Decluttering…a matter of honour

. Filed Under: Clutter, Declutter, Home, Organisation, Possessions

IMG_20121223_104139_355 (800x600)

Professional decluttering and home organising isn’t, contrary to some beliefs, about a stranger coming into your home and throwing out all the things you love!  It IS about working with you to understand how you live and what your values are. Then I can encourage and support you to mindfully consider what items are important to you, and we can respond to those items accordingly.  If you don’t love or use the item, let it go.  But if you do love it, honour it.

Many decluttering clients say to me they can’t part with something because it belonged to a family member who has died, or it was given to them by an old friend.  It has “sentimental value” for them.  And yet it’s stuck outside in the garage, unused and unappreciated; face-down in the dust between a bag of potting mix and a rotting pile of footy socks.  If this item IS important to you, then celebrate it.  Use it.  Honour it.

By decluttering, you can breathe life back into unused treasures.  If your mother left you her fine bone china tea set, use it.  Set aside ten minutes every evening after dinner for a tea ceremony.  Make a proper pot of tea, pour it into your mother’s beautiful and delicate cup and saucer, and put your feet up as you sip your tea and honour the memory of your mother in a stylish and beautiful way.

A friend of mine had a lovely idea.  Her father was known for his stylish dress sense and flamboyant ties.  After he died, she asked her family if she could have all his ties.  She plans to create a box-framed artwork using the brightly coloured and textured ties.  Every time her eyes glance up to this distinctive and highly personal creation, she’ll smile and remember her dad with affection.

When my beloved grandmother died, I inherited her crystal trifle bowls and silver serving spoons.  My childhood memories of Christmas always included the excitement of a bowl full of Ollie’s trifle, with candlelight gleaming off the cut crystal and the bowls’ polished silver rims.  So every Christmas now my family and I have a ritual to honour my grandmother.  First, we very carefully hang her oh-so-fragile antique glass baubles high on the Christmas tree.  Then, I pour myself a glass of sherry—her tipple of choice—and sit down with my white gloves on to clean my grandmother’s silver.  It never fails to make me cry, but they’re happy tears, and they’re all about honouring a special woman and her special possessions.

Top 10 tips for … uncluttered living in (very) small spaces

. Filed Under: Declutter, Organisation, Top 10 Tips

Blue caravan (350x350)

 

Close family members have spent much of the last ten years travelling round Australia in a caravan.  Like so many other active retirees, they have become “Grey Nomads”,  enjoying their retirement travelling off the beaten track in search of the “real Australia”.

I asked them to distil the hard-earned wisdom gleaned “on the road” into their Top 10 Tips for uncluttered living in (very) small spaces.  Here’s how David & Lyn learned to wrangle their possessions and live in harmony for more than 175,000km in a small caravan.

  1. Learn to love familiarity. Resist the temptation to buy new stuff.  Appreciate the possessions you have and take pleasure in minimising your consumption.
  2. Mix and match so you don’t need a full new outfit every day.  Take enough clothes to last 10 days.
  3. The Rule of Two:  2 jumpers, 2 pairs of long pants, swimmers, 2 outfits for going out & a waterproof jacket.
  4. One on; one in the wash.  Two sets of sheets & towels, 2 lightweight blankets, 1 beach towel each.
  5. Replace manchester and clothes when they’re worn out or no longer fit.  Don’t keep and rotate more sets than you need.
  6. One in; one out.  If you’re genuinely sick of something, donate it to a charity store along your way and buy something new.
  7. Multi-task  your cooking utensils. Make sure you can use them on the hotplate, bbq and camping stove.
  8. If it doesn’t fit, flick it! Nominate a storage space, such as a saucepan drawer.  Only take the cooking utensils that fit into that drawer.
  9. Shoes are a nightmare as they take up so much room.  Try to have a single pair for each activity: solid shoes for hiking/walking; sandals or thongs for beach strolling; slippers or uggs for the nippy evenings, and a single good pair for going out.
  10. Use it or lose it.  If you haven’t used something at the end of a big trip, remove it. Some people put stickers on things and at the end of the trip they remove any items without a sticker.

What’s YOUR top tip for uncluttered living in (very) small spaces?

Top 10…moving tips for dog owners

. Filed Under: Moving

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.”  Milan Kundera

Barney B&WPhoto of Barney by Richard John Edwards, Photographer.  View more of his wonderful portfolio here.

Marketing your home and moving can be tough enough on humans, but it can be even harder on our doggy companions.  They don’t understand why their owners are stressed; why they are suddenly being yelled at to keep away from furniture and rooms that were once their domain; and why everything in their familiar environment is changing.

When marketing your home for sale, remember:  dogs and Open Homes don’t mix.  Yes, I know it’s their home too, but prospective buyers just don’t want to see your dog when looking around your home.  Rightly or wrongly, potential buyers may not be dog-lovers like you.  They may associate dogs with nasty smells, with fleas, with poor hygiene; and subconsciously, they may mark your house down (or worse, price it down) because of these factors.

Here are Uncluttered Living’s Top 10 moving tips for dog-owners.

Before Open Homes:

  1. Before Open Homes, remove all signs of your dog.  Put his bed, toys and food and drink bowls away.
  2. Refresh the areas where the dog has been.  Vacuum, wash floors and if necessary, deodorise and sanitise floors and carpets.
  3. Remove your dog from the house during the actual Open Home.  A nice long walk in the fresh air will do both him and you a power of good; and you won’t be fretting how things are going with prospective buyers.

