Moving Forward With Minimalism

[MinimalistMommi]

This is a new thread following on from the previous 'm' thread on Good Housekeeping!

All Minimalists or aspiring minimalists welcome!

Making an exact plan sounds dangerously like procrastination to me. There is such a thing as over planning. It makes me think of my uni house mate who used to write and rewrite her essay plans and not leave enough time to write the actual essay properly.

I like knowing what I am doing the next day and having a little list of jobs that I can add to when I think of them, to refer to if ever I don't know what to do. (I find I usually notice stuff to deal with when I don't have time.)

I'm sorry to hear about your dad Arti. I hope today brings better news and your mum doesn't have to come home.

I had an excellent day yesterday, so positive, and have a small list to be cracking on with today but I feel so sick and tired this morning. I'm 11 weeks pregnant and waiting for the glowy, energetic bit to hit! So all I have accomplished so far today is a mug of tea

Ha, yes, procrastination indeed

OK, so I will resist temptation to write an epic whole-house plan. I like the idea of planning only one stage at a time, that seems like a good compromise. A week at a time maybe?

At the moment we are just clearing as much stuff as possible from the living room but there are still some cupboards/drawers in there that are full of random crap so I guess that should be the first stage after Friday as then we can actually store stuff properly in them? I'm thinking each Sunday we could write in the diary or make a list for the following week. That would only take a few minutes.

I did play the piano this morning which was great as it is one of my goals from Occupational Therapy to fit in stuff that I enjoy, especially on my days off as otherwise sometimes I end up resting too much.

Hope everything is ok arti. And rosy I hope you feel better soon. First trimester can be horrible!

Also good point about not sticking with the same room all the time due to boredom, I'll bear that in mind.

Yes rosy it gets better!

for most people

Hello, can I join in?

Hi Fuzzpig! I was on your fab declutter for xmas thread last year. I made loads of progress then but this year it has all slipped backwards I'm afraid.

Part of my issue is I work from home so I see everything in a mess all day as opposed to DH who is only home in the evenings.

I'm hoping to get things going this weekend starting on the DD's bedroom and moving a wardrobe into the room for their clothes plus will streamline the clothes as they have far too many!

Hi all, am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the scale of the task today. Tired and premenstrual too. Cannot wait till kids go back tmw and I can tackle jobs properly.

I think I have been trying to do too many jobs and end up leaving them half done, so it feels like everywhere is a mess now. This is not good for my mental state. The pile of stuff to go is growing but I haven't actually got it to the chazzer for ages, and so that is a bit daunting too.

Massive wardrobe declutters coming over next week or so, and think I need to have bags ready for who the handmedowns will go to!

Arti so sorry to hear about your dad, hope he is getting better and your mum has had the holiday she so desperately needs

DC returned to school today. I had grand plans, but nothing came of them

I HATE September, the DC return to school and it's the anniversary of my mums death. I had thought this year would be easier but it isn't I do miss her so very much.

Also this September is the first anniversary of our DDogs death. I had him for 13 years

I can feel the waves of sadness and depression hit me at the most unexpected times-like now

But it does mean the house will be very clean as that's how I usually deal with it

DSIL gave me a huge bag of boys clothes -she was reslly pleased to get out of her house- but a Salvation Army clothes bag came through the door. Fantastic timing !

Thank you all for your kind thoughts. Dad did manage to eat and drink a bit yesterday and his GP doesn't think he is in an immediately critical situation so I'm waiting till Mum gets back form holiday to talk to her. Think it will be a big shock for her though.

I've managed a little bit more work today but my brain is still all over the place!

Does anyone get rid of things and then regret it? Lots of people on her say that they don't really regret or miss things but I'm finding that I do and it is holding me up a bit. I'm regretting getting rid of a torn-in-half (but thick and good quality) single memory foam mattress topper as I'd now like to use a bit of it to make a neck roll to go inside a pillow and see if it will stop me getting so much neck and shoulder ache at night.

So because of this I'm hesitating on getting rid of a closed cell carry-mat type camping mat, even though I've got a self-inflating camping mat and didn't use the carry-mat when I went camping. I'm seeing myself using it as maybe a mat for sitting/lying out on the grass in summer or cutting it up to use as an outdoor mat or whatever. I'm also struggling with an old bright orange blanket I have used for camping in the past but didn't use this summer, because it might be useful.

Then there were the older bras that had got very uncomfortable to wear. I'm glad I didn't get rid of them as it turns out they had got uncomfy because I'd lost weight. I've put a bit back on and now they are comfy whereas the new ones I bought aren't!

Sorry to utter such minimalist heresy on this thread but it is just what I've been thinking and wondered what others have thought/decided.

Today, I was skirting round the huge pile of shoes in our teeny hallway (too small for a shoe rack) when a lightbulb pinged on above my head as I realised that since I decluttered the toys, the carved wooden chest in the bay window was empty. It now holds shoes and a basket full of hats and gloves.

I'm sorry things are so rough with your dad, arti, and I hope that your mum is ok.

I regret decluttering a few things, but never anything irreplaceable. I've rebought one book, and am currently improvising the very light handweights with tin cans until I am stro.g enough to use the heavier weights I kept. I think the minor inconvenience I'd outweighed by the benefits. I assume that sometimes I will need to rebuy something, and that is ok.

One problem for me is - I guess - that I'm on quite a low income so although of course nothing is irreplaceable, I can't just go out and buy more.

How much stuff are you (understandably) dithering over arti? Because if it's not literally everything, I would just skip past the difficult items for now and do the easy stuff.

iWill and arti for you both.

