tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6501830233162703789.post3552051915569006734..comments2022-11-20T01:26:01.897-08:00Comments on 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge: Focus Challenge - Month 9Suzanne Sergishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07862107904825511483noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6501830233162703789.post-33971056438277695892008-12-12T10:02:00.000-08:002008-12-12T10:02:00.000-08:00Jacqui: First, hello my long-lost friend!!! :-)Clu...Jacqui: First, hello my long-lost friend!!! :-)<BR/><BR/>Clutter is any thing you don't Love, Want, Need or Use. Defining your own things as clutter or not is only a decision you can make.<BR/><BR/>Items stored in boxes, whether in an attic, garage, on a closet shelf or just on the floor are only clutter if they don't meet the above criteria.<BR/><BR/>Meaning...<BR/>- Do you want them? This is probably yes, since you've taken care to store them away. But, sometimes, this is the easiest question to answer because we surprise ourselves and realize that, no, we don't want them. So, out it must go!<BR/><BR/>- Do you use these things? If no, then they are clutter. Decide to use them and do it, or realize that you need less physical clutter in your life and let them go. When you purge the physical clutter, the mental clutter follows it out the door. Imagine, not having the friction against Mike's desires and your own, not forgetting what you have and spending money on more, not feeling emotional mental clutter about it (see next item), etc.<BR/><BR/>- Do you love them...or do they make you sad, feel guilty, make your life feel inadequate (as in you wish you had time for other interests, but don't, and these things just remind you of that dissatisfaction), etc.? If they bring on unhappy feelings, they are clutter.<BR/><BR/>- Do you need them? If they are used and loved, then think about whether you need them. For example: Say you have one of something in your kitchen but have another that a relative gave you. That one isn't really your favorite so you put it away for "special occasions". If you bring it out and use it, then only you can decide whether its useful in your life to have a duplicate of something. If you are only keeping the second because of mental clutter, let it go. Find it a better home. Selling or giving things to someone who WILL use, love, need and want them will not be clutter to them, as they were to you.<BR/><BR/>Happy Decluttering!Suzannehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02727392529069711772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6501830233162703789.post-38052095659021728902008-12-11T16:21:00.000-08:002008-12-11T16:21:00.000-08:00Do boxes stored in the attic and in the garage cou...Do boxes stored in the attic and in the garage count as clutter? =) I have a hard time letting go. It's definitely getting easier since I'm running out of room to neatly store things out of sight. I'm mostly an "a place for everything, everything in it's place" person. But with the kids accumulating more things and with my sewing obsession (without a room to put it in), its getting harder to store them neatly. My daughter has no problem letting go of most things, but my son is more like me. Of course Mike would just like to see it all go. LOLJacquihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16521791532735722062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6501830233162703789.post-51676183885515076532008-11-24T09:39:00.000-08:002008-11-24T09:39:00.000-08:00Great job on taking that first step!"When you purg...Great job on taking that first step!<BR/><BR/>"When you purge the physical clutter, the mental clutter will follow it out the door!"<BR/><BR/>Self-awareness is the first step...You're on your way. :-)Suzannehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02727392529069711772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6501830233162703789.post-31933779650818797012008-11-24T00:01:00.000-08:002008-11-24T00:01:00.000-08:00Great post. For me the mental clutter and physical...Great post. For me the mental clutter and physical clutter are so intertwined that some of it can't be separated or defined. I just realized that this is one of my real problems. Defining it. When I think about it, doing a mental inventory of the stuff around the house and in storage, it's mostly mental clutter. <BR/>On the positive side, today we decorated the front porch of our house and the blue spruce in the front yard (that by next year will be too tall for even the big ladder so this is probably its last year in lights). We won't turn on the lights until after Thanksgiving, but I really gently pushed to get this done ahead of time to ease up the stress in a few weeks. While we had all the boxes pulled out from under the stairs I found two foot-tall stuffed decorative Thanksgiving gifts that my mother had waiting at our places the last year she was with us. Mine was a "lady" goose in a dress and bonnet and my husband's was a turkey made of different fabrics. I've never used them and amazingly found them easy to give away to the twin 9-year-old girls across the street. I'm finding that the OLDER the attachment to a piece of mental clutter the harder it is to get rid of. You'd think that, because they were some of the last gifts I received from my mother, they would be hard to part with. But I had no history with them, and that seemed to make the difference.Lydiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11135393270656573516noreply@blogger.com