Comments on: Making decluttering painless

By: janice

janice — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:51:06 +0000

Makes sense, now. I always seem to click through to your comments page which doesn’t have all the yumminess down at the bottom. I also tend to look at buttons for archives, and sidebars for recent posts, too. I’ve learned!

Happy to do a guest post any time. Seriously, I’m a homemaking addict. Luckily, being a writing obsessive and having kids stops me doing as much as decluttering and wall knocking down as I’d like to! That’s why I enjoy seeing other folk do it; oooo, the vicarious pleasure

janice’s last blog post..Holidaying at Home: The East Neuk of Fife

By: Eliza

Eliza — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:22:05 +0000

@janice – a wee bit daft, but not entirely. If you linked directly to the post, you have 2 options. You can click on the categories tab and select Body or Spirit. Or you can click on the Home tab, in which case the recent posts are at the bottom (3 in each category). And essay comments are allowed, OR you may offer up a guest post

By: janice

janice — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:41:45 +0000

Hi Eliza, Decluttering's part of my job, so I can't risk commenting or entire essays will flow!! Just an admin thing. I can't find your previous or recent posts. Am I being daft? janice’s last blog post..Holidaying at Home: The East Neuk of Fife

By: Eliza

Eliza — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:38:29 +0000

@XUP – good advice, and what I plan on doing is a modified version of this. Each winter, when we are hibernating with nothing to do, I am going to walk him through his pile of stuff and see what we can cull. The deal being, he has to get rid of something … anything … just as long as the pile goes down.

By: XUP

XUP — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:05:33 +0000

I suggest that together you work out what “one day” might mean – set a deadline – and if the thing hasn’t served a purpose by that date — out if goes. Of course you’ll need an elaborate spreadsheet to keep track of all the deadlines, but it’s worth it.

By: Eliza

Eliza — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:37:33 +0000

@Lori – broken stuff, stuff you no longer use, that’s pretty easy to get rid of. But stuff with emotional attachment? That’s tougher. You really need to allow time to relive the memory of each object. Cry, laugh, or just reflect. Then you can probably let it go. Turns out the attachment is really to the memory, not the actual object. Of course, that doesn’t mean you chuck it all. You will know when something needs to be kept. I even put something in the To Be Thrown Out bin, against my gut, and hauled it back out with relief before it made it to the garbage. It’s a simple ceramic cat with a silly pink bow, that my kids gave me for my birthday one year. It is now curled up on my kitchen window sill. And everytime I do the dishes, it makes me smile.

By: Lori Hoeck

Lori Hoeck — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:03:02 +0000

Both my husband and I are finally landing on the same de-cluttering page. You are so right about the emotional attachments that can sometimes create the clutter. This year, I hope to be free of so much stuff! We can barely get one car in our embarrassingly huge garage. I really liked your three key questions as a way to sort. Lori Hoeck’s last blog post..‘Think Like a Black Belt’ around the web

By: Eliza

Eliza — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:55:53 +0000

@XUP – I am pretty unrelenting about a one-in one-out policy as well. I am challenged on the culling, because Mr Very Right thinks absolutely everything might have a purpose someday. I win some of those battles, but I lose most of them.

By: Eliza

Eliza — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:53:57 +0000

@Patricia – enjoy your trip! I have given up on dusting, and have hired a cleaning service. But before we did, I insisted that Mr Very Right declutter our house with me. I refused to pay someone to dust stuff. I went through the ‘letting go’ when I left my 16 relationship. I got my possessions down to what was critical or very meaningful. And now I hardly buy anything. It has to be an essential need, or really ‘speak to me’. And anything I am finished with, like a magazine for example, goes to an interested child, friend, or recycling. I absolutely dread the thought of going through my parents’ stuff one day. There’s a lot!!!

By: XUP

XUP — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:06:46 +0000

I have a very strict one in one out policy and I go through cupboards and closets and other storage areas on a regular basis to cull. Also I move a lot, so I get to get rid of tons of stuff then. It’s a miracle, really, that I have anything left.