I understand the hesitation brought on by income, we're in a similar spot and it took me a while to get around getting rid of some things as I was worried I might later have a use for them but not be able to afford them. It means when I come across something that might be useful, I try to go through what I would use it for, when that would be, and how much it would cost to replace it if necessary. I usually only get through the first two questions now though as I have become better at spotting when something just won't get used. However I came across a tip on here which I have employed for a couple of things right now that I'm genuinely unsure of - keep it somewhere, eg where you know it is but out of sight. Wait a little while to see if you go back to it. The way I'm employing this at the moment is I have a locking metal box for sensitive files, which I emptied and now have a new filing system. However the box more or more not be useful - I'm unsure! So I've put it in another room whilst I finish the tidy/declutter. If I find a use for it whilst I'm going or at the end then it stays, otherwise it goes. I found two small folding boxes (they're like little organisers) and thought at first, "Well, haven't used these in ages", then decided to hang fire and see if I could repurpose them. Found a new use for them quite quickly and saved me trying to replace them with something new.

However I find that this only applies to a few items, not the majority of the house, so I feel that the handful of stuff is not what is cluttering the house and therefore is not the issue. I think if you find you're holding on to everything then it's time to try and think everything through very logically to try and work out what you really do want and need rather than hanging on to everything.

*the box may or may not be

Oh, for both Iwill and Arti I hope you both feel better soon (and Arti's dad too of course!)

I have literally never regretted throwing anything away... I must have thrown out 15 carloads of stuff and sold 100's of things at carboots/eBay and I struggle to remember anything specific that I once had.

I have regretted buying things in the first place though, so I am much, much more careful now and I try only to buy things that I love - this week I have been scouring the town for new tops for work and haven't bought any as all the ones I saw were either too expensive or not that nice. I'll wait until the perfect top comes along!

I am being really strict on keeping our bedroom, the kitchen and the living/dining room completely tidy and clutter free. The bathrooms, study and -junk- spare room are all rather less perfect, but I am finding a house is much more work to keep tidy than a flat even though we only have 1 extra bedroom!

Yes Artemis I agree re more space = more mess/clutter. It just seems to spread out. Thanks for the

After the dog chased the chicken into the kitchen and caused her to fly up into the coat hooks, I had a thought. How many coat hooks does a family of 5 need? We have 2 rows in the hall, 2 rows in the laundry room and 2 rows by the back door. All of them have something on them we have too many coats/bags for life-something else that multiplies.

I haven't regretted throwing out anything, I have regretted buying things though.

I did an amazing thing today

My tights customarily fill an entire drawer of my CoD, and like to nest in a giant, tangled ball of nylon tentacles out of which I have to extricate a specific pair, usually discover they are ripped, find another pair, realise they are the itchy ones I hate, finally find a decent pair, shove the giant tentacula back into the drawer and repeat every weekday for a term.

Not any more. 3 coat hangers - one for black opaque, one for tan tights, one for black sheer tights. Fold 6 pairs of new, unripped tights over the cross bar of each hanger and pin with clothes peg. Hang in wardrobe. Binned all old, ripped, nasty tights and kept small bag of patterned crazy tights in top of wardrobe for future consideration.

Now I can instantly see all my tights, find them without effort and know when laundry is urgent! Also I plan to only put them back on the hangers after checking if they are ripped, so I will hopefully never have to put on 8 several pairs of tights in the dark winter's days ahead.

It's the small things wears saddo hat

Hello, can I re-join? I was on earlier minimalist threads but have lapsed over the summer holiday and need a new boost. This thread just came up in active convos and how timely since school is back tomorrow.

Artemis I laughed out loud at your description. I Don t wear tights because of that scenario. But this sounds like a much better solution.

Forgot to say hi TommeTipsy! I was really pleased with the Xmas decluttering thread last year and managed a reasonable amount considering what else was going on at the time. I'm not starting one this time though since I feel so at home here - this thread has been great, and I hope that all the decluttering will be for life not just for Xmas :o

Welcome Lime! My DD is back to school tomorrow too, with DS starting next week (first full day next Thursday).

I'm panicking about the next ten weeks. DH has been put on 2 training courses - great as it will improve employability, but in the short term I am really worried how we will cope, let alone do our decluttering - he will be out 2 days a week as well as working most weekends, which has a huge impact on my health. Just trying to remember it is only short term, and that even if we only do a tiny bit each day it will still add up.

Thanks fuzzpig, is your DS starting reception then?

I'm really hoping with two of my DC out of the house for a few hours a day I can start dealing with all the crap that has entered the house over the summer. So many little bits and bobs collected from trips and sent by Grandma and some from the front of magazines and pictures they've drawn and library books to return.

All I've managed over the summer is to ebay the 4 bags I decluttered way back in the last thread! I got £80 for them though which is brilliant! have already bought new jeans for the DC and have my eye on some new boots for myself.

Yep, DD in yr2 as of today, DS has his first half day in reception on Monday. He only turned 4 on Friday! He's still so little. Am trying not to worry, and I know his teacher is fab (she had DD for yr1). And while I'm certainly not wanting to wish these years away, I do think it will make things a bit easier to have both DCs at school all day, particularly as it cuts out the midday school run!

Dad coming today so will take stuff to chazzer/dump, but then tescos as we have gift cards (FIL kindly sent some to help with uniform costs) to get the last few bits like wellies, plimsolls etc... shame to be bringing in more stuff but still an overall gain in space for the day. I am so glad we only got 3 of each item for uniforms rather than 5 as we did when DD started. It'll mean washing/ironing them twice a week but I think that will be better than having a bigger mound of stuff hanging around! And my sore fingers are grateful too as we are sewing labels in for the first time. Now I realise what thimbles are for

Just a quick tip to save your fingers, fuzz - we use http://www.name-labels.com/name-labels-new.php Stikins and they are great.

Does my link work? .

Bugger, no it doesn't. . www.name-labels.com/name-labels-new.php