Garden Tool Set

I'm probably late coming to this, as I normally am for everything. But it seems that editing your life is the 'in thing' at the moment. It's something that we've been doing at our house over the past couple of years without knowing it was something that others had classified as a 'thing'.

Editing, especially in video production, is seen as eliminating unwanted material. So a big part of this can be seen as decluttering.

Decluttering is the fantastic process of taking a good look at everything that you own and understanding if it is serving you or if you are serving it. Examples of you serving it can include feelings of guilt that you have it, but aren't using it - often the case with people that own 10s or 100s of books or DVDs. It can also include thoughts that you have to keep items because they were gifted to you or left to you in a will, but that they aren't things that you want - they may even be things that you don't even like.

Information is a fantastic opportunity to declutter and edit. Check all of your documents, do you need the physical copies or can they be scanned and stored electronically? What about all of those manuals, is there a PDF version available online? I recently found that for my entire working life I'd kept documents that advised me of my tax code for the coming year. This was just an informational document and didn't need saving after the first pay slip, which would confirm that I was on the correct code - yet I had them all the way back to 2003! They were put in the rubbish pile immediately!

Editing it also includes some ongoing decisions about what you will allow into your life and the things that you will consume.

This can include media such as the internet, consumption of television and music. More specifically you may want to edit the level of 'news' intake that you consume. I recently ran an internet search on my name and my email address and unsubscribed or deleted all of the accounts shown on the results that I don't use. I was amazed that there were so many that I didn't even remember!

Commitments from work, family, online communities, hobbies, volunteering, and religion also need to be considered to ensure that you are happy with the level of commitment and that you're getting as much out of the activity as possible. There's no use on continuing with a commitment that you don't even, but that can be dropped. This is often a hobby that we've defined ourselves by, for instance dancing or martial arts, but that no longer brings us the challenge or joy that it used to.

When you've reached the stage that you've really edited the different aspects of your life; the things you own and the things you do. You are in a great situation, one that will hopefully allow you to feel much freer and allow you to get on with the things that you enjoy. It is now also possible for you to start organising things. Mainly this can include the physical things you own. Like book or DVD storage. Stationary storage. Clothes storage. For your home documents, home files are brilliant. But make sure that you're only organising the things that you need. Don't waste time and money buying things to organise things that you don't need!

I'm really glad that I wrote this post. I hope that it was worth reading.

I asked my girlfriend, Lucy, the other day what she would say minimalism is if given the following three choices: More than enough, Enough, Less than enough.

She said she'd put it at less than enough. As Lucy isn't in to minimalism, she's only seen and heard what the general public are given the chance to see and hear about minimalism. She also thought that minimalists are very good at hiding their things, which was due to a 'minimalist' couple building a house on Grand Designs recently. The house wasn't minimalist and neither were they - but that's just my opinion.

Which brings me to my point. Minimalism is a personal choice, which can lead to a rewarding journey. Unfortunately we hear too much about people living with only 100 things. While being, in my opinion, unfeasible for any real length of time for most of us - is generally just untrue. It's all about perception and depth. Anyone with a laptop is already living with well over 100 things. Every hardware component and software application is a thing - but these aren't counted. Some don't even count accessories, for instance a USB mouse for that laptop, is just part of 'laptop', so it the laptop bag that stores it.

I feel that while having an aim of 100 things can be useful, it's more important to do things at a slow pace. Lucy and myself have been decluttering for a few years now. Each time we come back to a room or set of items, we realise that there are more things that we feel able and ready to let go. I really enjoy this process. I enjoy not rushing it. The adventure is in the journey and I find that learning about myself in relation to objects is worthwhile. I find that while I am happy to get rid of most things in our home, there are lots of things that really look good where we've placed them. So while we don't need to get rid of them, they'll stay - because they brighten up our day and help to make our home feel homely and cosy and it allows us to put our print on the house.

