all this time, things were always in flux, and nothing got put away. Dan would pick something up and say “Where does this go?” and I’d say, “I don’t know where it goes. Leave it there.” I didn’t want to put anything away if I didn’t know where “away” was. I would rather have it out and exposed than away and in a jumble. Or I would know that next week, next month, next year, I was going to tear those cabinets out, so why store something there now? I’d just have to move it later. I attempted organization by leaving laundry baskets in every room into which I would throw everything that didn’t belong, but the baskets just overflowed. (Saw that coming, didn’t you?)

Yes, there was stuff on every surface. No, I wasn’t raised this way. But I kind of got used to it. I would even feel anxious when I did clean, knowing that like Sisyphus pushing his boulder, there was no way the cleanliness would stick. Sure, I was embarrassed to have friends over and tried to meet them elsewhere, but I was always hopeful that organization was just around the corner. I guess it was, but let me tell you, that corner was on the end of a very long block.

We’ve all been to houses like this. You know when you’re in the home of a “let it all hang out” clutterer because it’s all there for you to see.

But then there’s the other kind of clutterer. The kind I most definitely am not. The kind whose house appears tidy, or relatively so, but whose closets are overflowing, whose drawers can’t open, or who have a whole room that no one’s allowed to enter. My aunt is this kind of clutterer. Her house is very tidy, almost minimalist, but there’s a spare bedroom that she calls her Klinefelter room, in memory of her grandparents (my great grandparents) who were such hoarders that you had to weave a path through their home. She keeps the door closed, and no one but her may enter.

Lots of people in the U.S. have Klinefelter garages. The house looks good, but there’s no way they’re going to get a car in there unless they call a dumpster first. Or, if you live in the north, it could be the curse of the basement. The boxes are packed so high and so thick that the owners can’t possibly really need what’s in the bottom boxes. After all, they’re never going to be able to get into them. These folks may think that they don’t have clutter because it’s all in boxes, maybe even in handy storage bins, or because it’s “just the garage” or “just the basement” but clutter is what it is. (In the interest of fair disclosure, I can’t get my car in the my garage either, but I know it’s cluttered. I could probably do a separate 365 less things on my garage, and maybe I will.)

I don’t think either of these types is better or worse. They’re both burdens to overcome. I think I might prefer to be a hidden clutterer because I’d love to have a cleaner house, but I do pride myself on a tidy drawer. Which kind of clutterer are you?

Today’s decluttered item from Cindy: 3 electrical outlet safety plugs (we’ve certainly outgrown the need for these) and an automatic cat feeder. Our local Humane Society actually has a pet supply freecycle because they get so many donations, and the feeder came from them. I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for it, as the food gets stuck and doesn’t refill as advertised. Besides, Stella was free feeding a little too generously. Now she’s restricted to a handful a day.

ITEM 301 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Every little things counts even these tiny storage jars.

5 Things I am grateful for today (by Colleen)

1. A morning walk – Hubby and I went out this morning and walked in a direction we hadn’t been in a while. Our neighbourhood is constantly changing and it never gets boring because there is always a new reno, a new building or a demolition/rebuild going on somewhere.
2. A beautiful blue ski – The sun is shining and the birds are singing today hopefully it is a reflection of the sort of day Liam will have today.
3. Glimmers of hope
4. Moments of normality in our day.
5. When the blissful moments of sleep give our boy some reprieve from his struggles.

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

Yes, my youngest was sent home from school with lice. Don’t worry; I’ll wait while you say “eeewwwwww!!!!” and scratch your head like a crazy monkey.

If you’ve never had to deal with lice – and I managed to go 47 years without it – it’s unexpected news that suddenly means a whole lot of unexpected work. The good news is that my daughter did not feel shamed or embarrassed at all, probably because the school had quite the outbreak, and she was far from the only one. When I was a kid, it was always hush-hush and embarrassing. You knew which kids had it because when they came back to school, their hair would always be shorter. Thank goodness that wasn’t necessary. My youngest is very, very vain about her very, very long hair. Also, being ashamed would be a waste of good energy, since the Center for Disease Control says that after the common cold, lice is the most commonly spread condition among elementary school children.

But what, you may be asking, does this have to do with decluttering?  Well, news of lice brings with it a lot of labor. In addition to the treatment of the hair, all the bedding must be washed and dried on hot. Pillows and stuffed animals that cannot be washed must be bagged, as lice cannot live for long off the body. Hair brushes, hair ties, clips and combs must be bathed in almost boiling hot water. All the floors, furniture, and beds must be vacuumed.

