When I went to a decluttering seminar

Back in November I attended a decluttering seminar...okay, that might not be what it was called, but it was led by a professional organizer and I took a lot away with me.

Clutter is a perpetual issue at our house. I'm a clutter collector. But I'm working on it...

Apparently I'm not doing a very good job though. I've lost my note book. The one I write EVERYTHING in. It's gone. J even knows it's gone and whenever she finds me looking for something, she asks if I'm looking for my green book.

Anyway, I had some little notes jotted down in that book, but it's done, so I'm going to have to do this from memory...I can't even remember the name of the lady who ran the seminar or the name of her company. Sigh...I'm fired.

One of the things she talked about was how overwhelmed clutter makes us feel...we walk into our homes and see piles of mail, laundry to be sorted and folded, dishes to be done, laundry to be washed...all of those things make us feel so overwhelmed that most of us end up on the couch hoping it will all go away. I think every person in the room nodded when she asked if have all experienced this at least once in our lives.

I got some good tips out of her...like how to deal with books. She basically suggested using the library whenever possible (which I do now) and she gave some strategies for paring down books - are you going to read it again being the big question. We've applied that strategy to our books (okay, fine, Alex's books) and he got rid of 68 books two weeks ago. That's a lot of books.

She also talked about the 20/80 rule and how it applies to clothes...that we all basically wear 20% of our cloths most of the time. I have two large bags of Alex's clothes in the trunk of the car waiting for drop off at one of the charity boxes.

Why is it so much easier to get rid of someone else's things than it is to get rid of your own?!?!?!

The other key things (for me) that she talked about were guilt and sentimentality. If it makes you feel guilty, get rid of it. If you're attached to it for sentimental reasons, keep it. But minimize how many sentimental things you keep. She gave an example of inheriting someone's collection of something. Something that you're not interested in or stuff to do a hobby that you'll never do. She suggested keeping one part of it and giving the rest away to someone who will use it or be interested in it. She gave a few examples - one of her clients received all of their mother's cooking utensils. They already had a functioning kitchen, so they chose three pieces that had memories for them and framed them and hung them in their kitchen. Another client inherited all of his dad's fly fishing gear. He had no desire to take up fly fishing, but chose some of the more beautiful lures and had them framed and displays them in his office. The rest of the gear was given away to a fly fisherman.

The last little (new) trick up my sleeve is the fire trick. If I can't decide what to do with something, I need to decide if it's something I would replace if there was a fire or that I would miss if I couldn't replace it after a fire.

I can do it. I can declutter our house.

Really.

Eeeep....