Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

First of all, this story has a happy ending, although it sure didn’t look like it would when it all began.

A few months ago, a dear friend of mine was in a very dark place and disappeared. Literally gone. You can image what my husband and I feared. My friend has no close relatives and no spouse; I am the executor of his estate. I felt a lot of emotions during this time, and one of them was outrage: “How DARE you go off and leave me with all this sh*t to take care of! How dare you not clean up your own mess before you dumped it in my lap!” You see, my friend is a bit of a collector (perhaps even a bit of a hoarder) and his mother, who hung onto to everything she ever purchased, large and small, had died the previous year. He had all of his stuff and all of hers too, all undealt with. I couldn’t believe that in addition to dumping a giant emotional burden on me and my family, he’d also left me with a huge mess: a house that couldn’t be sold because of unfinished remodeling projects; an oversized garage was full of his and his mother’s stuff; a bedrooms serving as a storage room. I was furious (and heartbroken, and scared, and determined to find him, and a mash of every other emotion you can image).

The best news is: We found him and in the subsequent several months, he’s doing so much better. It’s truly a gift from God.

What lessons did I learn from this dreadful experience, and how does it relate to decluttering?

1. Organize your personal papers. What if, God forbid, the worst occurs and you die unexpectedly? Do your loved ones, who are already shaken by your death, know how to access your accounts? Do they even know where you bank? Can they access your email account? Could they cancel your movie rental subscription, magazines, and price club membership? Or are they going to be stuck guessing?

2. Make sure the you have a current will, power of attorney, and medical directive. (At least in the U.S.) I am not kin to my friend, and it clearly could have created a problem for me. This is so important for everyone, but especially, especially important to those who are single. There are will maker programs available, which I cannot endorse, but the power of attorney and medical directive are simply fill-in forms. They vary slightly from state to state, so search for them on the computer.

3. Finish one project before you start two more. People aren’t nearly as good as multitasking as they thing they are, and multitasking your life – in a big way – isn’t any more successful. Finish one project before you begin another. Don’t start painting the living room and removing the trim in the bedroom at the same time. Don’t have two quilting projects going at once. Finish one thing then move onto the next, or you may leave behind a troublesome trail of partially completed projects.

4. Clean up your own mess. We’ve all read comments on this site about people who were thrown into a giant mess left behind at the death of a relative. Sometimes no one knew Aunt Bessie was a hoarder, and the family has one weekend to clean out the house and put it up for sale. One of my employees told me about leaving her mothers’ dishes boxed up and in the trash pile because she wasn’t able to cart them away during the mad cleaning weekend. If you don’t want to deal with your junk, just think how much someone else doesn’t want to deal with it either. If you’re keeping your belongings because you really want to make sure they go to just the right owner, let me tell you, when you’re gone, they’re going wherever they land, so if it’s really important to you, take care of it now, while you can. Don’t feel overwhelmed. You can do this, one day at a time, 365 days a year.

5. If you’re struggling with poor mental health, don’t be afraid to tell others. God put us here to help one other.

Today’s Mini Mission

Perhaps what is stuck on the front of your fridge also spills over to the sides. Time to clear that off as well.

Today’s Declutter Item

We have no use for these chains, not that I can remember a time that we did. They have been loitering in the garage since out return from America and we in storage for 7 years while we were there. If we haven’t used them yet I dare say we never will so they will be donated like so many other things.

A little garage clutter

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Last Saturday Bronwyn made this request in regard to what to do with product packaging. Since I have some experience with this issue I figured I would jump in immediately and  write a post about it.

As anyone who has been reading 365 Less Things for some time will know, my husband’s job requires us to move every now and again, sometimes interstate, sometimes overseas. So as you can imagine I have had some experience with moving. What I do know is that there are some items that are best moved in the packaging they arrived in. Items such as televisions, computers, collectables, printers, basically anything expensive and fragile or precious you wouldn’t want broken. I am fortunate that my husband’s work also pays for a professional removal and anything broken is repaired or compensated for at its current value. Getting paid out for a used ten year old television isn’t going to buy you a replacement in todays market though and the inconvenience of placing a claim and finding a replacement is frankly a pain in the behind. So needless to say we keep the boxes for television, desktop computer and screen, collectables, our art pieces (if they came with one), DVD player, Playstation and the like. We don’t keep boxes for things like the kettle, the iron, glasses, blenders and the like.

