Decluttering starts with the smallest of steps

Posted on September 12, 2016 by

It’s got to 9.50pm and I haven’t decluttered anything, nor have I finished reading Monday’s chapter (about wardrobes) in Erin Rooney Doland’s book Unclutter your Life in One Week. I have, however, had a full and busy day at work; given my attention to the children; made dinner and had a relaxing facial. So you could say that I would be overdoing it if I was to start decluttering now.

(pause)

Just tipped out the contents of my handbag and reorganised. It’s a small bag so it didn’t take long. imageI found some expense receipts that need to be claimed back along with a couple of appointment cards that need to be scheduled in my diary. Not quite as big a job as clearing out my wardrobe, but it made me feel like I’d achieved something today.

As I have the audible version of the book I will listen to chapter one before I go to sleep, visualising how I want my wardrobe to look. So, no time will be wasted during my decluttering challenge and I will try to work on my cluttered closet (which I must say is only half filled with clothes, the rest is just ‘stuff’!) over the coming weeks – donating or tossing as I go.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

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Feeling motivated to declutter

Posted on September 12, 2016 by

Today I did lots of decluttering. My goal was to put the mountains of clothes  away in various family members’ wardrobes and drawers, but I also ended up pottering about downstairs whilst cooking a roast and cleared half the dining room.

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A mountain of clean laundry to put away

Whilst peeling the potatoes I had an inspirational idea about placing wicker baskets in the girls’ wardrobe shelves in order to organise their clothes and make them more accessible. Found a few baskets holding existing clutter around the house and garage, cleaned them, and they are now serving a much better purpose.

Found an audible version of the book Unclutter Your Life in One Week  by Erin Rooney Doland and listened to it as I decluttered. I sneeked a quick listen to Monday’s chapter about wardrobes. Although I know that I’m not going to tackle my entire wardrobe space tomorrow, it’s made me think about what I should actually keep in there along with thoughts about how I should present it so that I when I open it, it makes me feel good.

It’s only day two and I’m starting to feel a lot more organised and looking forward to tackling a small amount of clutter tomorrow. Baby steps….

Until tomorrow

Sandra

 

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Weekend decluttering

Posted on September 11, 2016 by

After writing this morning’s blog, I read ‘The Weekend’ chapter in Erin Rooney Dolland’s book Unclutter your Life in One Week and it was like it was written for me. It described how you should relax after a busy week of routines and work. As you will know, I haven’t done the delcuttering part yet as I’m reading the book in reverse order (weekend first, then weekdays), but I have had an extremely busy week at work. Although the house was in need of a declutter, I just couldn’t face it today.

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Chapter 7: The Weekend

The sub heading on the first page said ‘Taking Care of Yourself’ and it struck a chord as she described what I was about to experience: the trip to the massage therapist’s salon; my tense muscles; and the knots in my neck and back. She even suggested having one of these sessions scheduled monthly which I have recently been doing.

I floated through the rest of the day and instead of stressing about the mess, I decided to pick just one small place to declutter: the shoe cupboard. It took me no more than 30 minutes to reorganised the contents and at the same time place all of the shoes that the children had grown out of into a charity bag. As I’m writing this, I’m still thinking that I could have kept some of them to give to friends and family, but to be honest I’ve already got bags of shoes like this in the garage. I never get round to giving them away. I then thought I could sell them, but it’s the same story. I never do it.

So, this charity bag is going into the boot of my car and on Monday I will take it to the local charity shop.

Benefit one: Someone can make use of the shoes, sandals and trainers that have hardly been worn, rather than them sitting in my garage for a year or so.

Benefit two: On Monday, everyone’s shoes will be easily accessible. No more being called to the shoe cupboard to help find the ‘other shoe’ in the morning rush! This is going to save lots of time.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

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Doing something about clutter and mess

Posted on September 10, 2016 by

Clutter and mess can take over your life. You walk into every room and it’s the same; there’s no getting away from it. Some would try to help by saying ‘tidy just one room and have this as your go-to room whenever you want to get away from things’. You do this and somehow it gets messy again. You try a different room and this time it works (you think) and then somehow it gets messy again. The pattern continues. Is it just you? Is there some force working against you?

