Here’s a thought exercise for you to do while you’re enjoying your mid-morning cup of tea.
If you were about to move home, to one that is half the size of where you live now, what would you take with you?
In an earlier post, I suggested that usually (though not always) the easiest starting point for your life-laundry programme is to address your list of physical clutter. (In an even earlier post on life-laundry, you can read about how to make life-laundry lists.) Considering what you would keep and what you would get rid of if you moved to a smaller home requires you to be ruthless in auditing your possessions. For the moment, you are engaging merely in a thought exercise. Your challenge, however, is to take that mental exercise, once you have finished your mid-morning cup of tea, into the real world. (And to do so over time, of course. No-one is expecting you to do it in a single day)
Tackle surfaces first. Desktops. Kitchen counters. Coffee tables. Bathroom shelves.
Then move to drawers and cupboards. Be ruthless. Remember, you will have only half as much storage space in your (hypothetical) new home.
You may have a loft. And you may have outbuildings: a garage, perhaps, or a shed. Be ruthless there too. It may be that, in your (hypothetical) new home, there isn’t a loft and there aren’t any outbuildings.
Put nothing back into your cupboards or loft or garage that you wouldn’t be taking to your new (small) home. Get rid of everything that no longer has a place in your pared-down inventory.
How will you do this?
Some things may invite themselves to be taken on a journey to the bin. How about those six spatulas in the earthenware pot on the kitchen counter? Five of them you don’t need. And no charity shop is going to be interested in the chipped pot.
Things that are in good condition could be donated to a charity shop. British Heart Foundation, if you have a branch nearby, will collect furniture, which would save you the trouble of transporting it away from your home yourself.
There may be some things for which the trouble and effort of dong listings on eBay or Gumtree would be worthwhile (and lucrative). You could put the proceeds towards the cost of moving to your new home (do you remember the one?)
There are other apps and websites that are useful for disposing of possessions that are in good condition but which don’t inspire you to go the eBay route. You could try Olio and FreeCycle for example, which won’t earn you any income but which make getting rid of things quick and easy.
Translating your thought exercise into action will bring you the reward of a home that is as neat, clutter-free and pleasing to the senses as was the apartment you holidayed in on Lanzarote last year. (Remember when we used to go travelling?)
However, if the thought of parting ways with so many (or, indeed, any) of your possessions brings on angst, message me. It may be that talking about some of the clutter in your mind will free you to view the clutter and possessions around you with greater detachment.
You may like to read about my approach to counselling, mentoring and life-coaching to see how we might go about it.