Here's a cool little video that points out some of the unfortunate things that people may think minimalism is, but isn't - apart from a few extremists. Enjoy:

Very kindly Mike Burns is giving away his ebook this weekend. I downloaded it and read it, so as a thank you I thought it only fair to write a review.

I downloaded this book this evening and read it in-between doing some tasks I needed to do. The whole thing took about an hour to read. Words and a lot of white space.

You might think that I separated the reading of the book with tasks because I found the book boring, but that's not the case. This book inspired me to get me tasks done. That's because the first part of this book makes the case for a simpler life. Mike writes about something that is becoming a mantra for me, leaving things better than you found them. I originally read about this on becomingminimalist.com, the quote being “My goal is to leave the room just a little bit nicer for the next person.”. That post is definitely worth reading and you can do so here Leaving the World a Little Better.

You might also think that a book that can be read in an hour doesn't have much to say. That words surrounded by a lot of white space may be quite empty. However, while it took me a while to get used to the white space, I feel that it was a good move by the author. The second part of the book contains practical tips for decluttering, which is where the white space comes into its' own. Each tip or short paragraph within the book being separated by white space allows each important nugget of information to be digested before moving on to the next piece. I guess you could call it a minimalist approach - and, indeed, minimalism is something that's written about in this book.

The book is brief and it would be fair to say that if you've been around minimalism and decluttering for a while, there's not likely to be anything new for you in this book. The information and great tips can be found all over the internet. But, importantly, they can be found here - all in one place.

I think the way the book has been written was well thought out. There's enough in here to get you started and it's written with obvious passion that will encourage you to begin straight away.

I don't know how much this ebook will cost after this weekend, but I can say that Mike was very generous to give his book away and if you're interested in getting into minimalism and focussing on what's important in your life, then it would be a mistake to miss out. Download your copy here: Simpler: Declutter Your Life and Focus on What's Most Important

Own or Loan:         Own
Read Again:           Yes
Recommend:          Yes
Overall out of Five: 3

I was reading the Real Life Minimalist post on Miss Minimalist today and came across the word 'lagom' in Jess' post. As often occurs when I read a new and interesting word, I went off to explore what the digital landscape had to offer about this word and its meaning.

Lagom (pronunciation) is a Swedish word and as such there was no entry in the OED, but simply putting the word into Google brought me to the Lexiophiles.com site and the entry "What “lagom” Really Means ".

Lagom seems to be a neutral word that inspires people to live life with 'just enough' and a feeling of what is 'just right'. I like the word because it feels like it is packed with integrity and allows people to go with the flow of not too little, but not too much.

The Lexiophiles page also speak of Aristotle's 'Golden Mean'. Research on this brings us to an example in Aristotle's book on Politics where Aristotle criticises Spartan policy because they train only their men and not their woman and this training is only for war and not peace. Joined with Gautama Buddha's teaching on the middle way, we can see that extremes have been worrying our best thinkers and teachers for thousands of years.

But how do we embrace lagom; the golden mean; the middle path? I think as with all things there will be a period of growth whereby we go to extremes in our attempts to reach this middle ground. An example when trying to reach your minimalism point can be seen when we first find out about the wonders of decluttering and minimalism and 'sell, sell, sell' in order to reach the nirvana that we've read so much about - but then as if on auto pilot we overcompensate and things start to accumulate again.

But this too, is fine. It is part of the process. It is only by living with too much and too little that we can understand when we have achieved lagom. And by achieving lagom we can then begin to understand that it is true to its definition and that 'just enough' will change throughout our lives - which too, is just right.

Everything that you do digitally requires electricity, from reading the news to updating your profile on Facebook. I recently felt a real need to minimise time that I spent online and remove as much information about myself from the internet as possible in an attempt to minimise the power required to store information about me or for me.

