PART 2
HOW I BEGAN
I was over
it! I was over being constantly stressed out over the unorginization. I was
over trying to find the miracle fix all. I was over not having any sort of time
management. I started praying for all of the above, I asked others to pray for
me as well. While participating in a ladies Bible study at church, one of the ladies told us about a book she was
reading called simply, 7. I still have yet to read the book, but she told us
the concept which I found fascinating. The author, tired of being overwhelmed
with “stuff,” decided to try an experiment. Basically she decided to start
limiting all the choices in her life to 7 things. 7 outfits only, to choose
from, 7 meals or food to fix etc… I was not ready to go that far yet, but I
liked the concept of limiting what you had, to save time on choices and to only
have the things you really liked, wanted and needed. At any rate, it got the
wheels spinning.
Then,
because I truly believe God has orchestrated it all, I was on Facebook and saw a friend post to a group called
MINIMIZE. This peaked my curiosity. So I went to the page and checked it out.
It was a brilliant concept and I was hooked right away! I asked to join and
jumped right in! Watching everyone else post pictures and lists of the things
they were getting rid of were just the motivation I needed!!! Then the support
they would give each other when someone would post really helped motivate me to keep
going. Sharing in a journey that others were also on, no judging, just simple
encouragement! In fact, the more stuff you had, the more pumped they got! Haha!
THE MINIMZE GAME
How it
works, is the first day of the month, you get rid of ONE thing. Then on the
second day, TWO things and so on. Now I started on like day 7, so I did not
have only seven things to get rid of, I had to come up with 1+2+3+4+5+6 also,
so a total of 28 things in order to catch up! Now that was my choice, there was
no one cracking the whip. In fact some days, some people would say, well I
didn’t meet the goal but I did get rid of SOMETHING. And that was ok!! Some
times people would get rid of emails or things that brought mental clutter. It’s
still removing the excess in your life. It’s still managing your time. Some
nights I would go to bed and get on my ipad, I would not have gotten rid of anything, thinking, oh
I will just do extra tomorrow. Then I would see 4-5 posts, cleaning out a junk
drawer, or a medicine cabinet…. And I would think, OH! I could easily and
quickly do that and it would be done. Plus I was motivated, so here it was, 11pm,
I am jumping out of bed, pulling stuff out, taking pictures and posting! Haha!
My family was starting to really think I was nuts. However, I never hounded
them to do it, to participate or shame them into it. I just let them watch me
and my excitement. All of a sudden my daughter started going through HER stuff,
she wasn’t playing the game but just wanted to minimize some of her stuff. My
husband started by saying, when are you going to go through MY stuff? I would say
when I am done with the rest of the house. You know that man caught the fever
and started going through his own stuff! I was leading by example and never
even intended too! I had not planned it, it just happened! My excitement was
contagious. For awhile Minimize was an open group. Everyone could see our
posts. I also started motivating my other friends on Facebook without even
trying. Several started joining the group and participating! Some just started
doing a little here and there and telling me I had inspired them! WHAT? You
mean to tell me, just by throwing away a bunch of junk, I inspired people?
Shoot, that’s just plain craziness! Haha!
The kitchen junk drawer.... no shame in my game, it's all gone now!
From the medicine closet...
The mouse chewed ketchup packets...
A LITTLE GOES
ALONG WAY
I started
small. I started with a bathroom drawer. That led to the entire bathroom! Cabinets
and all the drawers. I caught the bug, late at night, as I get most of my steam
at night. I knew I had totally rearranged everything and my husband was not
going to be happy in the morning, when he tried to get ready for work and could
not find a thing….so I drew a map and hung it on the wall. Haha! I just
recently took it down. We still laugh about that one. I started by just doing a
drawer a day. I had one friend say, just how many junk drawers do you have!? My
answer…too many but a lot less now! Haha! I had one junk drawer in the kitchen
that a mouse had found very delightful. You know those suckers had been chewing
on ketchup packets in there! That was bad. No more junk drawers in this house.
I try to go through them at least once a month now and purge any excess!
TODAY’S ADVICE
My advice for
you today. If you have an area that you feel overwhelmed with. Start small. Set
small goals that you can easily and quickly accomplish and see success right
away. If you have say, a garage that you think there is no way you can ever get
it done. Make a goal to throw away 5 things today or get rid of 5 things from
wherever, maybe it’s the entire house, get rid of one thing from each room! 5 that is all. If your up for a bigger
challenge, get a big trash bag and fill it with trash, not the stuff you can’t
decide to keep or not, not even “things” but actual trash, I guarantee you can
fill it up. If it’s broke either fix it on the spot or throw it out. You will
find out real quick how much you want to keep it, if you have to stop and fix
it right then. If you really don’t, then you might as well throw it out because
you more than likely never will. If you
have a junk drawer, pull everything out and if it belongs somewhere else, go
take it there right then, if it’s trash throw it out for love of Saint Pete!
Throw. It. Out. If you have forgotten about it ever existing and probably STILL
won’t use it…throw it out, if you think you will, put it where you will SEE and
REMEMBER it. NOT BACK IN THE DRAWER!!! And if you still don’t use it after a
month…GET.RID. OF. IT!!! If you don’t
need/want it but hate to throw it out, donate it to a friend or to Goodwill
whoever, just get it out of the house before you change your mind! Ok, now I have got you ready to start. On your
mark, get set, go! You can do it, no problem, easy peasy!
Tomorrow, I will post
about letting go…. It’s a process….
No comments:
Post a Comment