But most people don’t move often so I can’t see that there is any need to keep boxes except for warranty purposes. For instance I wouldn’t throw out the box my son’s playstation came in while it is still under warranty. But under normal circumstance (which I don’t live in) I would throw away any warranty forms and boxes once the warranty period has expired. Even the manuals aren’t necessary these days because you can usually access that information on-line.

I would also check with the manufacturers warranty requirement before bothering to keep the boxes. Some items are repaired on site, some have local repair agents that you can drop the item off too while others will have to be mailed away. Some companies arrange the pickup and send packaging to put the item in when warranty work is required. Just check you warranty forms and call the phone number supplied if in doubt. One thing I love about Apple products is if you live in a big enough city there is a Apple Store nearby that can take care of all your warranty needs. I wish it were this simple with all electronic products.

I have included below a photo of the under stair cupboard in our garage so you can see how much space is taken up with the boxes we feel necessary to keep for our circumstances. Aside from the few non-box items in the cupboard everything you can’t see filling up the back spaces is also boxes.

We have put the foam and packing for several boxes into one large box which has allowed us to flatten a couple of big boxes which are hidden behind the garage shelving. Luckily the foam is moulded with the product ID and instruction such as left top, right bottom so it is easy to identify which item they belong to and how they fit that item. I know this because recently we decluttered boxes that belonged to some items we have now passed on to new homes.

Would I love to be rid of these boxes? You bet I would and if I were Bronwyn most of them would be out of here. In fact I asked my husband this question ~ “If we were to find the right smaller house to buy and there was no storage space for the boxes in the garage, what would we do?” His response was they would just have to go once we have made the move. Sometimes you just have to take your chances. I suppose in a way these boxes are “I might need it some day” items. But “some day” can turn out to be just around the corner for us.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter those handbags that you don’t use or love anymore.

Today’s Declutter Item

This is the closest thing to a handbag I have to declutter at the moment. It is a little leather money pouch. I lost it once when it had about $140 in, the proceeds of a boot sale I participated in prior to moving way back in about 1993. Fortunately a honest person handed it in to the police. I haven’t used it in a long time so it can go.

Leather Money Pouch

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Friendly strangers.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

First read this comment by Jane from last week in response to Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Mental Clutter

It is interesting how one simple transfer of focus can make such a big difference to someone’s life. Think about it for a minute ~ Jane has transferred her focus from avoiding unpleasant tasks to finding a reason to cross something off her to do list. She naturally got no joy from knowing there were unpleasant tasks awaiting to be done but she gets a great deal of pleasure eliminating things from her to do list. The pleasure can not be achieved without the task being done. Nothing has become more pleasant about the task she has simply found yourself a reward system. As minimal as the reward is it is still something to strive for.

I deploy a similar strategy for the items or categories that I find the most difficult to declutter.  In my craft room I have changed my focus from “I might want this one day” to the pleasure I get from eliminating one more storage item or piece of furniture from my craft space. This helps me to be far more ruthless with the culling process.

Being a very organised person I used to find it difficult to part with storage containers once I had emptied them of the clutter. Now I focus on the fact that if they aren’t around I can’t fill them back up again. I also focus on the square footage they no longer take up in my house.

Moni had this little snippet in one of her comments yesterday that fitted so well with this post I just had to include it:~

“I sew costumes for a ballet school – that is the ultimate generator of STUFF. But I enjoy it because it is very satisfying making something pretty or glamorous. And it is very hard to part with the left overs because we feel an emotional connection/affection to our projects because of the effort and skill and love we have put into the final product. Have since learnt that Kindergartens LOVE left over craft stuff. I find that if I feel left overs and surplus stuff is going to “a good home”, I don’t feel so bad about letting it go.”

