Focus Challenge - Month 10

This month's Focus Challenge comes during the time that a person who struggles with mental clutter would identify as a "difficult" time of year. I'm not knowledgeable on the traditions of all religions and all cultures, but I am guessing that most of us are celebrating during this season by exchanging gifts in some way.

After working on ourselves and our spaces for many months to slowly (one-item-a-day) release clutter from our lives, this may be the time of year when we could take in a whole lot more. I say could because the choice is ours. There is no guilt allowed here in the 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge...whether in decluttering past clutter or present clutter!

We'll receive an item and go through the wrenching dance between our mind and heart, or even between us and others, about whether we should keep the item. If, instead, we feel positive feelings and the sentence reads, "We'll receive an item and feel ___ (positive feeling here)", the end result will undeniably be we will keep the item.

For experiences that have a "should", realize that you've given up the power of your choice to clutter...both physical and mental!

An end result with a "will" in it is most importantly a decision of your own choosing. A much better way of living, don't you agree?

Hopefully, we have been taught civilized manners and are gracious when receiving a gift. Regardless of it feeling like clutter, mental or otherwise, we know (or are learning) that we are not obligated to accept mental clutter attached to a gift. And, we are already gaining momentum in purging physical clutter from our life. We won't be stopped by this physical clutter.

Only in a private moment with ourselves, after showing kindness to the gift-giver for their thoughtfulness, do we choose to allow the gift into our life or choose to let the clutter go.

Your Focus Challenge is to focus your decluttering efforts for the next month on mental decluttering. For now, it will be on gifts. As the new year begins, with a newer "you" than the last, you will also be setting up a foundation for purging even more clutter from your life.

Happy Holidays to you. Here's to an even Happier New Year!

Wants vs Needs

The topic of "Wants vs Needs" came up yesterday in a conversation with my 6 year old son. I told him that we will always give him everything he needs, but he may not get everything he wants. What he wanted, and was trying to get across to us through his unhappy frustration, was more money to play video games in the restaurant.

Today, I read Journeyer's post on Wants vs Needs. I could feel her words on her past decisions as if I'd wrote them myself.

In my home, we have been working on the "Wants vs Needs" realization for the past few months. Like others, my husband's layoff (and decision to go into business for himself) last November reduced us to a single-income family. As we had always had enough for the extra wants, it is difficult for us to be at the point of saying "I'm sorry, we can't" to financial requests from our children. And, that has included having to say "I'm sorry, we can't" to the requests from our inner child too.

I am very proud of our efforts to tame our wants quite a lot. I'm just getting used to this being our new "norm". I won't lie and say that when the finances improve we will continue with this frugality, though I do believe it has reinforced the idea of "Wants vs Needs" for our family.

It has also had a huge impact on my decluttering. Rather than buying my way through a rough day, I've had to look for other sources of relief that we could actually afford. I have turned to journal writing for the times when I want to feel introspective and have rediscovered the stress relief of using my body (cleaning with fury, doing exercise, etc.) for times when I don't want to be still.

This has had a two-fold effect. I don't buy clutter that I will later have to deal with and have used my "free time" to look inward...both at myself and my home. Doing so is what prompted me to commit myself to decluttering one item each day for 365 days.

It has also allowed me to go shopping in my own home. We are on the tail-end of a major remodel and, as we lost space, stuff from one room was shoved into closets of another. While looking through my home for my "declutter item of the day", I have rediscovered these lost treasures. I admit, I've also found some of my impulse buys from my stress shopping.

Thankfully, I know that guilt over the lost money and such isn't worth it. I pass them on and know that both the physical and mental clutter they were in my life is now gone.

How I Define Clutter

Defining what is or is not clutter is a very personal choice, in my opinion. Just as one man’s trash is another’s treasure, the same is true for clutter. To me, clutter is anything that I do not use, want, love or need (the real one--not the guilt-causing kind!)

