I consider myself a Master Declutterer because I have to do it so much.
I have to do it so much because I’m also a Master Reclutterer.
Hubby claims our room is a science fiction phenomenon. It’s like when you shoot down and destroy everything in a video game. It’s gone, the space is clear . . . and then you hit the reset button and suddenly the game is back to exactly how it was before you started shooting.
Obviously, there’s a blankety-blank reset button hiding in our master bedroom, but I can’t seem to find it. I just know I keep accidentally hitting it in my sleep.
But as I work to change my recluttering ways, I know it’s all about little decisions.
Like balloons.
The picture above? It’s one of two balloons I did keep. They’re Mylar. They’ll last a little while.
Not sure why I needed them, but I’m still proud of myself for NOT taking home the regular balloons. You know, the ones that will shrivel by tomorrow.
I know. It’s so OBVIOUS that I didn’t need eight black balloons, but I still had to make a very conscious decision to NOT take them home when someone asked. Because my natural reaction is to think, “Why NOT take them home?”
Why not?
Well, in the moment, I’m in decision mode.
Yes or no.
No means they’re out of my life forever, and I’ll never miss them.
Yes means I’ll squeeze them into the Suburban, fuss at kids who bounce them against siblings’ heads, leave a few in the car, bring a few in, notice the next morning that they are shriveled, not notice them for the next few days/weeks/months and then one day (while in the midst of another decluttering project) berate myself for ever bringing them home in the first place.
Little decisions are so much easier than all of that.
--Nony
Yay!
just saying no…to black balloons is liberating. Hmmm… A reset button you say?
Pat
And i always tried to find the reset button, you know the one that puts the house back in orderly and clean mode. But maybe you are onto something, maybe there is a secret reset button that makes all go back to chaos. That would make more sense, since even creation started out in chaos, and then God worked all week to organize it.
Good for you, Nony! One less thing to clutter your home 🙂 We haven’t been to any recently, but my husband and I always load up on the pamphlets, pens, magnets, etc. that are handed out at fairs. We have absolutely no use for most of it, except maybe the pens, yet we don’t say no to them and feel bad dumping them in the trash when we get home. I just threw out a DJ’s DVD. I am not planning an event, had no use for it whatsoever, yet it sat in my drawer for almost a year. I definitely have to learn to say no to potential clutter!
This blog (well all of them really!) spoke to me. I routinely say to myself, “how can it be so clean. (straightened maybe a better term) today and look like I never touched it. I truly love your blog. It makes me know I am not in this battle alone! 🙂
I have to admit that my house stays fairly uncluttered, but god forbid you open a closet or my junk drawer, doesn’t everyone have a junk drawer? I’ve had one in every home I have ever lived in. Anyway I am off track here. Speaking of balloons I have one in my closet from a birthday 2 years ago. Why I ask myself every time I actually venture in to my lovely walk in closet ( that has a path to the dresser that I never actually put the clothes “in” ). Some day maybe I’ll actually toss it out. Maybe the next time I move. Thats what always motivates me to go through that junk drawer, and start fresh with my closets. So dont feel like the Lone Ranger out there, you definitley have many companions, riding along with you.
A reset button! Yes, that’s it exactly!
wish I had an ultrahouse like in the Simpsons, where it would clean and maintain itself or even have a handyman robot. only difference it wouldn’t be homicidal…
I’ve never watched the Simpsons. So I could be way off, but don’t you mean Jetsons?
Erm no I mean the Simpsons. One of the treehouse of horror episode and I have an ultrahouse in my tapped out Simpsons game.
Happy belated Birthday!
Well…you’ve actually solved the mystery in my house. A reset button. Yes. Now I just have to find where it’s hidden and smash it to bits. 🙂
Good for you on the balloons. Too many little things add up over time, added to the big things… I’m getting better about not bringing things home that I’ll never use, and in pitching things already here.
My attic/office is this way. That darn reset button happens every night. I homeschool my kids and need more book shelves up there for organizing (Iknow I don’t need less books, art supplies, flash cards or math manipulative). A place for everything and everything in its place. I just don’t have a place for everything. I sew and do lesson plans, prepare daily fun school projects, pay bills and hang art work up there. It is so cluttered it drives my husband mad. I do organize and get rid of things and I know where things are but the organization I do is never enough for that darn reset button gets hit and it looks like a teen age room all over again.
I see these little things as Craft Supplies to stash away for “someday”. I actually used my deflated mylar balloons as gift wrapping paper but probably had them on hand for 2-3 YEARS (aged in a fine organic brown cardboard box, no less). Even the Fair Freebies wind up as craft projects (I wrapped at least 2 dozen stick pens with miscellaneous bits of yarn that all got donated to the local sr. Center. Yes, those pens did walk away like the ones they had bought…) But I digress. I grew up with parents who held onto all sorts of STUFF and have been cash poor so making do has been my SOP. Very hard to give up the stash! It provokes guilty feelings (I’m probably a treehugger too with all the recycling I do). So, I kinda know where the reset button is, now to disable it!
Absolutely! It’s the little decisions that make all the difference!
So true. We save ourselves a lot of hassle when we can figure out how to do this. Sometimes it’s easy, but other times it seems harder.
Our clutter morphs. A few years ago we had two cars that fit in our garage. We went down to one car for a while and somehow, without conscious thought or action that space got filled up so when we got a second car again we had to deal with half a garage of stuff. I guess we didn’t pay attention to the little decisions, but hopefully we will now.