Thanks to decluttering, my children don’t have a lot of extra stuffed animals, only the few they really love, so bagging them was not a chore. Thanks to decluttering, I knew exactly where the plastic bags and twist ties were stored, and I was able to easily access them. Thanks to decluttering, my furniture and my floors are no longer cover with papers, books, shoes, toys, art supplies, and laundry baskets, so vacuuming them was a straight-forward proposal. Thanks to decluttering, all the girls’ hair things are in one place and neatly organized, so cleaning them did not require a scavenger hunt first. And thanks to decluttering, my laundry room was tidy and free of piles of clothes, so I has room to drop the linens and a place to put them when they were dry. Cleaning the house to prevent a reinfection wasn’t a lot more difficult than just cleaning the house – all thanks to decluttering.

Today’s declutter item: a Playhut pop-up train. The kids are way too big for it but have been very reluctant to let it go. It’s a perfect example of something left too long that may no longer be good, as the fabric has starting breaking down while its been stashed behind the sofa.

A little comment from Colleen

Day 300 – Wow where did all that time go. I feel like I am dropping the ball at the moment but all I am really doing is trying to keep all my marbles together.

Our precious boy was feeding himself today although I would like him to be eating a little more because there isn’t much of him in the first place. He can be a little cheeky at times but mostly he is very frustrated with his condition. I feel so helpless but unfortunately it is all up to him.

DAY 300 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Some beads that are excess to my wants.

5 Things I am grateful for today

1. Getting through one more day.
2. My little girl cooking me dinner again.  She makes a delicious blackened salmon sandwich with rosemary mayonnaise.
3. An organised home which is a refuge from the storm of life that hit us so suddenly.
4. Learning to be patient – wishful anxiety doesn’t make things happen faster.
5. My husband – he is a tower of strength when the going gets tough.

Don’t you just hate products that don’t live up to your expectation. Products that you bought for a specific purpose that didn’t perform as suggested on the label, as advertised or live up to first appearance. These items often end up cluttering up your home because you just wasted good money on them and you hope that through some miracle they will actually come in useful at some point and you will finally get value for money.

There are some products that come very quickly to mind for me…

• Cleaning products that just aren’t as effective or simple to use as the advertising suggests. I can just see some of those ads running through my head as I type. You know the ones that show this disgustingly filthy bath tub that has clearly just been sprayed with a substance that even a damp sponge would easily clean off. What they don’t mention is that once you have “easily” wiped the “real set in” grime away you have to rinse this caustic substance off with fresh running water which is sometimes more difficult to achieve than the scrubbing itself.
• Glues that according to the label achieve a bond that even Superman couldn’t break. Often they don’t achieve anything more than a weak bond to even half the substance they profess they can. Leaving you with not only a useless tube of glue but a pile of useless pieces of something that you are reluctant to waste more money on by buying yet another glue that might or might not manage to actually stick them together.
• Food items that look good on the surface but are barely fit for human consumption. I remember years ago a company brought a cheese alternative onto the market and advertised it as tasting just like a mild cheddar. Maybe there is another meaning for cheddar that I was not aware of  because this substance bared no resemblance to any cheddar I had ever tasted.
• Clothing that seemed to fit just fine when you tried it on but after one wash could only hope to fit your ten year old daughter. Why is it that they don’t preshrink the fabric before they make the clothing out of it. At least with clothing items you can return then and get an exchange or your money back.
• Shampoos and conditioners need I say more. My favourite advertisement for this one is the when the Jamaican guy goes into the store with his afro hair to buy a bottle of shampoo and comes back later for a refund because his hair is now silky and straight. If only that add was true it would save me a lot of time with the hair straightener. At least it is blatantly deceptive a lot of other manufactures of similar products use the same trick but in a far more convincing manner.

That is just a small sample of the kinds of products that we are seduced into buying with no hope of being anything but disappointed. Sometime I think this is bordering on false advertising but I am sure there are guidelines to this that have very sketchy boundaries. All I can suggest is return them to the retailer if you can, write and complain to the companies that manufacture them and if all else fails use them up as quickly as possible in as many outside the box ways that you can so they are gone from your home and not taunting you with their shortcomings.

ITEM 259 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I am glad to see the back of these heavy cotton shorts. They are a pain to iron.