When Moving:

  1. Ensure you’ve updated address and phone details with the microchip and dog licence authorities.
  2. Have a new dog tag engraved before you move, with phone and address details of the new house, ready to slip on as soon as your dog arrives in his new home.
  3. Consider removing your dog from your home before the actual move.  A few days with a trusted friend or family member, or a brief interlude at your local  Pet Resort, will be much less unsettling than the noise, dust and confusion of Moving Day.  If your animal IS staying with you during the move, confine him to one secure room while the removalists are there.
  4. Don’t pack your pooch’s toys, bedding and other equipment until the last moment, so that he can be comforted by the presence of familiar things.
  5. When travelling to the new home, remember: plenty of walk, drink and toilet stops for your dog.  Bring plenty of water, a travel bowl and spill mat in the car, because car interiors can heat up alarmingly.
  6. Be sure to check fences around the new home; in advance if possible.  Get any breaches fixed so your dog can safely run and sniff in his new garden.
  7. Don’t wash doggy bedding until a couple of weeks after the move, so your faithful friend will retain some familiar smells from the old house.

 

Why clutter matters to people and decluttering can be difficult

. Filed Under: Choices, Declutter, Home, Organisation

The thing that will set you free

Clutter matters. It matters because it takes up space — not just in your surroundings, but in your head.  Of the two, the psychological effect of clutter is the most important.  When we clear the clutter out of a space, people breathe a sigh of relief.  The mood changes instantly. People feel lighter, more serene, more focus. The effect is profound, even when people say they don’t notice it.

Blogger Amanda Enayati considers why clutter matters to people and decluttering can be difficult. http://homes.yahoo.com/blogs/spaces/why-clutter-matters-decluttering-difficult-232127340.html

 

Home is…

. Filed Under: Choices, Home

IMG_20130907_132644_432_1

Home is the people you love, and love travels in your heart.  That’s why I flew to Sydney yesterday to spend the day in an airport lounge. My mum—my wonderful, 73-year old mum—was departing on a solo trip to the UK that afternoon, and I needed to spend time with her before she left;  to say goodbye properly, with hugs and tears.  Ten years ago I accompanied her on the same journey. We shared three and a half weeks of laughter and golden memories as we navigated a white-knuckle path in a frighteningly small car around the scary motorways and rich green byways of the land of our birth.  But this time I couldn’t go.  The ties that held me to Australia—family, the boys’ school schedules, my work—bound tighter than before, and so my Mum decided to go alone, to see her cousins and their families one last time.  It has been 40 years since our family emigrated to Australia as Ten Pound Poms, but the connections of family, and blood, and memories remain strong. And so my gorgeous Mum will journey again to the dear, familiar places of her past.  She will travel to the homes she once lived in, marvel at how small they seem today, and rest her eyes one last time on the lush green countryside and mellow stone houses where our relatives are blessed to live.  She will travel to the lands of her ancestors and search back into history to find her deeper roots.  And then, God willing, she will board that plane and fly half way back around the world, where our hearts are swelling with love and nervousness:  waiting for her to come back to where she belongs. Home.

Just Start

. Filed Under: Choices, Declutter, Home, Organisation

Just Start quote

Photography by Casa & Co

My bathroom drawer has been annoying me for days.  Like most of you, my morning routine is quick and urgent. No time for mucking around, and certainly no time for scrabbling in drawers for things I can’t find.  So last night I put into practice one of my most important decluttering maxims: “Just start”.  Instead of worrying ineffectually about how messy and grimy the drawer and its contents had become, I put a towel on the bed, upended the contents of the drawer onto it, and decluttered the drawer.  In total, including cleaning the inside of the drawer; checking, keeping or chucking every single item on the towel, and emptying the now-full bathroom bin down into the green bin outside, it took me 9 minutes.  9!! And I had agonised over that drawer for days.  So if there’s a little decluttering job to do at your place—or even a big one—don’t wait. The time will never be quite right. Just start.

Introducing Uncluttered Living

. Filed Under: Declutter, Home, Organisation

I‘m very happy to welcome you to Uncluttered Living; a philosophy, a business, a website, a blog, and a better way to organise your home and your possessions. Uncluttered Living is a new decluttering and home organising service that can help you take back control of your house, your belongings, and your life.

I’m such a believer in the principles of uncluttered living that I want to share my passion and my organising skills with the world (or Brisbane, at least!) “Less is more”. “A place for everything and everything in its place”. “If you don’t love it, lose it”. Simple maxims, but applied sympathetically and systematically, they CAN transform the way your home looks and works. And that means you can save time, build certainty into your day, and have your possessions work for you and inspire you, not fight against you and drag you down.

So many clients tell me that they find their clutter overwhelming. They don’t know how or where to start…so they never do. Let me help! I’m at arm’s length from your personal items, so I can help you decide what’s important and what’s not. And my energy hasn’t been depleted by living in the midst of chaos and disorder, so we can work as a team to rebuild your home systems the way you always dreamed they could be.

I’m so passionate about decluttering and setting up systems that work for you….because they also work for me! I’ve used the same simple principles my whole adult life to buffer myself against a communications & media career built around uncertainty, deadlines and being able to respond to unpredictable opportunities. They kept me calm and allowed me to focus on the job at hand…and that made me better at my job, and a better partner and mother too.

I want to use this blog to share inspiring stories, offer you practical “how-to” decluttering tips, and suggest links to others who aspire, each in their own unique and precious ways, to live uncluttered lives. I’d love to hear your stories too.

back to top