SDD Clutter Free Day 15: Plants Vs Zombies Figurines, My To-Do List, and My Expectations

It's Day 15 of the So Damn Domestic Clutter Free Countdown, which means time to declutter 16 items. I had to confirm the numbers a few times, like, "Wait, is it Day 16 or 16 items?" I don't need to make a list for my items today. I chose to get rid of my Plants Versus Zombies figurines. There's exactly sixteen of them, so it's perfect.

I bought them online, and when I opened the packaging, they smelled horrible, a strong, chemical oder. I didn't return them because I ordered them right before I moved to bring to CA as a gift for my cousin. There's too much going on when moving to deal with shipping a return. I didn't want to be responsible for my little cousin's lead poisoning, so I held on to them.

I'm not sure if I should sell them with a disclaimer, and let a buyer use their own disgression, or just throw them away.

Speaking of things I'm not sure of, I've been using this great app called Todoist, but I'm still getting in the groove with it. I love that it makes my to-do list an active part of my day, instead of a "someday I should get to this" list. I can assign different tasks to different days, set recurring deadlines, and compete with myself and how many tasks I'd completed the day before.

My Todoist Menu: After

My Todoist Menu: Before

I used it to pace my reading for book club. I did the math of how many pages I'd need to read per day to finish the book the day before book club. Then I set the task as "Read 15 pages Their Eyes Were Watching God every night at 11 PM." Sure enough, I finished the book right on time, and even had extra time to study the author's history and symbolism in the book.

The main issue I've encountered is if I skip a day of a recurring task, it marks it as past due. I'd rather it just reset the task to let me try again. It needs an, "I'm not doing this. Leave me alone" option. It'd be great if I were a master of discipline and never ever deviated from my plans. But then, no it wouldn't. I like having flexibility built into my schedule. I like being able to rest when I'm tired or do more when I have a burst of energy.

I've been using Todoist for a couple weeks, and I'd typed in my routines as individual items. Today I erased all of them. I replaced the fourteen Morning Routine tasks with one task called Morning Routine. It had started to overwhelm be that I had sixty-four tasks on my list every day.

Now it's much neater. I changed my Kharma settings from a goal of 40 tasks per day, to a goal of 10 tasks per day. That means my tasks are weighted about the same as they were, so I'll still rake in lots of points. Yeah, there's points! Your status upgrades at different levels of points. It's pretty great.

I only completed my massive night routine once this week, so I decided to take Flylady's suggestion to build a routine up from 3 tasks at a time. I was able to build my full morning routine as whole by taking notes along the way, but my dream night routine is about 2-3 hours long, so I think starting small is the way to go here.

The three items I'm going to work on are:
1. Fill up the dish drying rack. I like this because it's very visual and finite. It's better than "Do all the dishes," which can overwhelm me. I have a feeling all the dishes will be done with this goal, anyway.
2. Read pre-planned number of pages. Right now I'm reading Wonder by R.J. Palacio, 50 pages a night, because it's a children's book.
3. Meditate. I'm using the Stop, Breathe, Think app. I like that it tracks my mental and physical settledness, as well as my emotions. It helps me notice patterns in my mood. Plus the meditations actually help me and there are stickers!

It hurts a little bit to let go of the rest of my routine for now. It brought be so much peace of mind when I was able to complete it, but if it's not working, I gotta reset. Anyway, it's not gone for good. It's just on hiatus. Once I feel solid in those three things, I'll add in another three things.

Looks like today I decluttered 16 toys, plus my to-do list, and my expectations. I like that perspective!

SDD Clutter Free Day 13: Magazines and Visualizations of Life and Home

Nope, still awesome.

Happy Sunday, or whatever day you read this on! It's Day 13 of the So Damn Domestic Clutter Free Countdown, so today I decluttered 18 items. Emily's prompt for the day is to visualize the end result of decluttering, so you can easily tell when something doesn't fit your vision. I love this prompt. 

