A year ago I embarked on a journey to declutter our home — I wrote about that in several posts, Intentional DeCluttering, Tidying: You’re Still You!, and a couple more, beginning with, Eliminating Clutter. As I mentioned then, I hadn’t heard of Marie Kondo until after I’d begun the arduous project. My family “introduced” me to her program and teased me a bit about getting rid of everything that didn’t spark joy. The idea totally resonated with me and propelled me to keep working at it. And it still does in many ways. In the decluttering process I had to…
-
-
Over the last month or so, living with less clutter, I’ve experienced some unintended benefits of my intentional decluttering project. Not the least of which has been ease of housekeeping and/or ease of moving from one daily activity to another with very little preparation or tidying. Having been the mother of many children for decades, home organization has been paramount. But even with all my planning and organizing, I still had clutter. In this process of decluttering over the last couple of months, I’ve mulled over some of the “clutter factors” and how they came to be. One of the…
-
The problem with attempting to make dramatic changes, or to carry out new resolutions, or most anything, really, is that we’re still the same people with the same proclivities, habits, personal styles, bents. The tidying, or in my case, the project of eliminating clutter, only lasts as long as the determination/work/project continues. No matter where you are in the project of eliminating clutter or tidying, you’re still you. You’re still you. I’ve had to repeat this to myself many times in the last couple of weeks as I see myself “dropping my guard” on eliminating clutter. Just recognizing this has…
-
There’s a saying, One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I kept this in mind from time to time as I proceeded through my month-long activity of eliminating clutter in our home. I also had in mind a couple of other thoughts that sort of guided my process: I’m doing this for me and our family and clutter is relative! After an initial confrontation, I purposely blocked out a couple of thoughts: cost/origin of the item and other’s opinions/style. I kept in mind the goal of eliminating clutter, living in our new normal, gratitude for the past activities/needs/possessions, and keeping…
-
One of the challenges I’ve been experiencing as I have been going through closets, cupboards, and drawers specifically — and rooms, in general is newly exposed space: open space! If you’re either a Queen Of Quite A Lot or a Saver Of Quite A Lot, you just might find yourself in a quandary. No, not the first day, not the second day, but a couple of weeks after you uncover OPEN SPACE in your home, your natural tendency will be to FILL it! Fill it back up. Quickly. Don’t do it. Resist the urge to fill space. Now, I know…
-
Clutter, clutter everywhere and not enough places to put it. That’s how the beginning of this year felt to me. Clutter of things, clutter of thoughts, clutter of concerns. I didn’t know what I needed to do, initially, but I knew I needed to get busy. I process things either verbally, by writing or by cleaning. So, it really stands to reason that my resolve to clean out the clutter was really a resolve to clean up some other areas of my life, too. I didn’t start with an exact plan or schedule beyond the decision to eliminate clutter, but…