So don’t focus on the size of the task or the “what ifs” or the “I might need this someday” just focus on the good feelings you get when…

• the space is liberated…
• when the obligation is lifted…
• when the aspiration has been expelled…
• when the guilt is no longer in your face…
• when you clean your home and it takes less effort to get a good result…
• when you no longer crave a shopping fix…
• when you can invite people to your home and not feel embarrassed…

You wouldn’t be decluttering if your overriding desire wasn’t to get your home in order. And you must be serious about it or you wouldn’t be visiting my blog. So do yourself a favour and change your focus to the positive side of decluttering. After all it really doesn’t take much effort to declutter one thing day knowing that the reward at the end is so worth it.

Today’s Declutter Item

This A3 drawing board, otherwise known as aspirational clutter or unwise purchase, has possibly more than recouped the lose made in the initial transaction. I sold it on eBay recently for $61. Being as we bought in in the US at Michaels with I imagine a 40% off coupon it may well have netted us a profit.

A3 Drawing Board

Something I Am Grateful For Today

My friend Amber who drove me to and from the thrift store today during the torrential downpours that is our crazy weather this year.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

I was surveying a newly installed fence and gate – my own – and I suddenly thought of Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project. Unfortunately for us, I don’t own her book, so I can’t mine it for an appropriate quote, but one of the keys to happiness that she extols is getting things done and off your to-do list. Make a mammogram appointment, write a thank you letter, update your resume, get your fence fixed. Taking something off your to-do list automatically makes you feel happier. I know it did me.

The sad saga of the fence goes like this: In September 2009, as a birthday surprise for my husband, I had a pretty brick fence built while he was on a week-long business trip. We already had a custom-made iron gate that matched the other ironwork on the house. Wouldn’t Dan be pleased and delighted to come home and find a beautiful little fence with the gate neatly hung? Well, he would have been, if the gate had fit. Even though it was on-site while the fence was being built, the opening was not made large enough. The gate did not fit. I dealt with the brick masons over and over. A contractor who frequently hired them intervened on my behalf. A year passed…nothing. In the meantime, we threw some junky stuff – plywood, trash cans, etc. – in front the opening to keep the dogs in. Attractive, no? No. And certainly not what I had in mind. I stewed, I fussed, I forgot about it for months at a time, but always the need to do something about it niggled at the back of my mind.

So today, two years and five months later, the fence has been rebuilt and the gate installed.

You may notice that there is still plywood behind the gate. That’s because the latching mechanism was not installed. The gate swings both ways and certainly won’t keep the dogs inside. But I can assure you that it will take less than two weeks, not more than two years, to get this job complete.

Good for me but what does this have to do with decluttering? Mental clutter! What is on your mind that’s holding you back? What chores and to-dos on the long-term list are hanging around, month after month, year after year, sapping your energy and keeping you from feeling as fully successful as you should feel?

I know that I feel so charge up from the check! on my to-do list that I’m going to tackle the gutters that keep overflowing every time it rains next. Imagine how good I’ll feel then!

What long-term burdens are you dragging around that you can declutter, and what’s your plan of action?

Today’s Declutter Item

These two ball gowns are an example of metal clutter to me. Not only are they physical clutter but I have procrastinated over getting rid of them for some time. The purple dress was made for my by my mother used once and never worn again. The other was a bargain but the glitter fabric was so rough on my underarms and was never worn. One languished because of the sentiment attached the other because of the wasted cash and it would have done in an emergency. I am just glad they are both gone now. They sold very quickly at the thrift shop.

A long awaited declutter task

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy

Do you own anything that’s “too good to use”? I bet you do. I started this post by asking my mother. The first thing she said was, “Yes, and do you know what a mistake that was?” What I think is really interesting about this story is that it took my Mom less than a second to think of an answer and that the item in question was given to her as a wedding gift 49 years ago. You’ll be surprised what it was. Here’s what she said:

“Yes, and you know what a mistake that was? When we were first married, we were given a twin blanket that was ‘too good to use.’ We were sharing a twin bed then and could have used it from day one, but we didn’t. Then we got a queen bed, and since the blanket was a twin, it didn’t fit and was still ‘too good to use.’ I think about 10 years ago, it was the junk blanket that Ken (my father) used in the back of the truck.”