Decluttering Kid Birthday Parties

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

Last week on Day 252 I covered family birthday parties without clutter, but what about the crazy excess that comes from a big bash with a bunch of kids? There are so many gifts and so much waste generated by the average party. Most seem to end with a big Santa sack of gifts and an equally big one of trash.

The quickest way to cut down on waste is by restricting the number of kids. In my experience, though, the kids want to invite everyone in their class until second or third grade. (My parents restricted me to one guest per year of age, but I have not continued with this rule in my own parenting.)

My next idea requires buy-in from your kids, but I know it can be done because it’s common in my younger daughter’s class. Gifts are gathered at the birthday party for a charity, not for the birthday child. The animal shelter has been popular, but we’ve also collected gifts for the women’s and children’s shelters.

You could also have a wishing well where a gift of cash is put by each child and the money could be donated to the charity of their choice or kept to put in the child’s college fund. I have been to weddings where they have wishing wells and it is very convenient for both the giver and the receiver.

And what about those (often) junky, plastic-filled goodie bags that somehow have become a requirement at all parties? If your party involves a craft, decorate paper bags too, and let the craft go into the bag and be the party favor. Otherwise, I encourage you to either give something functional (we’ve given marker sets and pool noodles and have received socks) or skip this step completely. I honestly don’t think the kids will notice, and I think the parents will be grateful you haven’t added to their junk load.

As for the party trash itself, in many cities, gift wrap and tissue can be recycled. Gift bags, cute decorations and bows can always be saved for another go around.

I encourage the use of non-disposables at the party. I have two dozen glass plates I bought at thrift stores and another two dozen reusable plastic plates. I use my real silverware, and if I need more, I use the plasticware that will be washed and reused. I serve the kids’ beverages out of a large container and do not use bottled water or juice boxes. I use my own glasses, and if I need more, I use the sturdy plastic ones that restaurants give out with their kids’ meals. I put a piece of tape on the cup and write the child’s name with Sharpie. When I have to use paper plates or cups, I write the kids’ names on both the plate and cup.

Even if you’re having your party at a park or special venue, bringing your own reusable party wear and taking it away afterwards are not hard. An extra box or picnic basket will help you tote the load.

The first time my Mom saw me setting up a party like this she asked, “Is this what your friends do?” I replied, “I don’t have to follow my friends, Mom. I can lead them.”

From Colleen

One the subject of Children’s parties I have a little Aussie treat that has always been popular at kids parties in Australia since way back when. This treat is called Fairy Bread and all it is is pieces of bread butters with sprinkles on top. (the sprinkles you would put on a cake) so simple but always well received. Give it a try.

ITEM 257 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Just one more odd item that never finds it’s way to the top of the utensil drawer

Family Birthday Parties without Clutter

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

On Day 209, Colleen wrote about having a clutter-free birthday for her 19 year old son. For those of you with younger kids who thought, “Sure, that worked for her; he’s 19 after all,” this post is for you. My daughters are 8 and 10 (just beginning 3^rd and 5^th grades), and I’m here to tell you it is possible to reduce their birthday haul without reducing their birthday happiness.

First of all, if you’re going to make any drastic changes to the way things have been, you need to prep your kids in advance. With my girls, the preliminary conversation was easy and began naturally. My eldest daughter’s birthday is right before Christmas, and we had celebrated her birthday at her Grandmother’s house. At the end of the evening, we packed up her gifts into a box and brought them home. Over Spring Break (March), I realized that the box was still sitting in my daughter’s room, largely untouched. That began the conversation about how much we enjoy receiving gifts – much more, usually, than we actually enjoy the gifts themselves.

What Colleen did for  her son, and what every birthday person enjoys, is feeling like the king or queen of the day. I have few memories of any particular gifts I’ve received, but I have great memories of parties and special dinners that were thrown in my honor. You child is no different.

This year when my daughter turned 8, I had been decluttering for 2 months, and clutter had become part of the flow of family conversation, which included my husband, my children, and my mother. I did have to send an email about it to my in-laws, and they were much more receptive than I would have guessed. (I’ve been trying to trim down gift giving for as long as I’ve been a part of their family, so they can’t have been too surprised.)

My daughter received a necklace holder made for her by her Dad, several pieces of jewelry, a lucky bamboo plant in a special container, and a rosebush for her garden – that’s it for gifts from her parents, sister, Godfather, and two sets of grandparents. (As an aside, I have to brag that my husband made the necklace holder only out of items he found in the garage – a decluttering project in and of itself –  and when she hung her necklaces on them, my daughter decided that she was through with two of them and that they could go to the thrift store.)