I have a feeling my Pinterest boards are filled with images that no longer resonate with me. In this last year, my values have changed.

If you've followed my decluttering this past week, you know just in the last few days I've changed. I went from someone who coveted a large, personal home library, to someone who sees more benefit to using free resources. I just got my library card last month. (I had one in Washington, but I put off getting my Los Angeles County Library Card for almost a year after moving.) I've already become familiar with some of the librarians, if not by name, at least by face. That sense of community is part of what I'm building right now by minimizing my belongings.

Is it laughable that now I'm thinking about decluttering my Pinterest boards? I'm enjoying that image. It's a chore for the Age of Information! The promise when we make those boards is that we're going to revisit them for inspiration, so logically, having cluttered Pinterest boards is like having a closet full of clothes you don't wear. They're not being used for their intended purpose. They're just taking up space.

At least my Weekday Gourmet board is always current! Gotta love Pinterest for collecting recipes. Mmm.

One thing I've figured out is that visualizing can be difficult when there's too many options. In my

This board's still awesome, too.
I was right that there's a bunch
of personal libraries in there, though,
and other unnecessary attachment,
like big kitchens.

life right now, I don't know if I'll be able to afford my apartment much longer. I might need to move in with a roommate or move to a less expensive city. When I visualize what I want, it's to stay here and keep building towards my goals here, and I'm mostly working toward that vision. At the same time, I wonder if it's worth it to hang up a picture if I'm going to have to take it down soon.

That uncertainty is why I'm focused on minimalism and flexibility. My security in the near future will not come from having my kitchen perfectly organized, but from having fewer kitchen tools, so it's easier and less expensive to move. If I manage to keep this apartment, I know I will still reap the benefits of simple living.

On that note, I don't want it to feel like a loss if I move. I want to feel excited for the new experiences wherever I go. I feel very attached to some of my furniture. I so carefully selected it and took on the cost and effort to move it here with me, but it's still just stuff. Besides, the pieces I'm thinking of now, my bookcase and entertainment storage console, they were Craigslist finds. If it brings me joy to find beautiful, practical, inexpensive furniture online, it shouldn't upset me to think of getting rid of anything.

Someone else will get to experience gratitude for these items. Then someday maybe I'll go through the process again, and the new pieces will be even more appropriate for my life at that time.

I'm preparing myself to get rid of one piece of furniture, maybe for my last day, that one special item. We'll see. To get to that place, I'll have to clear out a lot more items first!

Day 13: Declutter 18 Items

Real Simple Magazines.

The weather's cooled down a bit, so they cats are back to
following me around the apartment.

Elle Decor Magazines.

HGTV Magazines.

Vegetarian Times Magazines.

My original plan was to read one magazine each night and declutter it as one item toward my goal the next day. It only worked once. My reading mojo has gone towards books for book club. I do still want to read these magazines before getting rid of them to get my money's worth (or my dad's Coke rewards' worth, in the case of Real Simple :)). At this point, I'm committing to getting rid of them by the end of the first week of October, read or not.

I'm dedicating that week to selling or donating all the items I collect in this countdown, so it's a reasonable deadline for recycling magazines as well.

No more magazines will come into the house from now on. If I really want to read an issue, I'm going digital!

Amazon Affiliate: All Amazon links in this post go to digital magazine subscriptions to save trees and shelf space. Magazine search.

SDD Clutter Free Day 9: I've become a book-decluttering machine!

"Love in the Time of Cholera? More like Love in the Time of Don't Bother-a!" -Robin Scherbatsky, How I Met Your Mother

It's Day 9 of the So Damn Domestic Clutter Free Countdown and time to declutter 22 items. At the end of the day, I will have decluttered 232 items, which is half of the total number of items I'll be decluttering this month!

I have become a ruthless, book-decluttering machine! Today, I had no anxiety whatsoever as a yanked books from the shelves. This one, gone! This one, GONE! Where were all these books yesterday? Yesterday, when it took me multiple hours to shakily decide on 23 books? Yesterday, when I put five books back on the shelf and replaced them with unplayed board games to get to my total?

