Wednesday, July 20, 2011

One done

The downstairs half bath is de-cluttered and cleaned.  I found some interesting artifacts in the cupboard under the sink:  a big lock of darling daughter's hair, 12 boxes of assorted bandaids, 8 bottles of old sunscreen, and a water bottle darling son used at summer camp when he was in elementary school.  He's 27.  Sigh.

You know it's bad when you have to clean the bottles of cleaner before cleaning...but, it's all good and it's all bright and shiny now.  Next up is the upstairs bathroom.  Also small and less cr** in the cupboard than downstairs.  These are the easy rooms.

When I look at the rest of the house, it seems overwhelming so I'm reminding myself to just look at the space in front of me right now.  And as June says, slow and steady, slow and steady.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Procrastination and a plan

So.  I spent the past few days observing the many ways I find to procrastinate getting started on my downsizing project <smile>  I am a procrastination pro. I'm embarrassed to admit it's been almost a year since I decided to work on sorting out our house after being down-sized at work.  I have to laugh at myself, though, as I take notes on my varied ways of not doing.
Don't want to make a plan?  I suddenly MUST get the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) vegetables cooked.  Don't want to clean out a cupboard?  Simply must do laundry right now.  Don't want to come here and write about procrastinating???  Well...gotta check email and FaceBook first...or find a recipe...or, or, or...sucking me into endless surfing.  Then there's the ever present temptation of TV, Netflix (I kind of regret learning how to stream using the Wii), the garden, books to read and, and, and...


Yet, in the back of my mind, in spite of myself, I'm making a plan.  I'm trying to think and plan SMART, which stands for having goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time specific.  (Google SMART criteria)  I am quite sure I could manage to spend weeks writing up a detailed plan to procrastinate even more...I can apply the Transtheoretical Theory of Change or even my own theory of behavior change that I came up with for an assignment in a Health Behaviors course I took last semester...so many fun ways to think about doing instead of doing!!!


Therefore the first part of the plan is to just start anyway and keep it simple.
In general, the first step in making my life smaller so it can be bigger is decluttering the house one room at a time, starting with the easiest ones.  If it's "easy" I'll be successful and can build on that success.  At least that's the idea.  Specifically, I'll sort into 4 categories: keep in the room, go to another room, donate, trash.  Anything undecided goes into a box that gets donated after 6 mos or a year if stuff isn't used.



I need to treat this like another job so I'm committing to 2 hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (days I work part-time) and 4 hours on Tuesday & Thursday.  Weekends for tasks or fun stuff that hubby and I can do together.  This feels manageable.
Downstairs bathroom tomorrow.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Small life big

I want a bigger life.  Not more or better stuff or more money, but more passion for living and more living my passions.  Thing is, I don't have a clear picture of what those passions are, only vague notions.  So, a couple years ago I get this crazy idea that the way to have a bigger life is to make it smaller.  The theory being if I strip down the physical clutter, room will be made to sort through the mental and then spiritual clutter until my true passions reveal themselves.

I'm not sure what this blog will be.  I've heard that writing a blog is helpful when trying to lose weight so why not use one to lose all kinds of excess stuff?  So, this may also be a place to think out loud about what's important, what to keep and what to let go.  Mostly, I hope the blog will be a way to keep myself on track, eyes on the prize so there will be a little less thinking about what I want to do and a lot more doing it.

We shall see what happens!