While I accept that this may only save small amounts of electricity, if the removal of my information or photographs from a website mean that the company involved don't need to buy another server for a while, then surely that's something. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but here's what I did just in case you felt inclined to try the same:

1) Reduce time on time sapping sites
For me this is Facebook and the Daily Mail news website - places I use as a place of mindless entertainment. As Gretchin Rubin of the Happiness Project says, they provide just enough to keep you going and stop you from thinking of more fun stuff to do!
To minimise my time on these sites I downloaded an add-on called LeechBlock. This is an add-on for web browsers that allows you to set time limits on websites. As soon as you breach the time limit, you're blocked! After choosing the websites to block, you choose after how long on the site the block is implemented. I've chosen that after 60 minutes in any 24 hour period for these two websites, the websites will be blocked until the next day. If I try to access the websites within this blocked period, then I'm shown a page telling me that the site is blocked.
A handy feature is that if you accidentally leave the site open which you're looking at other tabs, LeechBlock won't count this towards your 'allowance'. If you need access to your sites for longer, you can disable LeechBlock, for instance I needed access to Facebook for one of my study groups for a prolonged period of time yesterday.


2) Search your name and email address in various search engines.
The reason for this isn't to 'vanish without a trace' from the Internet, but just to only have relevant information on there - although if you are worried that you don't know what information is collected during your daily life, check this scenario on the Discovery Channel website. This section can be helpful to ensure that you only let employers or potential employers see what's important! (As well as saving electricity, of course).
Every time there's a search result for your name, it means that storage space and electricity is being used to keep it there. Firstly on the originating website's server and secondly on the search engine server - if you have no need for that information to be there, then it's best to delete it.
Firstly you need to go to the originating website and request that the information be removed. This is most commonly done by removing or deleting your account. Most of the time there is a 'delete account' button available on your account or profile page; however, sometimes you will need to email the site to remove the content.
Secondly, after your account is deleted, you will need to contact the search engine to have the content removed. Google, for example, have a removal tool that allows you to request the removal of pages from its search results. It's really easy to do and Google carried out the removal requests I made within a couple of days. For more information see here: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663688

3) Remove old or unwanted content on sites that you do use. My example here is Facebook. I had a lot of old photos on there, just taking up space that I didn't even look at anymore. I also found out that every time I thought I was deleting a message on Facebook, it was just sending the message to an 'archive'; meaning that there were messages from 2007 stored in there. Unfortunately it's a manual job to delete these messages and you have to open each message and delete them individually. I also went through and unliked things that I no longer felt the need to publicly 'like'!

4) Clean out your email mailbox. This includes your Inbox, Sent Items, old Calendar Items, Junk, and any folders that you've created yourself to organise things. I went for a mailbox of 5GB to a mailbox of 5MB - it was a wonderful feeling. I used Outlook with a Hotmail account, so that meant that I was storing 5GB on the Hotmail servers as well as wasting the same amount of space on my laptop. For some reason I felt that I needed to keep ALL of my sent emails and emails sent from family. I started with deleting emails from the oldest year and quickly realised that I didn't need any of it and then just deleted them all. That was a weight off.

5) Make a list!
One of the most annoying things I find is that the moment I shut down the laptop I suddenly remember something I was meant to be looking at, researching, whatever. So now, what I try to do is write a list. So I'm not falling into the trip of switching the laptop on to check one thing and 30 minutes later finally coming off Facebook (which it wasn't even my intention to go on); but instead having a list of 3 or 4 things that I can check off the list and then shut down. Like Gretchen says in the video above - it's using the Internet more mindfully.

6) There are many other things that you can do to minimise your digital footprint, for instance cancel old credit cards, delete unused bookmarks delete messages on your mobile phone (or don't have a mobile phone), delete chat programs or actually uninstall any applications on your digital devices that you don't use, limit yourself to ONE social network (crazy huh!?).


The important thing is to only delete what you don't find useful anymore. It's like decluttering, don't throw away any item stored digitally if you still use it. But also recognise when it's time to let go.