Wow! From “too good to use” to junky blanket in the back of a truck. What a waste of a perfectly “too good” blanket.

One of us grandkids gave my grandmother a sort of wine goblet with a half dozen rose-shaped soaps in it. The whole thing was wrapped in plastic. Those rose-shaped soaps never got used, and when my Grandmother died, the soaps were still sitting there, wrapped in now-dusty plastic. Why? I know she wanted to enjoy looking at them, but it would have made more sense to enjoy looking at them for a year and then enjoy using them for another year. Why were rose-shaped soaps ‘too good to use’?

Perhaps you have a beautiful necklace that you think is ‘too good to use’ except on very special occasions. If you really love it, and if it’s not so special that the guards from the insurance company are following you around when it’s on your neck, then why not wear it to work or church? Are you really going to enjoy it more if you only wear it once a year versus once a month? Or even everyday? I have a beautiful and expensive necklace, and it’s rare that I don’t wear it. It amazes me that after five years of almost daily wearing, I still get regular compliments on it.

When you have something that you treasure and you don’t use it, you’re not honoring that item, nor are you honoring yourself. It’s not too good to be used; that’s why it was made, and you certainly deserve to use something “too good.” What do you own that’s creating clutter by being “too good to use”?

Today’s Declutter Item

Still on a roll when it comes to decluttering with my daughter. Today we have some 3rd birthday cards who we can’t identify the giver of (gone to recycling), an old jazz ballet costume (thrift shop), 2 baseball sun visors (surprised she was willing to part with the Yankees one),  these will go to a baseball fan helper at the thrift shop, her baby music toy which has perished and broken from old age and one crazy looking rag doll she made some time ago (both binned).

More of my Daughter's Stuff

Something I Am Grateful For Today

 Having a nice dinner with a friend and to make it even better my daughter cooked for us. A great little girls night in. Hubby is out of town and Liam was out with friends.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

We received the following comment from Snosie in response to one of Cindy’s archived posts I republished over the Christmas break. This post gave great advice about thinking twice before buying. Snosie has just bought her first home and is in the process of moving out of her parent’s house. She now has the task of furnishing and equipping her new home with the things she needs. A daunting task in which one could really get carried away but not Snosie she has it all worked out. Here is her comment…

Great post Cindy – and a lot of what I’m saying to myself (without even realizing). I won’t buy something til I know it fits where I want to put it. I have a notebook/journal in my handbag with measurements I think I’ll need – it’s not easy to find a ‘skinny’ drying rack. But then I know I can just lay things on a tea towel for now… Or put them in the (currently) unused dishwasher to ‘drain’.

It doesn’t even frustrate me that my shopping missions seldom results in many purchases. At least I know when I buy something, it’s right for me, and my house.

See how Snosie is improvising with what she has rather than rushing out and settling for second best. Compromising usually leads to dissatisfaction later on and then next thing you know you will be out at the shops again trying to find the item that best suited your needs in the first place. Adding to supply and demand and clutter to your home.

Too often we rush into purchase things because we “need” them but either don’t give enough consideration to what that need is or whether we really even need them in the first place. There are very few non-consumable items in the home with the possible exception of a refrigerator, some cooking and eating utensils and somewhere to sleep that are essential. Just about everything else is a luxury and even those first few items could be borrowed or hired until we make an educated decision on what will best suit our needs. A home usually comes with the other three essentials, a stove, a toilet and bathing facilities.

There is no item too small or seemingly insignificant that this principle doesn’t apply to. With the endless variety of items on the market there are decisions to me made as to your requirements before you even approach the stores. Even potato peelers come in several different shapes, sizes and ergonomic design. Do you need one? No, a knife would do the job but if you use one as often as I do it might be considered essential to your minimum requirements. So why not take your time to get the one that best suits you. Improvise with the knife in the meantime.

