Clutter free?

My personal 'how to de-clutter in easy steps' guide:

Decide to redecorate the space you want to clear out.

Move everything out into another area that you use.

Paint the room or area in question.

Look at the new space with fresh eyes.

Look at the piled up items with fresh eyes.

Put the essential items back into the room.

Donate or throw away the other things – because they are in a space that you use and now ruin the energy flow of that room.

When my brother was in the army he would de-clutter his home whenever he was on leave – he still uses the same system every year. His saying was that if you haven’t used it for three months then you don’t need it - I like this philosophy and I may well be using it in the near future (this does not of course apply to ANY of my books).

I keep reading articles about de-cluttering but the thing I remember most is how my brother used to clear out his home of excessive items. One thing that he said made me cringe – although it did prove a point – he said he used to give away items that his wife and children had stored in the loft when they had remained untouched for several months. His reasoning was that if it wasn’t used then it wasn’t needed – at least not by them.

Harsh? Maybe, but it seemed to work. He mentioned that only once did someone want something he had discarded and then he was quite willing to pay for a replacement for them. I’m wondering how my child will react if I take on this method of house clearance. Watch this space ...

That is a future concern but right now what I have found - as I am in the middle of this process - is that I am being confronted by things that in the past I said that I would use, deal with, sort or ... something else (meaning I didn’t want to throw it away at the time). Now I have redecorated and I realise that I have held on to things that I don’t particularly like or want. They were just there, and like a bad habit, I got used to them.

Now I am looking at things with fresh eyes, I can see that they do not fit in with my new point of view. Tonight I have a pile of things that I have to sort out in a fixed time frame or I will throw them away.

I like this de-cluttering. I hope it lasts.

I guess it will if I want it to, if I make it my new habit.