It'd be great to hear all of your ideas about digital decluttering!

I'm not up on the science behind a lot of these tips, some of them may even just be the placebo effect working its magic on me! While they may not save you a lot of money or energy, every little helps: so give them a try. Let me know what you think of these tips and any tips you have for making your cooking efficient.

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After a big phase of decluttering, I started watching some videos on YouTube on organisation around the home. It all started very well, giving me some tips and confirming my way of organising things. But then it all got a bit too much for me, there's this woman that has a whole closet of organised wrapping paper. It all looked very pretty and she happily said that she'd bought most of it years ago - wait, hang on. Why would you still have wrapping paper from years ago? Well either she has no reason to use it, or she's been buying other wrapping paper during this time? (There may well be other reasons, but they don't add to my rant and are therefore omitted!). Another thing that confirmed that she was really just a hoarder were the three boxes of what I can only assume was rubbish, that was nicely labelled variously, for projects that she will do 'when she has the time'. Hmm. That means that she had to buy stuff to tidy up the stuff that she doesn't have time for - and possibly never will.

But wait, this is not all. Another video shows the same person that has nicely organised a draw for post-it notes. More post-it notes than I could use in three lifetimes!

My point, I guess, is that organising clutter in a pretty way may help to sell places on your organising courses - but it's still clutter that one day after you die someone will have to sort out!

You might not think that this post is related to nature, but people cannot use the 'stuff' that you're hoarding. Meaning that these products have to be made again - whether cutting down trees to make more post-it notes or wrapping paper. This might not seem much for one person, but we all keep clutter in our houses and in our lives. Imagine if we all sold, passed on, or recycled all of this stuff so that it could be used again in some form. It would mean that sales of new products may fall, showing companies that there is less demand, hopefully meaning that fewer of the product will be made. We all hear about how scarce the resources are on our planet and if we really want to lead more responsible lives, leaving less of an impact on our planet - then we should be buying recycled products or products donated to charity shops. But the reality, as I have been finding out, is that we rarely need this stuff and yet insist on buying too much of it; only to later on have to declutter and throw lots of things away.

This post may even annoy some people, which may show how bad we've become. That some stranger may mention about how we buy and use things and has the nerve to call it clutter. And it hits a nerve. How can we have such emotional attachments to things that don't sustain out lives? What would the nomadic tribes of our world think? Or animals such as the Buffalo that constantly partake in migrations over thousands of miles with nothing!?

While there is no perfect way or extent of decluttering, if we can make a start to identify the crap we own - and even better identify it before we buy it and bring it into our homes - then we and our world will start to be in a better position.

If you got this far; thanks for reading!

All the best,

Tim

I really enjoy taking photographs. I enjoy the challenge of macro especially; getting as close to my subject as possible while attempting to reduce my shakiness so that the image comes out clear. I have a very basic method of checking this. Take a photo and immediately zoom as far as the camera software allows to ensure the image is crisp. If not, try to take another before the insect, bird or mammal makes its get away!

The Bank Vole is an example of my good luck.

However, there a some moments that need to be savoured through being in the fullness of the experience, letting go and allowing the only photograph be the one you hold inside as a woderful memory. I thought this a year or so ago when my lovely girlfriend and I went to the Bristol Balloon Festival. Lucy spent a lot of time taking photographs of the balloons lighting up to the music, but after around 20 minutes I really wanted her to sit back and enjoy the show with me. Which, luckily, she did. However she did, as we all would, lapse a couple of times to get a few extra shots.

I've been lucky enough, that without any experience and without purposely trying, to get some photographs of small mammals and birds this past year. Each time, I've tried to make myself stop taking photos after I know I've got one that's good enough for the blog. Then I've stood there and enjoyed the moment, realising how lucky I am to have this moment.