Step one is to work out what your requirements are. For instance, say I use a toaster on a regular basis, enough to warrant its existence in my home. My toaster breaks down and I need a replacement. Perhaps I toast muffins and bagels as well as bread in my toaster so I will need one with wide slots. Perhaps I keep my muffins and bagels in the freezer so I will need a defrost option on my toaster. I would like a four popup toaster because I sometimes have guests but I would like it to have a power saving setting where it only heats two elements when I am only catering to myself. These are the requirement I need to be aware of before I even consider shopping for the replacement.

The second step is to investigate the choices out there in the market place. Believe it or not there are many other features on toasters that I haven’t mentioned which I may opt to include once I see what is out there but the replacement must have those first three features I mentioned or I will soon be disappointed.

Perhaps your third step should be to seek out some product reviews to make sure your short list of choices has a history of living up to what is expected of them. You can’t take the word of the manufacturer, the sales person trying to earn his store commission or advertising hype, that a product is a good one.

Of course this is not an exact science and there is still an inevitable failure rate to everything no matter how hard you try to get it right. But by at least putting careful thought into your choices, before rushing out there to enjoy the thrill of buying something new, you are increasing your chances of success. Improvise in the meantime and you never know you might realise you really don’t need the item after all.

Today’s Declutter Item

Here is an item I bought on a whim about five years ago. It’s one of those purchases I thought I would get good use out of but never did. I thought that if I had a convenient way to listen to my music I would listen to it more often. Wrong! Luckily my son gets great use out of iPods and when his died from excessive use he commandeered mine since I wasn’t using it. He later found out that there had been a recall for faulty batteries on his old one and he got it replaced and no longer uses mine. We sold it on ebay for with the case & charging cord for $76.00.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

I’m sure that some of you have all your recipes on-line and (could it be?) don’t have a cookbook of any sort in your house. Most of you, I know, have from some to many cookbooks plus a personal recipe file or binder. As I wrote last week, I have a couple of cookbooks, and I have a rather large recipe binder, which I use almost exclusively.

My binder is not a thing of beauty; however, it suits me perfectly. I made it from a 4″ binder, plastic sleeves, dividers, and colored paper, all of which I had in our office supply cupboard. My divisions are

1. Poultry
   

   My Recipe File

2. Beef
3. Pork
4. Vegetarian Entrees
5. Fish
6. Soup
7. Pizza, Tacos, Sandwiches
8. Hot Pasta
9. Cold Pasta, Salads
10. Veggie Sides, Grains, Beans
11. Breakfast
12. Cookies
13. Other Desserts
14. Appetizers, Sauces, Beverages

The recipes I have tried and want to make again are at the front of each section. Recipes I hope to make are stored behind these. I try to be brutal in deciding if a recipe is worthy of being added to the book. I hope to make any recipe that I clip from a magazine or newspaper within the next month, preferably within the next week; otherwise, it’s in danger of becoming aspirational clutter. In addition, I try to be honest about what I really will make. I am a successful and functional family cook. I am not a gourmand (or as we like to call them in the United States, I am not a “foodie.”)  While Chicken with Garbonzo Beans and Fennel may sound delightful, the truth is that in the last 48 years, I have never to my knowledge eaten fennel, and I am not likely to start now. To store the recipe would be to add aspirational clutter to my cookbook.

I use the on-line source allrecipes.com for the majority of my explorations into new recipes. I occasionally see a recipe on-line that I’d like to make and store it in the “recipe box” that All Recipes provides, but most of the time I make the recipe by reading it right off the computer. If I like it, it gets printed and stored in the binder. If not, I just shut down the computer.

It’s easy to pull recipes out of the newspaper and magazines, especially if you have a subscription to a cooking magazine such as Vegetarian Times or Cooking Light. Try to be realistic. Clipping more recipes that you can or will ever make adds clutter to your life and makes it harder, not easier, to make decisions about what to have for dinner. Most of us only make a handful of recipes over and over again. That’s okay. And if the occasion ever arises where you really are going to make Lobster Nurenberg or Châteaubriand, there are plenty of on-line guides, as well as the library, to help you get that special meal just right.

