My mother has downsized her home of 33 years and boy, does she have a lot of stuff. Like, a whole lot of stuff. For sure, living in one place for 33 years means there is gonna be a lot of stuff. I get it. Hell, I’ve only been in my house for six years and, three adults plus two cats have produced so!much!stuff! But, as we were frantically packing up and labeling boxes, some of the items thick with dust and grime, it occurred to me that me, a woman who loves her stuff, that we have actually encountered a situation in which there is too much stuff.
I have written about my struggles with clutter and stuff before and you can check it out here and here. As I was writing a post about resolutions and goals for 2023 , I came to realize that there was an awful lot of proclamations of cleaning and decluttering and now I have become what I feared. As I go about my day to day life, I sometimes don’t even see the clutter. The pile of mail, the books, the things. Tonight my sweet kitty couldn’t sit next to me on the couch because I had a stack of crap that I was “sorting” but left abandoned when I started reading Reddit.
My sister shared her decluttering method: getting rid of 23 things a day. That feels like an unattainable goal. Realistically, I have 23 things I could possibly declutter each day but *will* I? One of my running friends did a progressive declutter. The number of items for whatever day of the week. That seems doable and possible.
My plan was to practice minimalist but as I said earlier, I like my stuff. Last year I started listening to the book Declutter: The get-real guide to creating calm from chaos by Debora Robertson and her tips and tricks to practice decluttering while managing all of your stuff has been helpful. I felt better about saying no to the chipped tchotchkes my mom kept insisting that I needed or tossing the things people think I could use because I “work with kids and kids would like this!”. My little notebook is getting quite the workout!
The Librarian is on board with the idea of decluttering and cleaning, little by little, project by project. I want to enjoy my house and have people over without the frantic rush to clean all of the things.
Our first planned project is the dining room that has not been used for dining but for the place to drop mail, coats, obsolete technology and all other things that need a home but hasn’t found one. I would love to have dinner at the table before winter is over and we have some board games calling our name and need a place to play them.
Check me out on Instagram for before and after shots.
Tell me…are you a declutterer or have you got everything all tidied (and if you are the latter..,what is your secret?) Let me know below!
-r
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