I think it makes sense to take fewer photos when possible for a few reasons:
1) You get to spend more time with the people / nature you're with. Experiencing the moment rather than hiding behind a camera. This especially makes sense, as I frequently find, when I can't get a good photo (on macro) because I'm too shaky or the light level is too low!
2) You save time and energy because you have fewer photos to go back through. I know some people that rarely go back through their photos because they don't have the time. These photos are then rarely, if ever, looked at again. If they're not important enough to look at, then perhaps they weren't important enough to take?
3) You'll never get this moment back again. Sometimes it's just better to leave the camera and enjoy it. While I know it's nice to take photographs of the sunset, most sunset photos look so similar that I wonder what the point is. Maybe it's better to take the hand of the person you're with, or make connection in some other way, and enjoy the solitude together. Or if you're on your own, just enjoy the moment; realising that this moment is the richness in your life.
4) It cuts down on the 'invisible' digital hoard that we're all generating with our endless photos, documents, etc.

I'm as much a culprit as anyone else. If anything, this post was a reminder to myself that I need to be more mindful of moments. But if it helped anyone else, then that's great.

Take care, Tim

As many readers of this blog will know, I admit to having that hoarding instinct. Sometimes to make ourselves feel happier with what we're hoarding we call it collecting.

That can make it much harder to deal with if we see that it's a problem and want to deal with it.





For instance, the other day I was in a book store and there was a book about the gardening at the Eden Project down in Cornwall. It was a bit tatty, but was only £1.99. I felt those familiar pangs of wanting to buy the book and to place it on the shelf with my "collection" of gardening books.

Luckily, I'm quite well versed with this now and as I leafed through the books I asked myself the standard questions:
1) If I buy this book will I have time to read it immediately; if not would I make time? No.
2) Do I want a book specifically about the Eden Project? Not really.
3) Is there anywhere else I could buy this book - probably in better condition for less money? Yes. Many options online!
4) Is there anywhere I could read this book or a book like it for free? Yes. The library
5) Do I want this book? No.

What this made me realise is that I would like to read a book about the Eden Project. But not in isolation. I'd like to read a book about the Eden Project just before we next visit it - which as we made our second trip to it last year, is unlikely in the near future.

It made a lot of sense to say no to myself about this book. I have a very intensive OU module that I'm currently studying that requires I read many books leaving me with little time. In addition, I've asked for a couple of books for Christmas, ones that I've researched and ones that I'd decided months ago I wanted - not ones I'd stumbled upon accidentally and wanted because of the 'now' factor - the feeling of short lived happiness I'd get from buying the book before the long lived disappointment that I caved in to myself and bought a book that I might read (at the soonest) in a couple of years, but might never read.

It just goes to show that even a successful decluttering project doesn't mean we're fixed forever. It's something that we have to recognise and question constantly if we're to keep aligned to our goals!

Happy minimalism to you all :)

Ha, you see what I did there. Consumer - Conned-sumer. Well a conned-sumer is what I feel I've been for the past couple of decades.

Made to feel that I need certain objects to be able to live my life. I remember feeling great as a teenager because I'd saved up paper round money and Birthday money to buy me a good old Playstation. The only problem was that after I'd bought it, I quickly found it quite boring. It was fun when I used to play on one at a friends house, most probably because after half an hour I'd be away from it again. My favorite game on the Playstation was a demo of Destruction Derby. I enjoyed the demo so much that I eventually went out and bought the game. I did enjoy the game, but frequently went back to the demo. It was my favorite track and it loaded pretty much instantaneously, unlike the real game which had to load saved data and what not!
I eventually sold it to my girlfriend at the time. And I never missed it.

More recently I've been conning myself into buying things. I love to read books. The only thing I didn't realise was that owning books and reading books are very different things. When you own a book you have to store it before and after reading. Then you have the responsibility to consider reading it again in the near future. Not that I did consider that in the first few years. It all started when I moved to Wiltshire to move in with my lovely girlfriend Loopy. I became a book collector.

