The Next Level - Follow Up

If you happened to miss my last blog post you can find it here - I put out the idea of "guilty clutter" and mentioned a great blog I found that helped me identify the next level of work that I needed to do in simplifying my life. It was about time that I got real with naming the types of clutter I keep around.

Guilty clutter is definitely one of the types of clutter. Over the past few week and a half I've had some time to contemplate what guilty clutter I've allowed to control me from their perch on my shelves, in my closet, sitting quietly but heavily in drawers.

This was a difficult journey for me. The loop that played in my head as I grabbed one of these guilty clutter items was "what if the person asks me what I did with this? I can't possibly part with this; there are too many good memories associated with _______" I will admit I picked things up- doilies from my grandma, candle holders from our wedding that I just definitely could not part with at this point in my journey-if ever. But I had set a goal and like all good over achievers I was determined to meet my goal.

In the end I did find 5 things:

• Fancy candle holder (Christmas gift that I've only ever used once) 
• Doily (this one was not from my grandma or great-grandma so I had an easier time parting with it)
• Home Decor Item 
• Bell from our wedding (we have 2 of these hanging around so I decided that I didn't need both and it's not likely that I'm going to loose/break the first one and lament getting rid of the second or at least I am hoping that I won't)
• Necklace (this one was hard to get rid of but it needed to go)

Whew! I know it's just a list of 5 things but I did honestly struggle with these. It's hard getting rid of things that you have some level of guilt getting rid of. And so while this only adds 5 items to my purge total I know the work that went in to getting those 5 additional counts on my list. 

I did also continue with some of the "easy" purging this past week ( I ended up going through all our Christmas supplies- so that helped) and so we are looking fairly good for our yearly total so far! 

Total: 274 

-       Miscellaneous/House -71

-       clothing/accessories- 67

-       Office Supplies/Books- 72

-       Kitchen items- 41

-       Hair/Beauty- 21

-       Tools- 2 

The Next Level

After attacking clutter in my home for the past 14ish months I have really let go of a lot of the big things. You know, those items that stick out like sore thumbs and you know that you're never going to use them or that they no longer serve a purpose in your life. An example of one of those was a beach umbrella I had. I live on the prairie and so we have a distinct lack of beaches and when we do go to a beach it usually involves a plane trip so it was highly unlikely that I was ever going to use the beach umbrella.

So now that those big, obvious items are out of my life and I've committed to seeing 500 objects leave my home this year and I am struggling with "what next".  Don't get me wrong I am still purging on a regular basis but feel that there are other obvious pieces of clutter that I should be seeing that I am not. So I went search the web and visited a few of my now favorite organizing, de-cluttering, and minimalist blogs.

I just happened upon this blog of Laura's and knew I had found my answer. This lady is getting really REAL with clutter and organization in her house. Her blog post titled Letting Go of Guilty Clutter got my attention. I know I have passed up getting rid of some things in my home because someone has given them to me and they may have special meaning. And while I may not agree with getting rid of something super sentimental without asking the individual if they would like it back, the concept of even identifying those things that are guilty clutter is one that I can really get on board with. So this week I am challenging myself to find 5 guilty clutter items that I can part with. This is going to be scary for me but I really wanted to push myself to a new level so here it goes. I'll post next week to let you know how it goes!

And check out my new purge totals so far this year.
Total Items: 202- almost 1/2 way there to my 500 goal 

-       Miscellaneous -22

-       clothing/accessories- 64

-       Office Supplies/Books- 62

-       Kitchen items- 36

-       Hair/Beauty- 16

-       Tools- 2