In addition, to my recipe binder, I have a separate list of a few meals that I can pull together very quickly, and I keep all the ingredients for these dishes on hand at all times. Being prepared in this way prevents a mad rush to the store or the take-away place when my afternoon doesn’t seem to allow for cooking (or when I just can’t get off my hind end). These foods are:

1.  I have a package of cooked chicken that has been diced or shredded in the freezer, as well as meal-size packages of ham. I also have a wide variety of frozen vegetables.
2.  Six can soup. I use frozen chicken, rather than canned, and add cumin and oregano to this basic recipe.
3. Tortillas with canned beans, cheese, and the frozen chicken.
4. Red beans and rice mix from the pantry cooked with sausage links from the freezer.
5. Canned chili accompanied by cornbread from a mix
6. Spaghetti Carbonara
7. Chicken a la King

Paper clutter is one that really bogs people down, and dealing with a bunch of unnecessary paper clutter at the same time that you’re trying to make a meal is just unnecessary. I challenge you to go to your recipe box right now and recycle 10 recipes that you know you’re never going to make. It’s okay. Let them go. There are millions and millions of delicious foods in this world. Ten recipes fewer aren’t going to keep you from a delicious life, but they could keep you from finding that recipe that you really do want.

Today’s Declutter Item

One of these cables belongs to something we don’t even own any more and the other has a US plug. So neither are of much use to us. These two will go in the trash as I think they will be of very limited demand or use here in Australia.

Unnecessary Power Cables

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Correct postage calculations on ebay sales. I love to go to the post office to mail off completed ebay actions and find the postage is exactly what I am expecting. Couple that with the fact that more stuff has left my house and I am a very happy lady.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Being as this is the first week of the new year I have decided to put together a basic everyday decluttering post for those who have stumbled onto my blog looking for help with their New Year’s resolution to minimise their possessions. So without further adieu I present you with the basics of decluttering your home with the slow and steady approach.

Keep it simple ~ Everyday decluttering is about decluttering slowly and deliberately one item at a time. There is no need to disrupt your household by pulling everything out of a large area causing a huge mess, making rash decisions on what to get rid of and taking hours to regain control of the area.

Pledge to remove, on average, at least one item a day ~ Simply walk into a room spy something that you not longer need, use or care about and remove it to your departure point. If it is not convenient to do this immediately, make a note of the potential clutter items for later removal.

The departure point ~ Designate an out of the way area to place your decluttered items until you are ready to take the next step. The next step might be to through it in the bin, recycle it, sell it or donate it.

Start with the easy stuff ~ A surefire way to deter yourself and give up early in this mission is the make it too hard on yourself to begin with. So start by getting rid of the stuff that you care the least about and is easy to part with. As you get more excited about your progress you will become more ruthless.

Don’t reclutter while you declutter or ever again for that matter. Learning to let go is one thing learning not to acquire potential clutter is a whole other kettle of fish. It may take a little more willpower to achieve this status quo. I would suggest banning yourself from all other shopping except the essentials for at least three weeks. Read my Alternatives to Shopping post for ideas on how to keep yourself out of the shops. Hopefully after three weeks you will have strengthened your resistance enough to at least reduce recreational shopping if not eradication it as a pastime altogether. If you find yourself weakening and considering buying things you don’t need use the advice in this post by Cindy to make yourself think twice about a potential purchase.

There is no speed limit ~ If one thing a day is too slow for you declutter as many things as you like just be sure to keep within your comfort limit. Don’t set a pace too difficult to maintain or it will all get too hard. Speed up and slow down whenever it suits you but be constant in regularity. Try to do something everyday to maintain your momentum.

Be mindful about your decision making ~ Don’t declutter items just for the sake of getting rid of things. Give each item careful consideration you. You don’t want to find you are replacing items a month or two down the track because you got over zealous. Similarly don’t keep items for the wrong reason’s either. I have a declutter decision making guide to help you with this process so use it if you feel the need. You want this decluttering effort to be a lifestyle change not a mad dash to the finish line only to find yourself back at the starting point in another six months.

Be responsible about disposal ~ Please dispose of your decluttered items responsibly. Sell, donate or give away everything that is still usable, recycle the things you can and only put in the trash items that are no good for anything. Yes this can complicate the process but consider that your penance for accumulating stuff environmentally irresponsibly in the first place.

