I have created a cleaning chart for myself in the past few months. It has been such a wonderful way for me to maintain the cleaning in our house.
A few have asked on Instagram for it so here they are:
I have included a filled out version (that I follow) and a template version to create your own schedule that suits your needs.
Happy Cleaning
Jodi x
Hard decluttering truths this Friday morning. It’s gonna be hard! but it will be worth it, I promise. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Minimalism is not about having nothing. There’s beauty in thoughtful, beautiful spaces with stuff in them.
But, there has to be a line. If you want to develop a minimal lifestyle, you have to decide what that line is for you. Because at the end of the day, don’t we all want to live in a home that is beautiful, peaceful, restorative and (probably most importantly) easy to keep tidy and clean!
You don’t have to be “Minimalist” to want these things. But to sustain this kind of lifestyle, you will need to get rid of stuff. At the end of the day that means making decisions about your stuff and deciding what to let go of and what to keep.
I have coined a method of decluttering that works for me and would love to share it with all of you.
I call it Throw, Thrift, Think Thursday. This is one day a week that I am going to set aside to declutter spaces in my home. Here’s what they all mean:
Throw: These items are unusable, broken or have no purpose left to serve. They are rubbish and should be discarded.
Thrift: These items are in a good condition and could be donated.
Think: These items might serve a better purpose elsewhere. ie. another place in your home, a bag of hand me down clothes for a friend.
So, to start the decluttering process; pick a space you want to declutter. Lay everything out and touch all your items (this is important, it helps you get a ‘feel’ for what you want to do with them). Sort all your items into these categories, including, a KEEP pile! (because you can keep some things!). Once sorted, deal with the piles then and there. Throw: in the bin, Thrift: out of your house that same day, Think: piles ready for their new homes and keep piles put back into order in your space (be sure to have a home for EVERYTHING!).
Decluttering is primarily a mental exercise. Physically you are getting rid of stuff, but there is a mental shift that needs to happen. I hope these steps help with the categorizing mentally. I will do another blog post on how to make the mental shift from want to need when it comes to stuff and letting go of sentimental items. But for now, this is an easy way to start decluttering. Start with things that “don’t matter” to you!
Over on my Insta, I have explained and demonstrated this method of decluttering. So, head over to @the.smallest.things_ and click the TTT Thursday highlight.
Happy less stuff life
Jodi.x
Over on my Instagram page, there are a lot of beautiful ladies currently pregnant and looking for Baby Shower inspo. So I thought I would share some snippets from my shower.
I had a small gathering in my backyard with my closest girlfriends and it was such a lovely morning. I had decided on a little boy blue theme and asked all my friends to dress in something blue. So in the end we had mostly a blue, gold and white colour scheme. I decorated our ugly hills hoist (washing line) with all our cute baby clothes and doilies, hung bunting and had heaps of fresh flowers! I also had an amazing girl gang who helped me organise it all!
We had a breakfast buffet with delicious food, a Mimosa and Juice bar (for the lucky non-pregnant people) and some activities.
I was absolutley against doing clique Baby shower games! I didn’t want my guests to sniff the fake poo nappy, or blindfold baby food eating….So much cheese associated with Baby Showers.
So I had the guests make Alphabet cards and draw pictures beginning with the letter, each guest made birth affirmation posters for me, they wrote cards with notes of encouragement about becoming a mum and we also did guess the baby details: name, height, weight, and hair colour (we did this as we were certain we would have a red head!)
I had given our guests a list of things for baby that we still needed and we were so blessed by our gifts!
I definitely kept it minimal, and totally ME! Which is what I was going for.
Jodi xx
My husband and I decided in a effort to streamline our entertainment and also minimise clutter in our home, that we would get rid of all our DVD’s and Blurays and invest in digital copies on Google Play.
At first, this really appealed to my minimalist/de-clutter brain! I couldn’t wait to jump right in. I pulled out four bags of DVD’s and Blurays and left very little in the two cupboards. *confession* I couldn’t part with my Gilmore Girls box-set… We have too many memories, the Girls and I. Once I had purged my overflowing tv unit shelves, I was struck with the thought; “What will I do with all of these?”. I wondered if they would be worth anything or whether to just donate them.
My husband had traded some gaming consoles through a company that also trades DVDs and Blurays, so I thought this would be a great way to rid our lives of needless clutter. However, I looked on their website and I was shocked to see that they offered so little per item. In most cases, 10c. I suppose in some ways I was a little naive to think I would get a bit more, considering DVD’s in particular are now considered “old technology”.
So with this in mind, I put up an Instagram poll and almost unanimously people voted to sell them.
I have managed to sell off a few of hubby’s anime Blurays without too much hassle. The guy I sold them to actually told me I was selling another for nowhere near enough and that I should bump up the price. (Who knew… Not me…). But I have had limited (read NO) success with Gumtree or FB marketplace. A few interested but no one keen to pick up or pay a little more for postage. I have been meaning to upload them to Ebay and will do that in the next few days.
We took a stack (30 +) of DVD’s in to the trade store and ended up with $24. Whhhaaaattt!?
So, what have I learnt from this little endeavour. It would be easy to say- I have learnt that it’s a huge hassle, people will haggle you to within an inch of your life, you wont get much buck for your bang and while all this is true. I feel like there is a deeper lesson.
It was my husband who first clued me in to the lesson I was learning. After being handed $24 for our hoard, I grumbled to him about how little we got back. To which he replied, Yeah, but wasn’t it your intention to get rid of clutter?” I was taken aback. Oh that’s right” (Husband right again… but I won’t tell him that) “That was my intention. It was never to make money.”
It was important for me to learn to focus on the intention of my de-cluttering and minimalism. And if that brings in some extra cash, well all the better. But first and foremost, it is about freeing up space in my home and head. Getting rid of things that no longer bring joy, so that I have space for the things that do. That was my intention. That is always my intention.
So, I am learning to be open to the journey that minimising our lives will take us on. No matter how that journey plays out or how much money we make from it, we will have more space in our home, our lives, our heads and our hearts.
Jodi x
@the.smallest.things_