Yesterday passed and the questions simplified.

-Am I really interested in it, or do I feel obligated to keep it?
-Did I start this book and stop reading because I didn't enjoy it?
-Is it a history or hobby book that I can get easily find a plethora of resources for, should I choose to explore this topic?
-Is it so mainstream that I'll never have to wonder if the library will carry a copy?

Those were the main trains of thought that created today's pile.

Day 9: Declutter 22 Items

1, 2. Tell-All and Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. Got part way through and had no interest in continuing, but felt obligated because I love some of his other books so much.

First picture of this challenge that doesn't have a cat in it!
It was 100 degrees today so they were spread out on the cool floor.

3. Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk. Finished it, but didn't connect with it.
4. A Guide to Quality, Taste, & Style by Tim Gunn. I love Tim Gunn, but my interest in fashion does not last the length of time it takes to read a book.
5. From Panic to Power by Lucinda Bassett. Too self-helpy for me. You know I love me some self-development, but this style of writing feels like it's trying to justify itself. Not my thing.
6. Points of View: Eleventh Edition edited by Robert E. Diclerico and Allan S. Hammock. I remember thinking it was a well done politcal book when I took an American Government class. That was in 2008, so if I haven't touched the book since then, I probably never will.
7. The Tudors by G.J. Meyer. This was a decent read. Now I can return it to my grandpa.
8. Great True Spy Stories edited by Allen Dulles. I looked it over and realized, "Wow, I have zero interest in this." Why was I keeping it? Who knows.
9. Biological Anthropology: Sixth Edition by Michael Alan Park. Decent textbook. Probably not going to read it out of school.
10. The Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd. I bought this at Goodwill because I thought it was non-fiction, but it's fiction. It's an Epic Saga. I don't know. I might like it, but it'd be low on my priority list and sit on the shelf forever. I'd rather find it again when I'm truly interested than make it wait around for me.
11. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Eye-opening anti-colonialist political theory. Not an easy read so I probably won't do it twice, but it is powerful.
12. Talking Cheddo by Menkowra Manga Clem Marshall. So, one quarter, I had a teacher assign a preposterous amount of reading. This book was supposed to be a side project on the discussion board. The discussion board stayed empty because literally only one person in the class could manage so much reading, and this book is super dense. It got left behind. Looking at in now, it looks like important work. Maybe I'll track it down again someday.
13. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I won't have trouble finding a copy if I desire one.
14. Origins of the Chinese Revolution by Lucien Bianco. I love studying revolutions and the class I read this for was one of my favorites, but I don't need to hold on to this.
15. The Age of McCarthyism by Ellen Schrecker. Another one of my favorite topics to study. Again, don't need to keep the book.
16. The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Good story. Glad I read it. Will be easy to find if I want to read it again.
17. The Origin of Humankind by Richard Leakey. I can give this back to Grandpa.
18. The Making of the Fittest by Sean B. Carroll. This was very readable. Time to go back to Grandpa.
19. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Amazing, on a sentence level. Otherwise, pfft.
20. Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart. There's some funny stories in there, but I don't revisit them.
21. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Okay, so, you see some pretty girl and obsess over her for decades? What if she's terrible or incompatible with you? Like, get over it, man.
22. The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by S.A. Smith. Even my history teacher admitted there aren't a lot of great resources on the Russian Revolution and this was settling. It's a nice little summary, though.

You can see I had a much easier time justifying why I'm getting rid of books today. I didn't even try yesterday because...well, I had things to do, for one. It had taken me so long to come up with the declutter pile, I didn't have time to list out every reason. Also, there was a block there. I wasn't authentically choosing items.

When I look at yesterday's pile today, though, I'm happy with it. It worked out fine. I'm so glad I pushed myself to reflect on my attachment and work through it. I've yet to find a time when confronting uncomfortable feelings had a negative outcome.

