I laughed when I typed that title. It totally sounds like something hanging out of my nose… …. …. Ok, I’m over it. Of course I’m talking about my clothes hangers. I learned a very important principle early on in my declutter journey. “I shouldn’t consume beyond the confines of my home.” I shouldn’t live beyond my means.
No matter how many times I had purged and sorted and organized and rearranged my stuff before, for some reason, that simple truth missed me. Or maybe I just denied it. I really wanted to believe that my house would grow at the same pace as my hobbies. I became pretty good at stuffing things in crannies. When I really committed to living life less cluttered, I had to redefine what I thought was the proper capacity of my spaces. Like my spaces needed some space left in them, to be able to see and find what was actually in there.
I’m a firm believer of the buy-to-replace standard now and I’m pretty comfortable with knowing what my closets and cabinets can hold without feeling stuffed. I was having a conversation with my husband some time ago. He was hanging laundry and told me that we needed to buy some hangers. Knowing this was not true because my children seem to outgrow their clothes in mere months, I told him to have the kids go through their closets and remove anything that no longer fit them. About 10 minutes later, my husband was presented with about 20 empty hangers to finish hanging the clothes we were currently wearing. And what was even better is that I never had to get off the couch.
Currently, our homeschool shelves are a bit full. I know I need to clear out some items that we really never use to add some breathing room to the books we do use. My old self really wants to make more shelves, reorganize and be done with it, but I know that won’t help me use the things I’m still never going to use. Plus, I’d have to spend money on more shelves and I don’t have time for another project. Decluttering is less work and cheaper. But old habits die hard and I want to fall back on the I might need it one day mindset. Someone else might need it today makes more sense, doesn’t it?
I’m going to sit on it for a little while, knowing what I need to do to make it work but continuing to stubbornly act like I can fit more in that space than I actually can, while my mind keeps having angst when I look at it.
Life Less Cluttered 