The Minimalist Game Conquered

This year the KonMari buzz has overtaken the internet.  You cannot go onto any social media platform without a plethora of posts or videos showing people either joyfully or with much stress and moaning and groaning piling heaps upon heaps of stuff onto their beds.  While I knew I needed to do a good declutter, and why not in January when it was cold out and I was hibernating inside the house anyways, the thought of unloading whole closet and cupboard fulls at a time was just too much for me.  I work from home in child care and pretty much use most of the space in my house on a daily basis so that principle was just a no go for me.  And unless I take a vacation to declutter who on earth has hour upon hour all in a row to devote to such a thing?  So in pondering how I would like to approach the task of mindful and intentional decluttering, I came across a little thing called "The Minimalist Game".

The basic premise was to take 30 days to declutter a whack load of stuff.  On day 1 you get rid of one item.  On day 2:  two items, on day 3:  three items and so on and so forth until day 30 when you've worked yourself up to 30 items that day.  You get the picture.

Now this sounded a whole lot more doable.  It did not require me to unload whole rooms into a pile that would take hours upon hours to go through.  I could take a few moments here and there in the particular room I was in and remove items, still under the idea of "non-usefulness" and "no joy", and let me work at it until I had the required amount for that "day" slot.  If that particular number took me three days then so be it.

NO PRESSURE AND NO STRESS!  As soon as I had the required number a pic was taken and when I had a box or bag full off they went to either donate or trash or recycling.

Can we just pause a moment in this post and ask ourselves why on earth any individual needs to have 24 pairs of 3D glasses in their cupboard?  I have no answer.

I was amazed at how motivating this was.  I started to look forward to what else I could get rid of.  I would scan rooms and areas as I passed through them.  It was very liberating.

Now on that note may I say that I did not touch any of my husband's stuff.  This is important.  You cannot force another person into your decluttering head space.  In fact, in that pile of blu-rays and dvds any that were his I got his permission.  Andwhen I asked if he was sure a few days later, he took another look and took a couple of them back.  Which is totally ok.

And now aren't you amazed that as you scrolled through this post that in about the 6 weeks that it took me to do this I got 465+ items out of my home.  Let's just think about that.  Four Hundred and Sixty Five pieces of stuff that was sitting around my house.  Shocking, isn't it?  I know I was stunned.  I thought it would be hard.  Amazing how something as simple as this can have such a great effect.  Now I'm motivated to go beyond the surface stuff and go a little deeper into the backs of closets, cupboards, drawers and bins.  The things that might require a bit of a tougher decision.

Have you been KonMari-ing?   Or have you been KonMari-ed?

Overwhelm Relief #1

Lately I've really been feeling overwhelmed by all the things of everyday life. Just the busyness and rushing has taken a bit of ahold. It's just one of those seasons that seems to naturally bring with it extras. And the Christmas season is coming. So I've been trying to think "simplify". Now the thought of doing that in huge chunks, in itself, is overwhelming to me. So I've been taking baby steps. And I thought I'd share the steps with you in segments. 'Cause I know you're waiting with bated breath, and all.

First off the bat, I just took pause and reflected and prayed about what it is that causes those feelings of being overwhelmed. And it took awhile for me to figure out. But then it came to me. I get feeling frustrated, what gets a bee in my bonnet and makes me antsy and grumpy is when my floors aren't clean, when counter and tabletops are overflowing, when "things" are crowding me out. So I'm going to figure out a plan, so I don't get to the point where everyone in my household is avoiding me because I have a storm cloud over my head.

My first step was to take a deep breath and look around to see which was the worst at the moment. The first thing I decided to get a handle on was the paper work that seems to pile everywhere. No matter how much I want to ignore it, paper will come into my household. I resolved that fact with myself. My need was to simplify the process in which I deal with the monster. The above picture is only one area it seems to collect in. I have tried the basket idea. Got some really pretty ones but then everything just goes into this black hole and doesn't get dealt with at all. And then it's just an overflowing basket on my counter.

I made a decision to force myself to immediately handle as much of the paperwork as possible when it first comes into my hands. Here's my plan. Instead of picking up the mail and depositing it onto a table or counter top I will take that minute force myself and do a quick sort: read later or immediate recycle. Hubby's mail will go onto his dresser right away so that he can deal with it. I cannot believe the difference that little quick sort makes. A fast 30 seconds to 1 minute and the clutter is already cut in half. After lunch when the kids are having their quiet time, I take one more minute and go through what got left. The sale papers get a quick look, if I see something I might want, it goes on a list on the fridge and the paper goes immediately into recycling. All dates that I need to know get written on the calendar, and the letters go.

I'm not perfected at it. I mean, it's only been about a week that I got determined to deal with this but I'm trying and determined I am. Paper may be a fact of life but I refuse to let paper get me down. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to have to conviction to actually put a sign on my mailbox that says "No unaddressed mail or flyers, please". Now that would make it really simple, but I'm not quite at that place yet.

How do you simplify dealing with the paper in your life?