Day 238: Focusing on Decluttering the Wardrobes One Step at a Time

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

After carving out the usual time to myself this morning, I carried on listening to Mel Robbins audible book Take Control of Your Life. She has a no nonsense approach and I needed that today. I just had to jot down these words to share with you…

If you have a decluttering project that’s overwhelming you, just focus on that one lego block at a time approach; brick by brick to make it stick. You don’t need five hours, attack it five minutes at a time.

Mel Robbins, Take Control of Your Life

After listening to that, I put my decluttering hat on and got started!

Sorting out another wardrobe

Today I took everything out of the bottom of the other larger wardrobe next to the one that I sorted out yesterday. I knew that it contained a large suitcase full of clothes that I’d put ‘out of sight’ months ago. I didn’t expect to find another smaller suitcase in there also full of clothes!!

Hidden cases of clothes

I was a bit annoyed with myself for not getting rid of these a long time ago. Anyway, I did a quick sort by holding up each item one by one and either putting it in the ‘charity’ pile or ‘not sure if I want’ pile. I know, I know… not a good idea, but I’d forgotten that I had this stuff and I kind of liked some of it. There’ll be no final decision until I’ve tried it all on. I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for that today. I counted 30 items from the pile below that have now gone into a charity bag. Well done me!

30 items of clothing for charity

In the wardrobe I also found bags of toiletries and shoes (that I’m not sure that my husband knew were there), an old iron, a couple of overnight bags that were all dusty, some papers, an old inflatable mattress and other random items. Quite a bit of that stuff will not be staying!

I vacuumed the carpet inside the wardrobe (it goes round the corner next to the other wardrobe so it’s a bit awkward to get to) and I only put back the items that belonged in there. The suitcase of clothes that I need to try on will also need to be put back in there temporarily; however, I’ll be getting rid of the smaller suitcase because the zip is broken (I was actually quite pleased when I discovered that as it helps with decision making 😀).

I haven’t touched the actual clothes that are hanging up in this wardrobe as my husband will need to do that another time. At least the floor area is clean and clear. Here are the before and after photos of the floor area.

Before and after clearing floor area

I’m pleased with my progress today, and I actually made some decisions about stuff. I was actually quite ruthless I think. It was a perfect day for this kind of task as the weather has been so windy and a little bit wet today. It’s still howling out there now.

One other important point to add is that I made sure I had short breaks throughout the day. I even rustled up a quick Victoria sponge cake 🍰. It was delicious with a cup of tea.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

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Day 237: Tackling Another Cluttered Cupboard, Led to Two Hours of Reading Old Journals

Posted on August 24, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

I have a week off and I didn’t start it with a headache which is certainly a first. I must be doing something right.

My new regime of spending an hour or so to myself in the conservatory every morning is working well. After eating my breakfast, I set a timer and spend 24 minutes just sitting and letting my thoughts wander with only a notepad in front of me. This is different to the meditation tracks that I also listen to in the evenings.

So far (since I started my morning time out sessions last Friday), no one has disturbed me and it’s doing wonders to my life in ways that I cannot even explain. I feel calmer, happier and more fun (don’t laugh, but I think I used to be fun 😂). It’s like the clutter clearing and time out per day is uncovering something… which leads me nicely onto what I worked on today.

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Day 236: Sorting Out Spare Room Cupboard Leads to an Evening of Fun

Posted on August 23, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

I’m assuming that I’m not the only one with a junk cupboard or two, or three. Anyway, in our spare room we have two cupboards and the one that I decided to sort out today hasn’t been sorted out for a long time; however, things do get shoved in now and again. The last time I opened the door, I remember there not being much more room to add anything else. The video below shows the big reveal of the ‘stuff’ before taking everything out.

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The Outstanding Blogger Award

Posted on August 23, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

I would like to thank jesusluvsall for nominating me for the Outstanding Blogger Award.

Rules of the award

1. Provide the link to the creator’s original award post. (very important: see why in step 5)
2. Answer the questions provided.
3. Create 7 unique questions.
4. Nominate 10 bloggers. Ensure that they are aware of their nomination. Neither the awards’s creator, nor the blogger that nominated you, can be nominated.
5. At the end of 2020, every blog that ping-backs the creator’s original post will be entered to win the 2020 Outstanding Blogger Award!

This award was created by https://coltonbeckwithrpc.wordpress.com/

Jesusluvsall’s questions for me:

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Day 235: A Solution to Feeling Stuck… and a Roast Pork Dinner

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

Following on from yesterday’s theme about hiding behind things and feeling stuck, I want to share with you something I listened to on Mel Robbins audio book Take Control of Your Life. She talks about being stuck and how people focus too much on the massive big picture and then never actually take the first step.

If you are in need of growth you feel stuck. When you feel that knot in your chest and you feel your thoughts start to spiral, that’s the physical signal that what’s missing is growth. And the only way to get it is to think… what’s a lego block that I can add right now?

Mel Robbins, Take Control of your life

During my 2020 challenge, I’ve been changing my life brick by brick and not trying to do a whole room in one day. I might focus on one room one day and one room another, but they are all steps that move me forward. Doing it this way has helped me concentrate on the steps rather than the big picture.

Today’s steps

Today, I spent a bit more time in the spare room sorting through piles of stuff and categorising things into the relevant plastic boxes (which was the method I started in this room a couple of months ago, and have been dipping in and out since). Quite a bit of the stuff is now boxed up and most things have been put into the garage that we don’t want anymore.

Stuff boxed up

Whilst I was doing this today, I cooked a roast pork dinner and I also managed to fit in a 15 minute nap (I actually had to set a timer, in case something burnt in the oven). It all went well and everyone ate it in about ten minutes.

Roast Pork Dinner

Changing anything is a process

At any time during the decluttering process, I could have just cleared whole rooms and dumped it all into the garage. What’s stopped me was that I would have just been moving the problem to another room. Yes, it would have been out of site and out of mind for a little while, but as soon as I walked into the garage I would have known that nothing in those boxes had been sorted and decluttered. As it stands, anything that’s made it as far as the garage is more or less going to be walking out of the door one way or another (and I don’t mind spending time in my cluttered hideaway now and again when I need to get out of the house).

I really don’t know how my house is going to look by the end of my challenge, but what I do know is that I will feel a whole lot better.

Slowing down

It’s important to remember that life sometimes gives us something different to what we visualise. For this reason, it’s important to be flexible. Frustrating as it sometimes is, slowing down and doing things step by step makes us feel more in control.

So, if you are feeling stuck, remember Mel Robbins words… “It’s essential that you only change things by slowing down and making small moves.”

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

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Day 234: Clutter Sketching Forces Me to Slow Down

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

I sat for ages this morning just looking at one area of the spare room (which started off messier than the below picture I might add). I knew that I needed to listen to someone energising and upbeat, so I scanned down my list of audio books and found Take Control of your life, by Mel Robbins. Perfect! As I listened, I was propelled into clearing and sorting. The following words stuck in my mind…

“Busyness is something I hide behind when I’m afraid of facing things, because if I’m busy I don’t have the time to face the things that scare me. The secret to control is slowing down”.

Mel Robbins, Take Control of your life

I found a sketch pad in the clutter which reminded me how much I like to sketch and doodle. I sat down and did this…

Nor an exact representation of the photo, but it took my mind of things for a while whilst I sipped my tea.

Slowing down

From what I’ve listened to today, I’ve worked out that some of us are afraid to slow down as it forces is to think 🤔; however, decisions are apparently made when we are doing something else or nothing at all.

This rings true for me as I quite often have good ideas when I’m peeling potatoes, out walking or having a shower.

I definitely need more time out to sit and do nothing which fits in nicely with my new lifestyle changes that I mentioned yesterday.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

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Day 233: A Week Off and A Glimpse of a Lifestyle Change

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

I have the next week off work starting tomorrow. I finished my last email around 9pm this evening and shut down my laptop until 1st Sept. Looking forward to some time off. Apart from a few appointments that I need to take the girls to next week (hair cut, dentist, orthodontist etc.) I should be able to take it easy and get some long awaiting jobs ticked off my list.

So, after a long working day, I wasn’t about to start anything big this evening; however, I did do some jobs at lunchtime today… put some washing away, cleaned the kitchen and watered the plants. There’s plenty of time for decluttering and creating space whilst I’m off.

I treated myself to a relaxing evening… had a shower, did the minimum I needed to do in the kitchen and then just read and listened to some audio books for a bit.

A few ideas on my lifestyle changes

I’d like to make some changes to my life to add in more reflection time and me time. I’ve been hearing more and more about how beneficial this is (which deep down I knew anyway). I’m choosing more and more not to sit in the lounge in the evening and watch TV with everyone just because that’s what we’ve always done. I want a choice… sometimes it feels right to do that and sometimes I just want to sit in silence.

I think it might be as simple as adding a few more routines into my day where I take time for me; to reflect on life. The routines I currently have in place when I wake up are to stretch for five minutes whilst doing some deep breathing. I hardly ever miss that. Sometimes I go for a walk.

I always end my day listening to a meditation track. I have an app called Synctuition which is working for me and they’ve just added a new level.

This week I’ve also added in some time in the conservatory first thing in the morning to eat my breakfast either in silence or whilst reading or listening to something inspirational. This is all possible because the room is fully decluttered now and it feels great!

I recently stumbled upon Mo Gawdat’s 14 day Happiness Challenge where he’s teamed up with the company Rituals Cosmetics and there’s a short 5 to 7 minute video to watch every day for 14 days (today was day 11). This morning I found another video that I’d missed the week before the challenge began and as I listened, the following sentence struck a cord with me…

You are in charge of your happiness and regardless of what’s happening in the world, if you have your habits (your rituals) in place, you can still find happiness regardless of the events of life.

Mo Gawdat, From You Tube video Meet Mo Gawdat, Happiness Ambassador

So, from now on my ‘me time’ will include my rituals… my habits, and I will try and embed them into my life from now on.

Absolutely looking forward to tomorrow.

Until then…

Sandra

Posted in 2020 Challenge, decluttering, Getting organised, Inspiration, Life, Me time, Wellbeing, working mum | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Day 232: It Took Me Less Than 3 Minutes to Clean a Vacuum Cleaner Roller Brush

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

Being my morning off, I caught up with some housework. As I was vacuuming the lounge, I noticed that the cleaner wasn’t picking up very well. On checking the brush roll today it had soooo much long hair wrapped around it. I have long hair and so do both of my daughters so it’s probably a combination of all of us.

Our hair has wrapped itself around the roller brush a few times since my Day 90 post back in March, where I wrote that it took me ten minutes to de-hair the roll. I thought I’d do something different today and instead of explaining how I cut all the hair out (which would be a bit boring and I’ve done that before) I thought I’d do an amateur video. I must be getting quicker at cleaning the roll though as it only took me 2 minutes and 38 seconds, which is pretty much a record for me. Here goes…

Cleaning a vacuum cleaner roller brush in under 3 minutes

I’m sure that my daughters could have edited this for me so that it looked a bit more professional, but this will have to do for my first attempt. I made myself chuckle at the end of it, as I could have cut the video by at least ten seconds if I had put the cover back on the cleaner the right way round. Oh well, it’s not something I can reshoot until we shed more hair. I could also have talked a bit more in the video as well, but funnily enough I didn’t think of that at the time, I was too busy trying to concentrate.

I’m sure I’ll get better at this with practice. My only experience with videoing is taking them of my daughers when they were growing up and I only had to point it in their general direction to get such great footage. They did all the work and I didn’t really have to do anything.

Let me know in the comments if you would like to see more videos of housework/decluttering or if you would prefer me to just stick to writing. I’m sure there’s a way of speeding these videos up or editing them so that you maybe only see certain bits (I will just have to ask my daughters to teach me – they are born knowing how to work technology).

All the Ws: Washing, Washroom, Wednesday and Weekend

To make the housework routine a bit more fun today, I thought ‘Oh, it’s Wednesday. Let’s do Washing and Washrooms’. (Note: bathrooms didn’t begin with W so I changed it to a more suitable word, ha ha). Funnily enough the Weekend starts with W as well, so I could introduce a routine to do Washing and Washrooms on Wednesdays and the Weekend.

I think that maybe it’s time for me to wind down for the evening. Bit of a long day with work and cooking as well. I went for fishfingers, avocado, lettuce, spinach and a slice of wholemeal bread this evening, which wasn’t quite the same as the traditional fishfingers and chips, but far healthier.