As you all know, I'm into nature. So I started buying these little Collins Nature Guides. I eventually had a few of them and because the designs were the same, I then bought more! I eventually drew the line at buying the Nature Guide for Dinosaurs, as there's no way of knowing the colour of them and the details are most likely to change over time. This year I even had time to start using some of these guides (that's right, they'd been sat there, looking pretty, but unused for 4 years) and they're actually pretty rubbish! Apart from the Wild Flower book, which complements my other book as it quite simply separates the plants into flower colour. Luckily they weren't too expensive and the Wild Flower book has probably given enough value this year to make the whole collection worthwhile.

Another collection I started was Wordsworth Classic Editions. They were always on offer and again looked great because they had the same designs. Before I'd even read 1 of the 3 I'd buy each time, I'd be buying 3 more! Stupid, eh!? YUP. I caught myself quite quickly and stopped buying and used the time to read them instead. They're a great set of books. But and there is an important but; they're free as ebooks! In fact the Kobo I recently bought came with 100 free classic books and most of my physical collection are on it!
I won't be selling these any time soon though as they do look fab in the dresser that we were recently given by my parents and I do like the added benefit over the ebook version - the cool illustrations :)

So, yes. I have very much been a conned-sumer. However, in the past two weeks I've sold books and DVDs and CDs that bought in £40. The pessimist in me says that I must have originally spent over £100 to buy all this stuff. But at the end of the day I did use all of these things, it's just that they hold no value for me anymore, so a £40 financial return in addition to the enjoyment I'd had out of them was a good overall return.

Are there any of you that have been like me? Am I the only conned-sumer out there?

I remember that I first started decluttering well before I was a teenager. Before the round of applause; I'm sure that most of you have realised what it took me a long time to understand. To be able to declutter at such a young age - I must have been hoarding before that.

It's obvious now I look back. You can't declutter what you don't have.

My decluttering has always been most successful if I start when I'm supposed to be asleep! It gets on my mind. Oh, this can go. Erm, do I really need that? I remember often my Mum would come into my room when I was supposed to be asleep and ask me what I was doing. I was tidying up, I didn't know it had any other name at that point.

A lot of my childhood was spent riding my bike. You can't be playing with the stuff you own if you're on a bike ride. And yet - I had a lot of stuff! It just seems to be the way of our 'civilised' world. I recall often putting my collections of magazines in a circle around me and just reveling in the wonderful feeling it gave me. I think this feeling was some sense of security. But the better sense of security were those evenings when I felt secure enough to get rid of some of my stuff. Somewhere deep inside I realised that I didn't need this stuff to live. This stuff didn't make the person I was.

Cycling around my neighbourhood and exploring were the real things helping to form me. Finding a vast open space with ponds, which I later found out was called Ashby Ville, which I'd often cycle to and enjoy spending time with nature was very exciting and life affirming to me. I spent a lot of time there over the years, on my own and with friends.

It's the nature, the wildlife, the outdoors, the adventure and exploring that - for me - help to form us, affirm us, relax us; and when we're ready, to heal us.

So I hope that you can all feel secure in the knowledge that you have enough - and more importantly - that you are enough.

All the best, Tim

As part of our assessment of our life, possessions (whether we possess them or they possess us!), and resources, we decided to consider how we could use less water.

We already have a 100 litre waterbutt which has eliminated our need to use tap water to water the plants. This was very handy this year as we planted two Apple trees, so we needed to water them deeply so that the trees could settle in and follow the water downwards and ensure their own survival next year.

We have a dual flush toilet and use the short flush option where possible. I also added in a .5 litre bottle of water into the cistern when we installed the toilet to ensure that even less water is used.

Tap Aerator

Where we seem to fall short and use too much water is the kitchen tap (unfortunately a new tap would be required to sort this) and the bathroom tap, where we could install a tap insert that aerates the water flow. This means that when we're washing our hands or brushing our teeth the water flow will be restricted to ensure that we don't waste water. We already turn the tap off when brushing teeth, but hopefully this will help us out even more.

