This post isn’t meant to sound negative, and there’s a point I’m trying to get to… so bear with me. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the last couple of days reading other people’s blogs on clutter. I’m not quite sure of the reason – part of me wanted to see if there were others that were going through the same thing as me, and part of me wanted to see if someone had found a magic solution that gets it all done quicker.

I didn’t find anything that is going to speed things up, nor did I find anything to help me make quicker decisions. What I did discover is that so many of us are dealing with so much of it. Some of us are doing well and know that it’s going to take time, some of us haven’t got a clue where to start, and some of us find that when life takes over we almost need to start again.

Life can take over sometimes

During certain busy phases in life, the every day stuff doesn’t even get done, let alone the backlog. And all the time we are dealing with life, that overwhelmed feeling is at the back of our minds. Stress and anxiety take over.

I paused for a moment in the middle of writing this post because I realised that it was Monday and the normal rubbish bin and the food bin needed to be put out for tomorrow (the weeks are just flying by, as it doesn’t seem like a week ago since I wrote that recycling post!).

Whilst I was tying up the rubbish bag and trying to stop the back door from swinging with the gust of wind, my mind was working overtime. I was thinking about how I should instead be looking for blogs where someone has worked out how to be ok with all of the clutter whilst being in the midst of decluttering and busyness. Surely someone has written about that.

Give yourself permission to be ok

Maybe we should be telling ourselves that it’s ok that it’s all ‘there’ getting in the way. Maybe we should be keeping calm about it knowing that we are all doing our best. Maybe we should be finding a way to live with it around us and not be bothered by it all. As long as we have somewhere to sit and write, right?

As I wrote that last sentence, a thought popped into my head that I hadn’t thought of for years. My sister and I shared a room together until we were in our early teens. Her side of the room was always messy and my side was always tidy. I couldn’t deal with her stuff spilling over to my side, so created a line (not sure how) down the middle of the room so that nothing could come across, ha ha.

She was always fine with sitting in the middle of the mess and it didn’t bother her. If she ever reads this, she’ll laugh because the only thing she didn’t like was that I had to walk across her side to get out of the room. This situation probably went on for years, I really can’t remember. All I know is that I was happy on my tidy side even though her side was messy. No one ever touched my side and everything stayed in its place.

Maybe I should apply the same concept here… clear a space just for me and be ok with the clutter around until things have improved. There’s hope though… although my sister and I haven’t shared a room for about 36 years, I am pleased to say that her house is always tidy and she’s so much better at throwing things away than I am. Why is that? She’s just as busy as me. Maybe I should share this post with her and get her thoughts.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra