Having had almost nine hours’ sleep last night, I was full of energy to move forward with more decluttering steps today, and what better way to start than going through a large suitcase of old clothes which was on my plan from yesterday.

I’d been through the clothes once already this year when I got rid of about 30 items, but I ended up shoving the rest back in because I didn’t feel like making decisions about them at the time. Today I was ready to make those decisions.

Asking for help for a change

I asked my husband if he wouldn’t mind commenting on each item of clothing as I tried it on. I knew that he would tell me exactly what he thought and although I would still consider keeping items if he didn’t like them, I thought that it would at least allow me to weed out some of the surplus ones that I wasn’t sure about. Normally I would do the decluttering by myself because his way of sorting is to get rid of it all; however, today I involved him and we actually had quite a laugh.

Some items fitted me better than I remembered and there were a few items that I’m going to wash and keep; however, I was also being very ruthless and filling the charity bag as I went.

My husband did get a bit bored after 1-2 hours and we had to stop and then he said that he’d rather carry on with it tomorrow, so after lunch I abandoned that job and moved onto the study cupboard.

Clearing out the cupboard

I couldn’t even get into the cupboard in the corner of the new study because there was a lot of clutter in front of it. I moved it all onto the sofa and other corners of the room allowing me to open the cupboard door.

I took out everything belonging to my daughter and moved it into her new room in baskets. I left the clothes on the rail. These are some of my work clothes not being worn at the moment that got transferred from when we knocked out wardrobes in our bedroom.

I filled the rest of the shelves with things that I want to keep in the study.

I looked at the remainder of the room and although it still felt cluttered, I had a better feeling about it all. I knew that there was one more drastic change I wanted to make to the room today that would make me feel good and possibly make me rest for the rest of the day….

So, before I made dinner (fajitas), I pulled out my daughter’s old single bed that was standing up on its side in the corner of the room (the divan base and the mattress) and pushed it over to the other side of the room.

I then moved the old sofa against the far wall knowing that this was going to prevent access to the cupboard I’d just filled, but also knowing that I didn’t need access to any of that for now. The plan is to get a new narrower sofa bed once I’m happy with the new layout of the room.

I was exhausted after all this pushing and shoving and literally flopped onto the ‘still messy’ sofa and switched on the Calm app so that I could listen to ‘daily calm’ for 10 minutes. My body and mind needed a rest.

With the sofa now facing the TV, and the middle of the room having free space for sorting, I decided to leave the rest of the room a mess and then went to make dinner. I was happy that I’d moved forward enough today and know that I have a plan for tomorrow.

I spent the rest of the evening watching TV with my husband.

A productive day all round. Hope you’re all having a good weekend.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra