Specifically, How Did You Do It?
For those who are struggling, like I have, here are some of the practical steps of getting rid of clutter and the whole lifestyle that goes with it.
Like some physical maladies, this one might have a different root for some people than it has for others. It might be the result of more than one contributing factor.
What causes our messiness and proclivity to collect clutter?
- Perhaps we just don’t know how to organize and sort, with the additional problem of not wanting to throw away something useful or which holds sentimental value.
- Along with that second factor: we might know how to keep house if we wanted to, but we have the frugality gene gone awry. Everything seems important and valuable; we can’t throw anything away. We can’t give it away. And then that stuff starts to accumulate.
- Some of us are lazy and we have a prejudice against housekeeping. Our time is too important, we have better things to do. Yeah, right. If it were only that, wouldn’t we hire someone to take care of these onerous tasks for us?
- It got away from us, pure and simple. Now, we have to take charge of our lives again.
- We are “messies” who get distracted, who never finish anything and we box up stuff willy nilly until there isn’t room any more. Every time we want to go through the boxes… we get caught up reading some magazine articles we cut out seven years ago….
Photo credit: sideshowmomSo, now that we identify our challenge, and we have come to the place where we are serious about doing something about it, what else is to be realized to move forward? Here is my own story of what I’ve been doing lately and what it took to get me there.
Why You?
Organizing Thinking
Use Boxes
These are simply cardboard boxes for sorting purposes.
KEY:
You get one, that’s all.
I extend the same mercy to you that I give myself. You are welcome!Of course, next I must help my husband reform. Oh, I know he is going to love that. ( but the secret is that the more he enjoys a clutter free house that I am working on, the more he is inspired to tackle his own spaces). I guess I will have to report in an update sometime next year.
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© 2014 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.
Oh, Ilona. I so needed your post. On the other hand, I was just telling my nephew who also has lots of hand-me-down ephemera that we have greeting cards that DH’s mother and father sent one another more than 75 years ago, among other treasures.
Shall I throw away the lock of hair in a little tobacco tin and the baby tooth in a dentist’s plastic treasure box that belonged to our son, dead now for 11 years?
Such thoughts immobilize me before I get started.
Jean, don’t be discouraged, just take it slow. Certain mementos are important for our emotional health, some temporarily, some for the rest our lives. I bought a medium sized chest at Hobby Lobby as a “memory box”.
I also put together pictures, etc. that I thought would be important for other members of the family. Now I just need to get myself to package them up and send them out!
It is hard to know when to pass on the treasures, but when it is consuming to much of our energies to curate it all… it is time to pass the baton and open up our lives for other things.
We each are different. We can be courageous in divesting ourselves of our “stuff”, though- I do believe!
Thanks so much for your comment. And I can’t imagine how difficult it is to lose your son. So sorry for the loss you have endured.