I found that you can potentially get this gadget for free, along with lots of over great water saving devices, depending on your water supplier. Simply go to the following website:
Choose your supplier and choose the items you require for your free water saving packs. You can include things like the tap inserts, shower head aerators, 4 minute shower sand timers, tooth brushing timers for kids, leaflets so you can do a water audit in your home, save-a-flush bags, and much more!



There is an option to choose Veolia Water, who seem to not require you to be a customer to order a FlowPoint Showerhead along with some of the aforementioned items. Which really is amazing.





Hopefully this is a positive step for us and particularly me in my beginnings as some sort of minimalist. And more importantly, for the environment.

Happy saving!

I found that when I started getting into decluttering and then minimalism reading other people's blogs was a great help. They helped me to stay aware of my goals in this subject and to make sure that I'm not being minimalistic for the sake of it or getting rid of things that do have value in my life.

http://brooks-palmer.blogspot.co.uk/
The first blog I started reading was Clutter Busting with Brooks Palmer. Brooks is a clutter busting professional in the US and I've been reading his blog for around 3 years now. He blogs about his adventures in helping his clients declutter and how he helped them think in a way that allowed them to confront their clutter issues.

http://www.mysimplerlife.com/decluttercalendar.htm
This year I found a website that provides access to a decluttering calendar. This is ideal because you can either print it out or where possible import it into your email application and receive reminders. I imported the calendar into Outlook and find the reminders helpful because they are just short tasks that I can read, decide if they're things that I need to do, and quickly get rid of the reminder.

http://www.slowyourhome.com/
Here's another great web resource for decluttering and slowing down your home. This blog concentrates on simplifying your life and slowing down the pace. It also has a fab bootcamp set of emails to get you going!

http://www.theminimalists.com/
http://www.missminimalist.com/
These are two great minimalist blogs. As a minimalist I should probably only have put one blog up on here! But I enjoy reading both blogs and think that if you want to find out more about minimalism without feeling like you have to live with fewer than 10 items, then you probably will too! Miss Minimalist shares stories from her readership that can be inspiring and show that we can all be more aware about stuff at any point in our lives.

Hope these are interesting for you. Happy reading!

There have been a couple of series about hoarding on TV recently, Britain's Biggest Hoarders on the BBC and Channel 4's The Hoarder Next Door. They show how big an affect living with a hoard can have on us all.

Minimalism and hoarding seem to be part of the same spectrum: that of our relationship with material things. Both minimalism and hoarding can be a result of difficult and stressful situations that happen in the lives of all of us.

Hoarding can begin as a collection and spiral out of control to the point where rooms are no longer accessible, including the kitchen and the bathroom. Minimalism makes every room available, but perhaps with lacking any contents. Both of these extremes can make the act of living very difficult. Whereas minimalists at their most minimal will be proud at the extent they have managed to rid their lives of material things, hoarders at their most hoarded will close themselves within their hoard and be too embarrassed to let anyone know their situation - but neither situation can be maintained in the long term.

A balance must be found. It can be terribly difficult to reach this balance, especially if there is a psychological aspect that is part of the minimal or maximal state of your life at this particular time. The balance can surely only be maintained if the relationship with 'stuff' is thought about and understood. It's really important to have things in our lives - they're useful.

Embrace what you need. Understand and respect why you need it or want it in your life. As a hoarder when you no longer need it, when it no longer serves you; then accept that the relationship between you and the object is at its' end. It may not be the end for that object, it may well be recycled, given to others, or sold - but for you, its' time is through. As a minimalism understand that while it would be very minimal to have one pair of clothes it is rarely useful. While it may not be minimal to have a cutlery set for 8 and 8 plates, it facilitates social events at your house, so appreciate that multiples are not only necessary, but can be very beneficial.