So that is it in a nut shell. In summary everyday decluttering is about reducing your belongings slowly but surely without the mess and back breaking drudgery. As little as one item a day will make a huge difference in the long run and is a lot less stressful than disrupting your entire household with one of those week long possession purging marathons that are a one off event rather than a lifestyle change.

(We will return to the normal routine of Mini Mission Monday next week.)

Today’s Declutter Item

This treasure chest has been around my house since Christmas 2000 it has escaped decluttering up until this point due to sentimental reasons. Yes I can still be a little sentimental about things at times. My husband purchased this box in which he secreted away my Christmas gifts during our first exciting winter Christmas in Seattle. He would go shopping on the weekends leading up to the big day, tell me to close my eyes of I was nearby when he returned with the latest addition and place it in the box. He even had the cheek to padlock it. Up until recently it contained keepsake clutter but now I have reduced that to a more reasonable level and this box is no longer justified. It has been sitting in my clutter collection point awaiting the final verdict to actually declutter it. I am ready to let it go. Now I wonder what took me so long, it is just a box after all and I still have my husband and my memories.

Treasure Chest / Sentimental Clutter

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

I love New year’s resolutions, don’t you? Ok, most people really don’t love them, but I do. Because of them, I have (finally!) learned how to use chopsticks, and I (finally!) had a charity party that I’d been intending to have for 4 or 5 years.

And I have one for you this year: Less trash.

It makes me crazy to drive through my neighborhood and see people’s trash cans literally bursting out the top with trash. The City of Austin provides a choice of 3 cart sizes: 32 gallons, 64 gallons, and 96 gallons; each is more expensive than the size before it, although even the largest can is only $30 a month. Trash pick up is weekly. Most people have the middle size can. This is the one I often see stuffed to the top and more.

(For full disclosure: Everyone also has a 96 gallon recycling bin, which is picked up every two weeks. Any amount of yard waste can be put out weekly as long as it is in large paper sacks or trash cans that can be dumped. Yard waste may not be set out in plastic bags. The city has a fantastic program for recycling solid sewage waste and yard trimmings to produce compost, which is used at city-own buildings and parks and is also sold to the public.)

My family of four people and five animals produces a single bag of trash a week. One. Even when the children were little and wore disposable diapers, we only had two bags of trash a week.

How do we do this when others are brimming over? Frankly, I often ask myself how they could possibly have that much trash. It seems impossible to me, although obviously it’s not.

Here’s how I mange it: a place for everything and everything in its place.

I have a trash can in the kitchen, plus a little one in Dan’s office, each girls’ room, and in all four bathrooms. Except for the kitchen trash, the other ones only need to be emptied once a month or so. I have two recycling bins in the kitchen, one in Dan’s office, and one at the end of the hallway by all our bedrooms. I have a tiny compost bucket in the kitchen. I have a plastic bag recycling area in the pantry; metal recycling tub (small) under the kitchen sink; and a box for Styrofoam in the garage.

Yes, that’s a lot of containers, and yes, I do live in a fairly large house, but I did the same when I lived in smaller places.

All the food cans and bottles go into one of the bins in the kitchen. Paper recycling goes into the bin in the office. The basket at the end of the hall is for miscellaneous recycling generated in the bathrooms and bedrooms. The metal bin under the sink is for aluminum foil or any recyclable but non-can metal. Food scraps are dealt with in a number of ways: the compost bin is that last option. I feed leftovers from our plate to the dogs. The guinea pig gets vegetable and fruit trimmings. Fruit that the guinea pig doesn’t eat goes outside to feed the squirrels. (My 9 year old especially loves squirrels, so ours are well cared for.) In the end, only things like egg shells, banana peels, and tea bags end up in the compost bin. Even the cats’ litter is composted: I buy compressed pine pellets for their box and put the used litter in with the yard waste when it needs to be emptied. Since I know this waste will be mixed with sewage and yard trimmings, I don’t worry that there may be some cat feces remaining. The guinea pig’s pine shavings are dumped directly into the garden as mulch.

