Uncluttered 2

Have you experienced feeling a need to become uncluttered, to make room for things you love to do and make time for those you love?

I embarked upon the journey to unclutter my personal space over a twelve week period. This article is a sequel to a previous article I published entitled, Uncluttered, when I began a course hosted by Joshua Becker of ‘The More of Less’.

In this article, I’m going to share a few outcomes of my experience, thoughts I had along the way and where I am today as a result of the experience.

With that said, Welcome to Our Home!

Our first challenge was ‘lite’. Unclutter your car!

This was so refreshing, the result was anytime there was something in my car that needed to be disposed of, I took care of it immediately. My car has never been messy again since its internal makeover!

Our daily living space was next.

It felt so good to have the opportunity to intentionally take care of home! It had been years, literally since I’d given my home any pampering. My focus had been elsewhere, taking care of others…

Sometimes we can become so consumed with helping others that we neglect self. So my focus was on my physical space, along with self, which will eventually allow for being present for others again at deeper, even more meaningful levels.

Our bedroom was THE challenge room in our home.

I just kept looking, avoiding, and making excuses in my head.

As part of my uncluttered journey during the process of working through our bedroom I decided to rearrange the furniture.

As a result, I had to take the drawers out to move the dressers. That was a huge plus as I made a deal with myself not to place the drawers back until I purged each one. Now that was a total win! I can now see everything in my drawers, it’s like my items can actually breathe!

It’s interesting that you can go through life each day carrying perceived to be ‘good stuff’ that is actually weighing you down!

Totally loving the process by this point, with the intention to be free of stuff, but rather, have life be filled with experiences and those you love is so liberating!

“Desiring less is even more valuable than owning less.” – Joshua Becker

Loving our fresh spaces!

Now this was nonsense!

21 pairs of shoes to go, from MY closet alone! Truth be told, there are more. This was such an awakening… What are you working on letting go?

Uncluttered, it’s definitely a process!

Our daughter’s first ballet slippers. To think she is now a young adult; such a sweet memory. Found a few of her baby teeth also, guilty! 🙂

“The payoff of minimalism isn’t just a clean house; it’s a more intentional life.” – Joshua Becker

This space is now set for more intentional reading, reading is my first love. 🙂

My closet…

During week 9 of the 12 week course, we were invited to take the Project 333 challenge. 33 articles of clothing for 3 months, our challenge was a hybrid to try this for 30 days basically.

This was a very freeing and revealing challenge. This is what I came up with and it’s not bad! I can do this. This is about 1/6 of the space in my closet. This shows my selection of 33 items to wear.

I moved the other things to the guest room and will go back through them to see all else I will give away.

To my surprise I was thrilled with my outcome and I’m committing to this for the months of July, August, and September! I’m already planning to switch out items when fall/winter comes to stick with the 33 items concept.

My goal will be to let go of the excess fall/winter things as well when I switch over. That will mainly be switching long sleeve vs. short sleeve items and the one pair of shorts and 3 capri pants.

My process may not be totally aligned with the concept, (Project 333) but my outcome has certainly been a great win for me!

Our kitchen continues to be a work in progress.

I started from the inside out. From the look of my counter top it doesn’t appear that I’ve make much progress, but OMG, I have!

You see, in order for me to clear the surface of my counters, I needed to go deeper, clean out the inside of the cabinets and both pantries!

I remember I use to rejoice about having 2 pantries, little did I realize that was merely a set up for clutter. At this stage I’ve made a pass in every cabinet and one of the pantries and it makes me feel 100 lbs lighter! Donations have been made and 30 gallon bags of what is now deemed as ‘trash’ disposed of.

This is an early morning snap shot. However before bed that night as I turned out the lights there was this feeling of weightlessness. I woke up the next morning remembering that feeling and went down to simply sit there quietly. I snapped this picture before going back up to get dressed.

It truly is amazing to actually ‘feel’ the change that’s taking place.

I’m so grateful for this journey, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to share snippets of it with you!

Step by step, a little each day, the clutter is literally fading away…

We were asked in week one of the course, what’s your why, what’s the goal?

For me, a welcoming and peaceful place for all who enter in…

As I shared in the original article, “Hence, my why, is to have our home be a place of refreshing renewal. A place where there is a feeling that’s freeing and a breath of fresh air where our spirit thrives!”

I’ve come to understand that ‘things’ really don’t add nearly as much value or meaning to your life as experiences, relationships, or generosity. What do you think?

Thank you for visiting our home! 😉

Live Your Legacy!

Rita Stewart, Legacy Builder

PS: Connect with Joshua on his FB page Becoming Minimalist to learn more about the next course offering. I’ll be attending again as well. It’s a process, trust me!

PPS: This was a personal journey I chose to embark upon; I didn’t impose it on my husband. On the very last day of the last week of the course he uncluttered his half of the closet and his wardrobe without any prompting from me! He has since been working on the basement as I continue with the kitchen… #Uncluttered ~ Relational Legacy 🙂

So how about you, how do you minimize forms of clutter that you experience? I trust that you’ve found this article to be helpful and hopefully inspiring! If so, share it with others; let me know in the comments what you’ve gleaned from it and intend to apply.