Decluttering

Image Courtesy The Red Chair Blog

I'm at that stage in my life where I am acting on that wonderful quote..."the most important things in life are not things"... and I'm decluttering my life like there is no tomorrow. I am not just decluttering things per se but simplifying every I do in my daily life... from what I eat, to how I start my day, what I wear, how I run my business.... to even our daily family routines. I am adopting a 'minimalist mindset' and I find it is very freeing and a lot less stressful. It's rubbing off on my boys too, much to my delight. They don't want for much and are very aware of how unimportant 'things' are in the big scheme of things. I don't know about you but I think boys are pretty basic. All my boys need is their family, each other, their lizards, a soccer ball and their Nintendos (only on weekends!) and they're happy.

I subscribe to a wonderful website, 'Be More With Less', a website about simplifying your life and really living. Courtney has the most wonderful informative links in her twitter stream too. I find I read some interesting link of hers every day.

Her latest blog post is an absolute beauty....."50 Ways To Leave Your Clutter".

Here is her list:

50 Ways to Leave Your Clutter

1. Empty one box from your storage space.
2. Donate one box from your storage space without looking inside.
3. Hide something.
4. Put a box near a door that you can easily place things to donate.
5. Read Joshua and Ryan’s new book for extra inspiration.
6. Designate one surface as completely clutter free.
7. Open your mail before you come in the house.
8. Don’t leave anything on your counter tops that you don’t use frequently.
9. List your books on Paperback Swap. (Note from A-M: try GIVIT here in Australia).
10. Sell your gold.
11. Give meaningless jewellery away.
12. Choose one winter hat. Donate the rest of them to a homeless shelter.
13. If there is exercise equipment you haven’t used in 90 days, use it or list it on Freecycle (Note from A-M: try GIVIT here in Australia).
14. Give pots and pans away that you never use, even if they are part of a set.
15. Check out Project 333 and dress with less.
16. Stop comparing. You don’t need everything they have.
17. Let go of sentimental items.
18. Stop shopping sales.
19. Opt out of junk mail.
20. Don’t buy something you don’t want to get something free that you don’t need. (aka stay away from the make-up counters)
21. Figure out where to donate your stuff.
22. Give away holiday decorations that you don’t use this year. Next year, you won’t remember what you gave away.
23. Conquer your junk drawer.
24. Have one last yard sale.
25. Hire a truck to pick up whatever doesn’t sell at the yard sell.
26. If you don’t have a CD player, get rid of your CDs.
27. If you get rid of your CDs, you can dump your cassette tapes too. 
28. Don’t worry about keeping things just in case. 
29. Copy your favorite recipes from cookbooks and get rid of the books.
30. Don’t buy stuff to store your stuff.
31. Hang with like minded people. 
32. Stop getting organized.
33. Set gift giving expectations with friends and family.
34. Decide what you will take with you when you leave. 
35. Stop attaching stuff to the people that gave it to you.
36. Get ready to move to a much smaller space.
37. Live on a boat.
38. Clean off the outside of your refrigerator.
39. Just use one.
40. Leave your kitchen cabinet doors open for 48 hours.
41. Spend time with people who don’t have enough.
42. Don’t send lengthy email messages.
43. Pick up an object and ask these questions. “Do I use this?” “Do I love this?” If the answer is no, let it go.
44. Start a volunteer project with your gift giving friends and agree that your gift to each other and the world this holiday season will be love and time.
45. Enjoy your newfound time and space.
46. Clear your work space of anything you aren’t using that day.
47. Instead of adding a task to your to do list, just do it.
48. If it’s broken, fix it.
49. Remember, if you aren’t happy being clutter free, you can buy everything back.
50. Put people before stuff. Every time.

If you head to Courtney's site HERE, she has links in her list to previous posts she has done on each topic. Some of the organisations she links to may not be too relevant for those of us in this hemisphere but in terms of donating to an organisation, I so recommend GIVIT ... HERE. I did a post on GIVIT a while back HERE.

Do you have any favourite decluttering tips you'd like to share with each other? I like Courtney's last point, 'people before stuff'. We're all out there working hard to buy stuff we don't need, when we have everything we need right now.

Speaking of decluttering, I am unpacking 3 pallets of lights at my shed this morning and then 'decluttering' them.... that means, if you've bought them, you should get them tomorrow or the next day! Hooray, at last!

Have a great day! I'm going to start with a good breakfast!