How many of us really do clean up and clean out after the holiday season? I know I never have because I’m lazy and really do not have the time. To declutter means I have to have the time to do it. When I was a kid, my mother made us clean our rooms by throwing everything into the middle of the floor, dumping drawers out, and so on. It was pretty traumatic and valuable (to me) things would get broken. The sound of a vacuum cleaner forewarned that hell was ready to break loose. So, for me, getting rid of things takes a long, long time because that is what cleaning up meant: throw it all in the middle of the room and spend 20 hours doing the task. I’ve done that for years.
2016 has been different. For a variety of reasons, the DH and I have been cleaning up and cleaning out. In the past two months we have rearranged the garage for better usage, and to consolidate stuff so it can be more easily accessed and sorted out by subject matter (yarn, books, toys, tools, etc.), so that future decluttering tasks are easier to do. We also managed to install new mirrors in the bathroom, clean out the cookbook shelf, empty the bathroom vanity drawers, throw away all the stuff lurking under the kitchen and bathroom sinks. DH has cleaned up his office and I have cleaned up the studio and bedroom closet. The picture above is not what we took to the Goodwill drop-off corner, but yesterday, just from the closet, I brought over bags of purses, shoes, clothes, material, and other goodies. The bags were the 15-gallon trash can variety. Now the closet looks like a closet! I can find my clothes, my shoes, my sewing machine(s). Wow!
I get holding on to things. Some things are too costly to replace, such as paints or spinning wheels or chain saws. Hobby items are tools that can take up space and may not be used all the time, but are necessary when needed. However – HOWEVER! – too much is just too much. Freeing up space means there is actual space – physical, mental, and emotional – for new things (hopefully not physical unless they are the product of one’s productivity). Organizing makes life cleaner and easier. We still have a long, long way to go, though.
So, with that thought in mind, I leave you with a link to a jolly good cartoon: http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/a20188
