So I've decided to clear the clutter. Again. This isn't the first time I've tried to simplify things, so how do I go about it in a way that's more long lasting?
I love psychology, self help books and reading about how other people approach things in life. That's one of the reasons I started this blog, to join in the discussion rather than just watch from the sidelines. So I decided a good place to start on my quest to declutter would be to look for a good book on decluttering. Seeing as I'm not buying things I thought of heading to the library to see what I could find , but I decided to take a look on Amazon first. Although I wasn't intending to buy, the customer reviews were a good place to work out which books were useful, then I could use the online library catalogue to search for and reserve books. 'No More Clutter' by Sue Kay caught my eye and as they don't have a copy a my library, I have placed a reservation.
On looking further through the library catalogue, there seemed to be quite a few books about organising and decluttering available in my local library, so I headed down to see what I could find on the shelves. I discovered a wonderful gem of a book, 'The Clutter Cure' by Judi Culbertson. Rather than starting by focusing on how to declutter she instead starts by addressing the reasons why objects are meaningful to us, and why we find it so hard to let things go. I am already aware that we find it hard to let go of things because we perceive them to have value, or they have a sentimental attachment to them, or the person who gave them to us, but I have still found it hard to ignore those feelings at times. My particular weakness is that I can't bear to throw away something that might have a use for someone else. This makes it easy for me to sort through my clothes, because I can take the things I don't want to Oxfam where they will be sold and the money will go to fighting poverty, but really hard to get rid of something could be useful to someone else, but I don't know what to do with. This explains why a perfectly good but enormously large TV which has been sitting in our dining room for the last two months since we moved it out of another room to make space for an office for my husband. It's incredibly heavy as well as enormously large, and in the era of cheap flat screen TVs, I can't imagine anyone else wanting it, but I just can't bear to take it to the dump.
In the first few chapters of 'The Clutter Cure', Judi somehow manages to pinpoint all the sticking points as to why it's hard to let things go, and then gently chip away at them with both sensitivity and logic, to the point where it suddenly seems easy to let things go. By the time I was two chapters in, I was raring to go, and attacked my clothes drawers in the bedroom. Out went the 'useful' white T shirts which I don't wear any more and I don't feel good in. Out went the two 'useful' cardigans I hadn't worn for ages and a silk scarf I was given for a works event decades ago that I never wear. I also ditched the dresses that are a bit big on me since I lost weight last year and the lovely Joules dress that I bought from a charity shop and have worn once, but doesn't really fit right and it isn't really me. Yes, maybe I shouldn't have bought it in the first place, but it's cluttering up my wardrobe and now that it's gone, I'm not being reminded that I made a bad buy and feeling guilty that I've not worn it more.
That was yesterday evening, and today I've managed to sort through the large bookcase in our sitting room, and free up six bags of books and a bag of DVDs which can also go to Oxfam. I've got a slight sticking point on some books that are too scruffy for Oxfam and some magazines that someone else might like to read, but we have a festival starting in our village next week and there is a 'swap and swish' event where people can bring along things they don't need to give away, so I have bagged them up ready for that. I've also managed to sort and clean the shelves in my kitchen with my cookery books on, and freed up a few cookery books that I no longer use.
A great start, but now I'm exhausted, so it's time to stop and plan what to tackle next!
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