In addition, things you’re decluttering need a place to go so that they launch into their new life in the best way possible – a gift to a friend, a trip to the thrift store, sold on Ebay. One of the advantages of thing-a-day decluttering is that you have time to make wise choices. Reader Annabelle just packed up from Germany to come back to the US and said it was a breeze due to decluttering in advance, even though the movers came early. Like her, you don’t want to be in a panic at the last minute. That’s when waste occurs.

And remember, I’ve only talked about ways of diminimishing your trash by recycling. There’s a whole other side to this coin: Bringing less into your home. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

With anything you want to succeed with, you have to 1) have a plan and 2) a way of executing that plan. If you don’t have a convenient place to put your recycling, then it won’t get recycled. If you’ve got some recycling that has to be taken to the recycling center and can’t be put in your curb-side bin, then you need a place to store it. This is my New Year’s challenge to you: Can you cut down on your trash by 1/3? By 1/2? I bet you can. Let’s all take a deep breath and say our 2012 mantra together: Less.

Today’s Declutter Item

This is a classic example of if you keep stretchy things for too long unused they will perish. This piece of elastic tubing was something I had to exercise with when I was having back spasms which in turned caused me neck problems. Fortunately I haven’t suffered from that problem for some time now so it is now only good for the trash.

Elastic tubing for physiotherapy

Something I Am Grateful For Today

The pest man has been, the car is serviced, dinner dates are sorted, towels are washed. Things are coming together nicely around here. Hopefully that means that by Sunday all I will have to do is cook, eat, drink and be merry.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Strange title I know but it probably caught your eye and made you wonder what I am going to be on about today. The thing that triggered this post was a post my Jenny at Ex-consumer called Early To Rise about trying a new routine of getting up earlier in order to see if it relieved the stress of not having enough hours in the day to get things done. Let’s face it there is nothing to be lost in giving something a try you can always go back to your old ways if the new situation doesn’t work for you.

With that thought in mind, why not try it with decluttering if you are unsure how you feel about getting rid of things. This is not a new concept but it bares rehashing every so often.

Lets say you think you might like to declutter your kitchen, pare it down to the more essential items that you know you use on a regular basis but you are afraid you may find after the fact that you have gone too far. Why not have a practice declutter that you can reverse if necessary. Sounds feasible and here is the plan.

• Get one or two packing boxes. The kind a removal company might use or anything else you can get your hands on.
• Allocate a space in your garage or basement where you can store these boxes for three months.
• Select the items from your kitchen that you think you don’t want to keep and/or rarely use.
• Carefully pack all the items into the boxes.
• Mark the boxes with their contents just in case you get desperate to retrieve something.
• Store the boxes in your chosen place for three months.
• Continue using your kitchen as usual.

When/if you ever get a pang that you would like something back don’t immediately try to find it among the items in the boxes. Use a little ingenuity and find a way to substitute that item with something else in the range of things you still have. Try not to resort to entering the boxes until the three month period is up. In fact I wouldn’t even make of a note of the things you thought you want back out of the boxes as the time goes along.

After the three months is up you can do what works best for you.

• Donate the entire box of goodies to the charity of your choice if you didn’t encounter any regrets.
• Have a garage sale and sell the boxes of stuff.
• Open the boxes and retrive the things you did miss and donate or sell the rest.
• Get a couple more boxes and repeat in another area of the house.
• Or put all the clutter back into your kitchen and stop reading my blog. 😆

This concept is the opposite of trying before you buy. You are trying life without an item before you get rid of it altogether. Give it a try and see what you can live without.

Today’s Declutter Item

I sold this item a couple of months back on ebay. In order to encourage a sale I offered to store it until it could be collected by an out of town winning bidder. It took some time to finalise the sales due to this arrangement but we got there in the end. I was just happy to sell it and my daughter was happy to get the money.

My daughter's old keyboard

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I am grateful for stumbling upon the post draft above that I published today. I think I am coming down with something or I just have bad hay fever. Either way I wasn’t feeling great so it was nice to have a post up my sleeve so I didn’t have to try to focus on writing.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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