Both hoarders and minimalists categorise things and consider themselves organised people. Hoarder may attribute labels to there copious amounts of various things - having a 'food museum' as in one of these programmes, or wanting to keep 20 years of newspapers as an archive. Minimalists also categorise and may decide that certain things are counted as one item. A good example of this is a laptop, which may have a separate mouse and keyboard, as well as many mp3 albums and loads of bits of software installed - but all of these things are counted as 1 item, instead of the many items that they truly are. It's all about relationships with things, whether digital or material.

While there are many minimalist challenges, for example, fit all of your belongings on a 2 pence coin (ok, I made that one up), but some are close to being that extreme. The only point in the challenge is really to make you happier and more content with your life. It's the same with a hoard - the point that it doesn't work for you is the point to make the change.

As I've written before, it's normal to swing from decluttering loads to accumulating ever more before reaching the balance. But as we reach the point of having a positive relationship with things, the urges disappear and the era of maintenance and stability can begin.

After joining in on a Twitter session called #unclutter - the first that I've ever participated in, I thought I'd do a series of short posts looking at decluttering and keeping our lives uncluttered. If you've been interested in decluttering/minimalism for a while, then you may well have heard most of what I'm about to say, but stick with me - there may well be a jewel or two that you've not come across yet!

First, a bit more about the session. I really enjoyed the session, it was hosted on Twitter by Joshua Becker over at Becoming Minimalist. It was really fast paced and exciting, having conversations while checking back on other people's comments, retweeting the good stuff and favoriting others. I'd really encourage others to join in if they see these type of sessions advertised - lots of really good and useful information is passed back and forth in a really quick time span.



The topic for today's post is clothing. Being something that we use day in, day out, it can be something that we don't think about. It can be so easy to accumulate various garments without really thinking about it. Some shops even let you take home the hanger, so you don't immediately realise that what you've bought it taking more room!

• The first thing with any decluttering really must be: One in, one out. This can be assisted by not taking the hanger from the shop, which will then prompt you to find a hanger to put the new item on. Which immediately means you have to discard an item.
• Ideally take everything out of your wardrobe. Separate items into Keep, Not Sure, and Going. The Going pile can be separated into charity, bin, textile recycling, as needed.
• If you need to, after decluttering, separate your winter and summer clothes. Store the clothes for the next season in a box or vacuum bag until that season comes around, swapping them for the season just gone. This will keep your wardrobe clear, so you can see what's available to wear now. It also means that you will go through the new season's clothes, discarding what you don't want - but more importantly refreshing your memory as to what clothes you have.
• When you put your clothes back in the wardrobe after decluttering, or doing the season swap, but the hangers facing the wrong way. Then as you wear items, put them back the right way. This way you'll see what you do and don't wear - which will prompt you to declutter or remind you to wear the clothes you forgot about.
• Something that we did after a mass decluttering was to purchase some nice wooden hangers - allowing us to take pride in the contents of out wardrobes and to keep the clothing hung on them in better condition for longer.
• Keep like with like so you know where all types of each item are. A great example is having separate spaces or drawers for underwear, socks, etc. Then you know exactly how much of each you have.
• The minimalist in me thinks why do you need more socks or undergarments than there is days in the week!!? But the realist in me realises that it makes sense to have more, if only so you're not running half loads in the washing machine! But perhaps more than a fortnight or a month's worth is taking it too far?
• The last thing with decluttering is keeping uncluttered. One in, one out! If what you have is that fabulous then you don't need anything new, although if you do, then something less fabulous than the new item has to go!

Remember, all of the decluttering is up to you. You will refine your ideas over time. Don't feel that you have to declutter everything right now, if you're taking on this task because you want to and not because you're having to, then you have time. It's all about building that relationship with the things you have, so that when you discard them you know why and accept the reasons why.

So, over to you. What tips and advice do you have for people decluttering clothes? I've love to hear your views in the comments.