I woke up to the sound of rain and a tiny bit of thunder at 7am this morning, and I remembered that I’d left some gardening tools outside in a bucket so I popped out to bring it in and went back to bed. I then couldn’t go back to sleep, so just laid there thinking about things.

Thoughts

I need to recharge. I’m not feeling stressed as such, it’s just that my energy levels today aren’t able to keep up with the pace of my brain and the hundreds of things that I want to do. So, I won’t try and declutter today as it’s not a good use of my time. I’ll just tidy up the mess and overflow of stuff lying around from other decluttering sessions that I’ve been doing. This may take a couple of days because of the heat (which I think is generally slowing everyone down).

I’m fully aware that I take on too much as I declutter, and the reason for this is because I have good ideas about where things can go, and so I move them to areas that I haven’t fully sorted out yet, or I keep piles of things to sell (which is going well by the way).

So, to complement all of the decluttering, I need days where:

• I’m tidying: Just tidying up after myself without having to make decisions.
• I’m cleaning: Just doing some regular cleaning which makes everything look tidier anyway and clears my mind at the same time.
• I’m being: Just being not doing (i.e. recharging in between the mass decluttering sessions even if I don’t feel like it)

Today’s plan

I am going to do things the other way round today – I’m going to list below what I want to achieve and then try to stick to that and not add anything else. This should make the surrounding areas clearer (that are starting to build up with clutter). Let’s see if it works. Here’s my list before I start my day:

1. Put shopping away when it arrives
2. Wash old sheets and towels (as mentioned yesterday)
3. Put clothes away in my room (there are many baskets of them as I’m annoyingly behind with putting them away for some reason)
4. Maybe tidy up the recent clutter that’s made its way into the spare room
5. Read quietly in the conservatory (imaging that I have a new bigger conservatory with a foot stool so that I can put my feet up)
6. Quickly wipe around the bathrooms
7. Edit this blog tonight
8. Read other people’s great blog posts for inspiration and entertainment
9. Work (only half day today)
10. General tidy up of the kitchen/dining room

Evening update

So, now it’s evening, I’ll go back over the list and see how I did:

1. Put shopping away when it arrives. [Did at 10am]
2. Wash old sheets and towels (as mentioned yesterday). [One load put in, one load ready to wash tomorrow. Extra load of dark washing put in as well]
3. Put clothes away in my room (stacks of them for some reason). [Didn’t get around to it, but did add to the pile by doing some more washing! At least it’s all clean]
4. Maybe tidy up the recent clutter that’s made its way into the spare room [I popped in there for five minutes and took out a few things that didn’t belong in there, and piled some of the rest of it up to clear some floor area]
5. Read quietly in the conservatory (imagining that I have a new and bigger conservatory) [Didn’t get time, but did have a good chat with my daughter on the garden swing which is sooo much better. We also tried to plan how we as a family could benefit from the bigger conservatory space]
6. Quickly wipe around the bathrooms [ahem… moved to tomorrow am]
7. Edit this blog tonight [Evidenced by me typing this]
8. Read other people’s great blog posts for inspiration and entertainment [Will be doing this as soon as I’ve pressed publish on this post]
9. Work (only half day today) [I had three zoom calls this afternoon which I had to do in the conservatory as it was quiet… but soooo hot which didn’t help with my energy levels]
10. General tidy up of the kitchen/dining room [Did that in between cooking jacket potatoes for dinner]

Extra things achieved that weren’t on the list

• Cleaning cupboard shelf: When I got jam and peanut butter out of the cupboard this morning to put on my toast, I noticed how sticky the cupboard shelf was. I couldn’t leave this another day… just the thought of all the germs and bacteria on the bottom of the jars left me with no alternative other than to wipe each jar and the shelf itself and put it all back.
• Fan research: I spent ages researching fans so that I can have some cooler air in the conservatory whilst I am working. I’m very excited to say that it’s arriving tomorrow.

Work was very busy this afternoon so it was quite good that I had already written a list of what I intended to achieve rather than facing mess after work and not knowing where to start. I’m a list person, as mentioned previously, and I have lists for work and lists for other things I have to do, so adding in a list to help with my 2020 challenge project works for me.

I don’t want to make it too rigid and do daily decluttering lists or anything, it’s just that today was a day that I needed focus.

Hope you’ve all had a good Tuesday.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra