30 Days to a Less Cluttered Life: Part 2

Well, here we are. It’s now Week 2 of my Great Self-Imposed Decluttering Challenge! And guess what? I’m still going, full of energy and enthusiasm for the task at hand!

This is a mildly amazing feat for me. Not that I’m a quitter or anything….but I have been known to give up on a self imposed challenge or two in my time. It’s the usual thing that gets in the way. You know how it goes - you set out to do something, swear up and down that you are going to do it, make plans for getting it done and fantasize about how good you are going to feel/look/eat (you fill in the blank) when you are done….only to quit when something gets in the way.

I think this time is different because instead of setting a goal, I have set an intention for myself to be more peaceful by having a less cluttered space (to read more about my thoughts on goals vs. intentions, check out my Part 1 post). I’ve also set some serious accountability for myself by declaring on my Instagram account that I am doing this and then committing to sharing photos of what I am getting rid of every day. Knowing a bunch of folks you only sort of know virtually are expecting you to deliver will surely keep a girl honest!

Then there is the honest truth - and that is that I am actually enjoying this! By breaking the task of decluttering a family home into smaller steps across 30 days, and having an easy-to-follow framework for accomplishing the needful, it becomes relatively simple (and fun!) to move find things you don’t need and move them out of your house without committing whole weekends to doing so. Very quickly, a more peaceful feeling has started settling in for me, as I look around my house, and see whole closets, drawers or corners that are far cleaner now than they were two weeks ago. It all adds up quickly and makes for a far more peaceful me!

Why De-Clutter Your Home for More Peace?

I think this is worth revisiting. This might be blatantly obvious for some people, but the reality is that a cluttered space equals a cluttered mind. If you have lots of stuff lying around, you’ll spend a lot of time worrying or thinking about that stuff, where to put other stuff, how to clean your space and organize your stuff and whether you even need the stuff in the first place. Even if your stuff is not lying around per se, but it is super disorganized and all over the place, you’ll likely just find yourself frustrated all the time as you try to figure out where things are. All of this thinking, worrying and frustration undoubtedly clutters the mind and keeps us from finding space to rest and relax or, said differently, find peace.

Now, I’m no organization expert but I’ve always been inclined towards the concept that everything has a space. I’ve pretty much trained myself and my family to put things away in the same place every time so we can easily find what we need to, when we need to. So, a disorganized space isn’t really my issue. My challenge rests in the fact that we are a busy family of four, each with our own things, and over time, the things really, really add up. Living in a home, this is exacerbated by the nooks, crannies, shelves and drawers that it becomes possible to just stash things away in, saving them for that day you’ll need them, that day that never really comes.

I often get super frustrated when I go into less frequented, less in-my-face areas of my home and find piles and piles of clutter and chachkas lying around. In spite of being organized, there is plenty of stuff lying around to frustrate me and make me less calm on a daily basis.

This is why I decided to try to focus on this area of my life in the first month of 2021. In keeping with my ethos, I would describe this by saying I have set an intention to make my home less cluttered during the month of January!

How My De-Cluttering Challenge Works

I mentioned earlier that one of the reasons that I think this is working for me because I’ve established a basic framework to follow to make my decluttering aspirations easy to attain quickly. Ease and speed are paramount because I’m a busy mom with lots of other things that I want and need to do.

With this in mind, I have set the following rules for myself for this challenge. They’ve worked for me and I think they can work for you too!:

Simply put, here are my core rules:

1. I must get rid of 3-4 things every day

2. I will not spend more than 5-10 minutes per day identifying clutter, unless I have time to do more and actually want to do more

3. Regular cleaning of the house doesn’t count. I need to find unused things to get rid of.

4. I have to gain the approval of a family member before I get rid of their stuff. This one is especially important for the kids. I don’t want to just get rid of their things and have meltdowns happening all over the place. There’s no peace in that!

In terms of what I can do with what I find, it’s fine to throw things away, donate them, recycle/upcycle them in some way or share them with someone else who might be able to use them.

The last point is around accountability. My most successful endeavours - the ones that I stick with - have to include an element of accountability. Otherwise, it’s too easy to try to set out to do something and then quickly give up when it gets too hard or there is something more interesting to do instead. So, in this case, I decided to set up accountability by sharing my challenge on Instagram. What better way to remain accountable than to tell thousands of people that you’ll keep them updated on how it’s going! :)

How Things Went in Week 2

Week 2 has been all about going a little bit deeper. While in Week 1, I was able to pluck off a lot of low-hanging fruit, in Week 2, I’ve had to be a bit more thoughtful and look in new and exciting places since most of the super obvious clutter is already gone. That said, there is no shortage!

A few of the key areas I focused on this past week - bathroom cupboards, kids closets and our laundry room. Each day, I spent about 10 minutes looking for things to find and you can see for yourself below, find things I did!

I’ve had a few new insights in Week 2. I’d summarize them as follows:

• I am just as bad as my kids when it comes to hanging on to stuff I don’t really need but really don’t want to part with! I came into this 30 day challenge thinking the problem was everyone but me but now, I see I’m just as guilty (you’ll see the same when you see what I threw out this week, below! :))

• One common way in which we accumulate stuff is to have multiples of the same thing. Look for multiples of the same product and/or “repeats” i.e. multiple different items that save the same purpose. I think it’s our consumerism mindset that leads us to buy the same things over and over, somehow thinking that the latest purchase is a better version of something you already have. And when it comes to multiples - well, I blame this on some sort of scarcity mindset (and big box stores that host big sales!) that causes us to essentially hoard more than we need for the immediate future. If you look specifically for such items, and streamline and/or get rid of them, you will feel so much lighter.

• Kids artwork/school projects/tests etc. - now I know this stuff is adorable but your little bub will be generating lots of it for years to come. If you want a less cluttered space, it makes sense to get rid of this stuff. Keep a few items if you must but even then, I say digitize them rather than hanging on to the originals!

And as I said last week - accountability is key. It really helps to hold yourself accountable for getting this decluttering thing done somehow!

So what did I find? Lots of stuff! Check out everything that left my home after Week 2, below:

Looking Ahead to Week 3

Looking ahead to Weeks 3 and 4 is a bit worrying. Can I keep this going? No doubt it’s getting harder but I’m going to keep trying! However far I get, my house will certainly be tidier and my mind more peaceful, so it’s a win-win situation! :)

Time to go grab a glass of bubbly to celebrate, and plot where I’ll be poking around in Week 3!

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