A Note on My Ruthlessness: I easily could find good things to say about any of the books on this list. Those good things are not why I'm getting rid of them though. I wrote my primary reflections on each book, not full, even reviews.

Affiliate links: all links go to Amazon so you can see other reviews or descriptions and buy or don't buy whatever you want so I get moneys.

SDD Clutter Free Day 8: Getting Rid of Books I've Read

The books I couldn't part with today.

Day 8 of the So Damn Domestic Clutter Free Countdown and today I set out to sort books. I decided to pick out 23 books that I'd read already. I figured if I want to read them again I can get them from the library. I even allowed myself a Priority Keep category, for books like Hyperbole and a Half and The Art of Asking, which I want to have on hand to grab at a moment's notice if I ever doubt myself.

Problem was, jump down even one priority tier, thinking I have to get rid of anything below life-altering/referenceable, and I start freaking out. It makes sense. One tier down from Priority Keep is fiction books that truly moved me. I connected with the characters and the language. I had epiphanies or moments of comfort. Of course it would be hard to say goodbye.

I took five books out of the declutter pile I'd made, the ones that were breaking my heart the most. Once I did that I felt 1,000 times better. I realized nothing else in the pile gave me anxiety. Well, maybe a little. There's still a lot of really good books in today's declutter. But it gives me more joy to release them into the world than to hoard them.

Saved Books:

1. Grendel by John Gardner. "I cannot believe such monstrous energy of grief can lead to nothing!"

2. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore.

3. The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean.

4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggars.

5. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

I will continue to work on non-attachment and see if I can find a way to let these go. But if I end up with two shelves of books to keep at the end of this countdown, that still frees up two shelves for other art, or breathable blank space, which any designer knows is a key component of good design.

More importantly, perhaps, it simplifies something in my life. I have a feeling that I will read more when I own fewer books. It's easy to take them for granted when I own them. They'll always be there, so I'll read them "later." I'm in a couple book clubs, so most of my active reading happens with library books already. Even though I have tens of books on my shelves that I haven't read, I'm reading library books anyway. That's quite an observation.

In any case, today's books are ones that I have read, and I have loved, and now I will pass them on. All links go to Amazon, except this one: If you'd like to follow me on Goodreads, you can find me at www.goodreads.com/sweetlovetruly.

Day 8: Declutter 23 Items

1. Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin.

2. The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty.
3. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff.
4. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.
5. White Oleander by Janet Fitch.
6. The Best American Short Stories 2008 edited by Salman Rushdie.
7. The Best American Short Stories 2007 edited by Stephen King.
8. Love in the Asylum by Lisa Carey.
9. Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames.
10. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby.
11. Russian Journal by Andrea Lee.
12. Dress Your Best by Clinton Kelly and Stacy London.
13. The Spoken Word Revolution edited by Mark Eleveld.
14. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity by Jack R. Censer and Lynn Hunt.
15. Simply Yoga by Yolanda Pettinato.
16. Lucy Long Ago by Catherine Thimmesh.
17. Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Silko.
18. The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them) by Jack M. Bickham.
19. Approaching Democracy: Second Edition by Larry Berman and Bruce Allen Murphy.
20. Magazine.
21-23. Board games. They fail the "Have you used it in a year?" test, and are soooo much easier to give up than books.

I feel good about this list. These books inspired me, made me cry, formed memories. They will be a part of me, whether I own them or not.

A note about affiliate links: I recognize the potential hypocrisy in including links to products for sale in a post about my efforts to minimize. The thing is--when you follow one of my links, anything you buy in that shopping trip gives me a commission. I don't know if you're buying 50 sweaters or a bulk bag of rice to feed your family. And I don't need to know. You can own as little or as much stuff as you want. Besides, maybe you like to buy books to support the author (an awesome thing) and then donate them. Resources are never inherently bad. It's our responsibility to use them to our benefit.

Besides, I might be selling these on Amazon so I need the customers. ;)