You glance over at your bookshelf and amongst DVDs, books, CDs an other stuff wedged in, you spot a title that you bought a couple of years ago that you never read: Unclutter your life in one week by Erin Rooney Doland. Great, you think. That’ll do it. You turn to the contents page and feel like you’ve read it all before; however, this time it might just work. Maybe it’ll change your habits, maybe there’ll be one chapter that makes you do things differently. 

You notice that the book is structured into days of the week starting with Monday. As it’s Saturday, you turn to the weekend section at the end and decide to read that first. The journey begins…

Follow me over the next week to see if I am going to unclutter my life in one week….starting with a massage.

Until tonight…

Sandra

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Craving

Posted on August 6, 2016 by

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/craving/

In response to the Daily Post, I’m writing about Cravings today. All I can think of on the subject of Cravings is that I sometimes crave me time. I’m on holiday, and late afternoon today I popped down to the beach for some quiet time. Fell asleep listening to the sound of the waves. When I got back, the kids were still on their iPads and my partner went and got us a bottle of wine and two wine glasses.

We’re now on the balcony, and whist the kids are getting ready for dinner, we’re sipping wine and I can still see the beach and waves. Bliss.

Until next time….

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Free Praise

Posted on August 5, 2016 by

via Daily Prompt: Praise

Make ‘praise’ part of your day. Give it freely to everyone you interact with. Praise is about looking for what someone has done right rather than what they have done wrong.  It’s thinking about what you are saying before you say it, and delivering a specific response.

Children particularly benefit from this, for example, ‘Well done for hoovering and tidying your room this afternoon’, could be shrugged away by your eight year old. However, a more thoughtful response could go something like this ‘I like the way that you lined up all of your teddies in a row on your beautifully made bed. I also like how you’ve tidied your desk and made a nice clear space to do your colouring’.

Praise is positive feedback and it can be used with adults too. It’s quite easy to throw over a negative comment to your partner such as ‘you never clean up!’ How about more specific praise such as ‘Thanks for dusting around the edges of the ceiling as that’s the bit that I can’t reach’ or ‘Thanks for noticing that I’d left the cleaning stuff on the side and for cleaning the shower whilst you are in it. It’s so clean that I don’t want to spoil it by using it.’

How are you going to make praise part of your day?

 

 

 

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Accepting the help of others

Posted on July 22, 2016 by

Accept help whenever possible


Are you trying to fit too much in? Are you doing everything yourself because you don’t trust anyone else to do it, or can’t find anyone else to do it? I’ve come to the conclusion today that accepting the help of others is a good move for many reasons. 

So many times I have tried to fit in cutting the hedges during my morning off because I just can’t stand looking at them for one more day, hoovering the inside of my car in the evening because the kids are embarrassed for me to pick up their friends the next day, or frantically cleaning the whole house because of a party that afternoon. 

There are keen gardeners and cleaners out there that do this for a living, just like you do your job for a living. They are potentially better skilled to do these things and are actually passionate about doing them. They have the right tools that will make the job quicker leaving you to concentrate on the family, hobbies or even give yourself time to rest!

Yes it does cost money to get others to help, so you would be wise to be selective in what you delegate. It’s all about balance and working out what the benefits are to you, which could be anything from health reasons to finding the time for a hobby that’s moved off your radar. This free time may even allow you train for a job that suits your skills better and will pay you more money.

Look at your balance today. Are you doing too much? Are there things that you could delegate? Be more aware of the offers of help that come out of the blue; don’t let them pass or continually say no to them. All I’m suggesting is that you consider what crosses your path. These things happen for a reason.

I accepted help today and it’s taken a big weight off my mind.

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