Where’s the part where she was the Queen of the Day? Her birthday was on Sunday this year, and she ruled from Friday night through Sunday evening. On Friday, we had a family birthday dinner where she selected the menu and opened gifts from other family members. On Sunday, she received a blessing at church, and I took her picture with the rector afterwards. She opened one gift before church and one gift after church. We watch a DVD and have pizza every Sunday, but as a birthday treat we went out to dinner and saw a movie at a theater instead. In between, every time we said prayers from Friday through Sunday, we said an extra thank you for her.

These things, I believe, are the memories that she will retain, long after any games or trinkets she might have received would have broken or been passed along to younger children.

ITEM 252 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another craft ebay sale once again not a very lucrative one only $5.00 again.

Another guest post by my husband.

You’ll never meet a traveller who, after five trips, brags: “Every year I pack heavier.”

Rick Steves – Travel Writer

These words echo in my head every time I pack for trip, whether business or pleasure, reducing the amount of stuff I carry always makes for a more enjoyable time. Whenever I travel with colleagues, they are amazed by my small bag and unable to imagine how they could do it. Packing light is easier than they think and anyone can reduce their luggage to a manageable size with some planning and preparation.

Colleen and I are committed to only take as much stuff as can be carried onto the flight; a 9″ x 22″ x 14″ bag weighing no more than 7 Kilos (15 lbs) plus a smaller bag for personal items like a camera. We use a convertible backpack/suitcase with zip-away shoulder straps that is lighter than your average roller bag, and easy to tote across town to our hotel. How do we do it? Well, my bag contains the following items:

• 2 collared shirts
• 2 t-shirts
• 1 pair of pants
• 1 pair of shorts/swimmers
• 4 sets of underwear
• 4 pair of socks
• 1 jacket
• Vibram Five Fingers
• small toiletries kit
• first aid kit
• 1 small towel
• journal/pens
• sewing kit
• guide book/maps
• phrase book (if needed)

In my camera bag:

• DSLR plus 28-135mm zoom
• 50mm lens
• iPod Touch
• battery charger
• spare battery/compact flash drives
• Archos 604WIFI (used for photo storage and charging the iPod)

I used to carry a laptop but an iPod touch provides me all the computing power I need except for an ability to upload photos from my camera so I carry the Archos 604. Despite carrying two devices, I still save more than half the weight of your average 12-13 inch laptop or netbook.

The main advantage of this small uncluttered travel bag is mobility. While most people are waiting for their bags, we are heading to the hotel. We can easily change planes, trains or buses when a delay occurs because everything is with us. Sure we have to do some washing along the way but it is often no more expensive to use a fluff and fold service than to do the laundry yourself. We also use lightweight wash and wear clothes that can be washed in a sink if necessary, and air dried over night.

Virtually nothing in our bag is there because we might need it, we will use every item continuously throughout our travels and when those one-off occasions arise we just buy what we need at that time. Plan for the best and be prepared to spend a little money if needed, why ruin a vacation lugging a huge bag of stuff you never use to save a few dollars. Travelling light is an awakening that can open your eyes to how little you need in your life, try it on your next vacation.

For those who cannot imagine travelling with one small bag, check out Rolf Potts’ No Baggage trip.

ITEM 250 0F 365 LESS THINGS

I am sure someone will find these fabric scraps useful but I am sure I am not going to use them

What Illness Taught Me About Decluttering

Guest Post by – Donna Tressler The Sound Of My Own Wheels

Recently I watched the 2010 Messiest Home in the Country episode of Clean House, which featured a family of four living in a home filled with an incomprehensible amount of clutter. There was a lot of finger pointing in the episode – particularly at the father who “guilt shopped” while he traveled for work, but the thing that struck me as interesting was how illness (the mom was a thyroid cancer survivor) had played a roll in the accumulation of the family’s clutter. Serious illness has a profound affect on people and we all react differently. For this family buying more stuff was the answer to their pain. For me, it was just the opposite.

In 2001 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Initially I was euphoric to have an answer to all the health issues that had plagued me for months, then the reality of living with an incurable (but manageable) illness set in, and I went into denial. I didn’t take care of myself as well as I should, and eventually I went into a flair up of the disease that lasted 16 months.

It was a horrible time in my life and by the time I came out of the flair up, I was physically and mentally exhausted from trying to maintain my job, my house, my marriage, and my relationships with family and friends. It took nearly two years to completely regain my former self, and during that time I began looking for way to improve the quality of my life. In addition to taking better care of myself and managing stress (which is a huge factor in my illness), I looked for ways to simplify my life in the event that I suffered another flair up.

Eventually I realized that the less stuff I have, the less I would have to maintain if I did get that sick again. I’d like to say I had an epiphany and instantly went on a decluttering mission that got rid of every unnecessary item in one fell swoop, but life is rarely that way. Instead it has been a continuous journey of looking at each area of my life with fresh eyes. I began by getting rid of things I didn’t use, clothes I didn’t wear, books I would never read again, and have continued on from there. I’m constantly revisiting a cabinet, a closet, a shelf, and asking what can go from this area?

As I have pared down, I have found that there are several methods that have been most effective for me in getting on, and more importantly staying on, the declutter path. My methods work for existing items in my house and items that I contemplate buying.

• I ask myself if I got “that sick” again, would I want to deal with this item
• I ask myself the questions on the Declutter Decision Making Guide here on 365lessthings
• I ask myself how many hours of working/commuting it would take to pay for the item

Someone once said “life is what happens while you are making other plans.” For me that’s a whole other blog post, but by sticking with my trifecta of clutter busting methods, I have managed to mostly stick to the trail and continue on the decluttering path, which in turn simplifies my life, helps manage my stress and thereby my overall health. It’s a win-win situation.

ITEM 246 OF 365 LESS THINGS

More things I won’t need to iron yay!

A guest post by – My Husband

During a recent overseas business trip I read about an experiment to choose six clothing items and only use those items for a month. You could have multiple copies of each item, even a different colour counted as a separate item but underwear, sleepwear, shoes and jackets etc did not count. I looked at my standard travel wardrobe, and found two pairs of Columbia pants, four sweat-wicking golf shirts (three colours) and two pairs of shorts. Five items to which I could add a more formal shirt for those dressier occasions, and still meet the Six Items or Less challenge. I lived with these five items for three weeks, and as you read this I am using them again for a month in Italy. No one ever comments on my limited wardrobe, and my daily choices are limited to picking the colour of my shirt for the day. Could I live like this for longer periods, or is six items too few to cover every contingency?

I decided that with some minor modifications, the experiment could be applied to my every day life and significantly reduce the size of my wardrobe. The first adaptation was to allow different colours of the same items so my four golf shirts would become one item. I also allowed myself some latitude items that get regular use in rotation with other similar items. For example, I had many long-sleeve shirts of different brands from which I selected the ones I use regularly and counted them as one item. As these items wear out I will look at following my plan to find an item I like that will replace all the differing brands. Using these adaptations, I have reduced my wardrobe to seven items plus work uniforms that are supplied and required by my employer.

I feel liberated from the fashion cycle, and yet have retained the best of my clothes while ridding myself of clothes that are functional but never made it into my rotation. For most of us, we keep returning to the same old favourites until they fall apart, so why clutter our closets with clothes that are never going to be worn? With a smaller clothing footprint, the clothes are not jammed into the hanging space, come off the hanger ready to wear and I can see my entire wardrobe in one place.

The Six Items or Less challenge looks daunting at first but a worthwhile experiment for anyone seeking to simplify their life. The original experimenters had a variety of experiences, and you can read their stories here. Now it is your turn.

ITEM 242 OF 365 LESS THINGS

The first of the clothes that were decluttered from my hubbies closet

Today I received an email from Barb who had a question about children’s’ art projects. Here is what she wrote…

How have you handled children’s art projects, etc. I have a whole box of them and just not sure what to do!!!!

My response was this…

I have made of point of revisiting my stash several times and been more ruthless with each visit. I am now considering digitising what is left and making a disc for each child. My son was quite prolific with writing “wild” stories when he first started school and they are a classic to read over and over again so I would never part with them but I don’t feel it is really necessary to have the original hard copy. I will ask their opinion on that before I destroy anything though.

This was a simple answer to the question and there is probably a lot more thought that could go into the subject. For instance, with all of the great on-line printing services we have access to these days wouldn’t it be nice to put together a book with their art work and school work samples. Even 3D objects could be photographed and added to the content. You could put it all in chronological order including their school photos from the corresponding years. Maybe even include sports photos and pictures of trophies or awards that they won along the way. You could choose to compile your own scrapbook rather than having it printed on-line if that is a craft you enjoy.

This is starting to sound like fun. If anyone has some more suggestions please send them in through the comments section and we will compile it all in a more comprehensive post for another day.

ITEM 238 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Braiding purchased for a special project that never happened.