When I declutter, I look for the obvious. Such as stuff that was laid down here or there to deal with later and now I do. My procrastinated filing falls into this category too…the paper was put in a pile but I still need to do the real “work” and deal with it so it will no longer be clutter).

I also look at my stuff with someone else’s eyes and, with that different perspective, I decide if it is clutter or not. I look at my clothes, my furniture, my knick-knacks, my housewares, etc. When I see these things with this perspective, it is so much easier to see the clutter for what it really is. I don’t see it as an emotional attachment, a fear of not being able to have what I need when I need it, etc. I see it as an inanimate object that has no more meaning than I am placing on it at that moment…and, remember, I’m seeing it as a stranger would.

Finally, I allow reason to override emotion. I need peace more than stuff. I want to see every single thing as something that I would choose to bring into my home today.

If I purchased the item, I will evaluate it in today’s dollars—not ones I’ve already spent. Would I buy this today? If the answer is no, then it is out of my face and out of my space. There is no guilt allowed. The money is spent and there’s nothing I can do to undo this buying mistake. I don’t allow that object to own a time period of my life sufficient to justify its purchase.

This way of thinking was not how I started, I assure you. I grew up not having much. If anything was useable (and I admit that I used the definition loosely sometimes), I felt I had to keep it.

Having those things around me didn’t make me feel more secure. Instead, I felt unsettled. I was keeping the past very close and always worrying over the future. The present wasn’t even in my thoughts. When I started letting go of things, the priorities changed. The present became of utmost importance. This is the time I controlled. And what I wanted to feel right now was fulfilled, happy and peaceful. I can’t change how I felt in days past and I have no way of knowing what the future brings.

No matter how you choose to define clutter, please remember: surrounding yourself with things that make you fulfilled (not wanting), happy (not sad) and peaceful (settled) will allow you to make “the present” the true gift it is.

Ever felt afraid to declutter?

Or felt any kind of apprehension about dealing with your clutter? It’s not a glamorous job and many times we feel that doing it is going to make us feel bad, one way or another.

Looking at the clothes in my closet is just going to make me feel bad for not wearing them, and wasting that money.

If I even think of giving away that gift my Aunt gave me, I will feel so horrible.

I don’t have clutter.
(Everything is stuffed & hidden away in closets and cabinets.)

So, we put the job aside for another day…and another passes, and another.

My best advice is to allow yourself to do it little-by-little so that you don't feel you gave up or lost so much. For example, set up a declutter system. Choose 1 thing from each room or 7 things in one room, etc. Then, do that each week (or each day if you feel that motivated). That way you're not faced with a huge declutter process, i.e. declutter a drawer.

I'm the type that will pull everything out, reminisce about the stuff or somehow get lost in daydreaming about it…I need to replace these bath towels but when can I go? Well tomorrow I have to... and then Friday's no good because....Then I snap back and am in left field because one thought leads to another. I also see the huge mess that I’ve made and feel deflated that I now have to clean it.

If all else fails, remember to start small! Don't have an "all or nothing" attitude. Adopt a babystep...anything I do today is better than yesterday, kind of mentality.

TODAY choose one thing...tomorrow one more…and on and on. Decluttering doesn't have to be "a project" or something to set time aside for; it just has to be started. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. To me, decluttering is about A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE OR ATTITUDE more than a project that gets crossed off a "to do" list.

AND...the one thing counts if it was something small, huge, garbage anyways, etc. If you deal with a piece off the desk pile, or table pile, etc. it counts. If it's a holey sock in the laundry that doesn't just get thrown back into the drawer but in the trash (over here they get a new life as a hand glove for cleaning), it counts!

In my experience, and even for others that I know, we have found that decluttering is liberating, a bit addicting and, yes, fun! So much of our responsibility in life feels hard. Doing this one thing that frees our life from visual clutter, mental clutter, etc. is absolutely terrific! Serious.

I dare ya....can you find one thing to declutter today? :-)