Fishfingers for dinner

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

Posted in 2020 Challenge, decluttering, Getting organised, Household chores, Inspiration, Life, working mum | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Day 231: Clothes Shopping, and Repotting the Geraniums

Posted on August 18, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

I felt so refreshed when I woke up this morning. I checked my fitbit app and it showed deep sleep of 1hr 28 mins and the other stats looked good too. It might have something to do with the fact that I felt really organised last night, posted my blog a bit earlier, went to sleep before midnight, and had more sleep than normal. My workspace is tidier and my bedroom is tidier. All this decluttering and tidying is really helping!

Anyway, today I sat in my ‘tidy’ conservatory eating my breakfast, catching up on my emails and watching a few inspirational video clips from one of my favourite authors and speakers. The sun was shining through the windows and it felt calm and relaxing.

A rare trip to the shops

I had to return something to Next and pick up a parcel. This was the first time that I’d been in a clothes store since March. When I arrived, the car park was packed so I did get a bit concerned that there would be a lot of people in there. I popped on my mask and walked in.

Next store

There actually weren’t many people in there at all. It has a big costa on the first floor so I’m assuming that they must have all been in there taking advantage of the 50% off food which is available in most restaurants during August.

Although there were signs and announcements to say that shoppers had to keep two meters apart from each other, it was very easy to keep my distance as it’s a massive store and very airy.

I decided to have a browse around the clothes and picked up a few items. I wasn’t in need of retail therapy or anything (as I really would prefer to be getting rid of clothes at the moment rather than buying them); however, I had identified the other week that I needed some more lighter coloured short sleeved t-shirts (as I wear a lot of black ones) so I picked up a few as I wandered around.

The changing rooms were closed for obvious reasons so I took a chance with sizes by just holding them up. It actually felt good pottering around the shop at my leisure.

These are the ones that I think I’m going to keep after trying them on (okay… you spotted the pyjamas set as well 😊 which I probably didn’t need).

A Little Bit of Gardening

I was on work calls a lot of the afternoon. After that I wanted to get outside in the sunshine and repot my geraniums as they were outgrowing the pots that I had put them in. I decided to stand them in the tall wicker baskets that used to have the citrus plants in.

Geraniums grown from seed

The leaves look massive don’t they? No flowers yet though. I think I’ll leave them inside because they don’t seem to be flowering outside. Maybe they need to be a bit more established first. I can see some buds on one of them. The ones from the other packet that I also grew from seed have lots of flowers. I’m no expert as this is the first time I’ve grown anything from seed.

I’m looking forward to another good night’s sleep tonight.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

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Day 230: A Day of Working, Cleaning, Rearranging and Recycling

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Sandra Madeira

At lunch time I tackled the kitchen and mopped the floor. I’m not quite sure why it was so messy because I spent quite a bit of time in there yesterday. I suppose with us all being home and eating what we want when we want (not ideal, but rules have sort of gone out of the window during lockdown) there’s always a constant flow of people, plates, cutlery, cups etc., cluttering up the sides. It only takes me between five and ten minutes to empty and load the dishwasher, so I don’t make a fuss and bother anyone to do it. This way I can get it done when I want to get it done (I do hate walking into a messy kitchen whilst waiting for someone else to tidy up). The others do help sometimes, usually when I least expect it, so I always see that as a bonus.

Reorganising and cleaning my office

I hadn’t been in the conservatory for a few days as I haven’t been at work since Thursday and so it felt dusty and cluttered. After work I opened the windows and gave it a bit of a clean. At the same time I moved the comfy chairs closer to where my desk is and the exercise machine along the longer wall. I think it works better. I actually got on the machine whilst reading some blogs and checking my emails. I must have done 15 minutes which was unplanned but also good as it energised me for the evening.

At the same time as moving the furniture around, I took one item out – the weights. These were on a stand which takes up far too much room. It would be okay if we had the space in this room but we don’t as my desk is in here. So, I put the stand in the garage for now and the weights beside the sofa in the lounge. I don’t think that anyone will even notice that I’ve done this as no one uses them, but it’s made me happy as the conservatory has a bit more room now.

It’s recycling day!

I had a nice dinner – steak and chips – and then next on my list was the recycling bins as they get collected on a Tuesday morning. I do love putting out all the cardboard, plastic, tins, bottles etc that I’ve got rid of over the last two weeks. It gives me a sense of achievement and I know it’s out of my space.

So, now I am relaxing in my tidy conservatory and typing up my blog a bit earlier than usual. It’s starting to feel like a proper office at last. There are a couple of things that I would change but for now I’m very grateful for the space.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

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