Tag: declutter

Containing Time

Donna Joy

Have you heard of the “Container Concept” (by Dana K. White)?
The idea is super basic: every space is a container. The point is to contain, so once it’s full, it’s full. If you have a shelf full of mugs and get a new mug, you either need to get rid of some mugs or give up a different shelf to make space for mugs because the container needs to contain the mugs. (whew. that was a really long sentence to explain a basic concept.)

It’s not about finding more or better storage spaces.
It’s about recognizing limits.

Recently, I started thinking about time as a container as well.

I’ve always understood a broad version of this, like: “there are only 24 hours in a day.” But I’m learning to see time as a series of small vessels. And some things, no matter how good or beautiful, just don’t fit in my vessels.

Last year, I timed how long it takes me to make my bed: 1 minute, 30 seconds.
Once I knew I could play Dolly Parton’s classic “9-5” and be done before the second chorus started, I was much more likely to make the bed in the mornings.

But here’s the part that surprised me: that 90 seconds became a kind of vessel, too.

When I changed to my summer bedding recently, I added a few pillows from other rooms. Almost immediately, I stopped making the bed. It vaguely felt like too much – even though the new layout probably only added a few seconds. I hadn’t re-timed it. And in the absence of knowing, my brain defaulted to “not enough time.”

So I went back. Simplified. Re-timed it, and fit the routine back into its original 90 second container.

Inspired, I started noticing other time-containers.

I have a lot of plants. Like… a llllooootttt. And I recently inherited even more.
I knew I spent time on Saturdays taking care of them, but had never grouped the whole routine together or timed it.

So I did. I decided ahead that I was willing to give one hour per weekend to plant care. I set a timer and (mostly) focused on the plants.

After an hour, I still had several left unwatered.

But an hour was my vessel. Even if every plant had a home (okay, most of them), I wasn’t willing to cut other things from my life to give more time to their care.

So at a recent party, I gathered a few plants I was ready to part with and offered them as “party favors.”

Seeing time as a container has helped me see how I use my time more clearly and set limits more effectively. It’s not always about cutting back – knowing I set aside an hour to take a bath allows my brain to settle in, linger and relax.

Sometimes it’s about measuring what actually fits – and noticing when something has outgrown its container. There’s still only 24 hours in my day. But seeing the little containers within those hours helps me be more mindful of what I’m filling them with.

The Raccoon Rule

Donna Joy

I was reminded of why I declutter through an unexpected visitor this week.

A very unexpected visitor.

Early one morning, I woke to some commotion in the kitchen. Assuming it was a child, I went to check it out  but instead of a child, I  found our living room window screen pushed in and several items from the counter between the kitchen and living room scattered across the floor.

After catching my breath and calling my husband out, we discovered the cutest little bandit I’ve ever seen had broken in, stolen a scone off the counter, and was now sitting on the deck, happily unwrapping and eating her bounty.

Meet Buttercup:
(Bonus points if you know the reference to the Queen of Refuse, the Queen of Garbage.)

Our Raccoon Bandit

Once we made sure there were no more critters hiding in the house and re-secured the window, I looked at the chaos Buttercup had left behind. I was grateful the mess wasn’t worse. Keeping my house from getting out of control definitely helps make unexpected situations like these easier to deal with!

But there was still a mess to deal with. A tray she knocked to the floor had held our HomePod speaker and a few sentimental keepsakes: a set of ceramic ducks from my grandmother, who passed away last year, and George, a clay monkey my daughter made in school years ago.

Two of the three ducks were shattered. George had lost multiple limbs.

As I stood there with broken pieces in my hands, I paused. 

You may have heard of the “poop rule” when it comes to decluttering:
“Do you like this item enough that you’d clean poop off of it to keep it?”

Well, I now had a new version: The Raccoon Rule.
Would I clean, fix, and keep something a raccoon got her paws on?

It was tempting to toss them out. They were damaged. The mess was inconvenient. But these weren’t just random knick knacks – they were items I had chosen to keep.

And that’s the heart of decluttering for me.

My decluttering isn’t really about getting rid of stuff.
It’s not about what I’m losing.
It’s about what I’m keeping.
And what I’m gaining, including the joy from seeing our memories displayed around us. 

I had kept those items because they are filled with happy memories — sweet treasures that make me smile when I see them.

So I picked up the pieces, sanitized them, and plan to glue them back together.

Decluttering, to me, has never been about living with nothing.
It’s about living with intention.
It’s about creating a space that is manageable, and it is also about creating space for what matters – and having room to appreciate the joy in what stays: 

Like a one-armed clay monkey named George, who now has a few scars and a great story to tell.

Inviting my ADD to the Process

Donna Joy

I’ve been a fan of Dana K. White’s decluttering strategies for years. She speaks to my ADD brain in a language it can actually hear and process. One of the main parts of her strategy involves asking yourself 2 decluttering questions as you hold each item you pick up:

  1. If I needed this item, where is the first place I would look for it?
    1. Go put it there now
  2. If I needed this item, would it occur to me that I already own it?
    1. (If not, donate it now)

I’ve recently added a question of my own to this list:

If I didn’t have this item what could I do?

Some things – like keys – are easy to answer. I legitimately need these items and they need to have a place in my home. If I didn’t have them I would need to replace them. Some things are not so obvious -like a scrap of fabric.

I’m a creative person and my creativity runs overtime when I am decluttering. I can look at a scrap of fabric and imagine 47 projects I would definitely need that.exact.piece of fabric to complete. I couldn’t possibly get rid of it. I might even know the answer to Dana’s decluttering question 1:  in the drawer of my craft dresser with the 389 other pieces of fabric. 

Often when I’ve decluttered in the past, I’ve tried to turn off that creative feature in my brain. I tell it to stop imagining possibilities because I thought that’s what I needed to do in order to work the decluttering process.

Creatives tend to feel a lot of pushback on being creative.

{People with ADD are way more likely to receive negative feedback and more prone to store it longer in their brain and bodies.}

I have been mocked for my creativity. 

And I have done a LOT of work to get to the point where I can say:

“I Like my creative brain. I LOVE my creative brain.” 

When I approach the decluttering questions with the mindset that I need to shut down my creative brain, my inner ADD bristles and balks and remembers every time someone treated me like crap for being creative and suddenly I am working overtime on creating 47 projects I would definitely need that exact piece of fabric to complete.

Instead, 

What if honoring my creativity is exactly what I need to help me declutter? What if I shift the question a bit?

I love repurposing items. I once created a business selling upcycled items.

I’ve made lamps out of flutes, flowers out of playbills, and I can make a planter out of almost anything. 

I’ve typically used that creativity to look at an item and say, “What could I use this item for?”

Which leads to me keeping piles of suitcases filled with random “potential.”

Now I’ve started asking, “If I didn’t have this item, what could I do/use?”
For example:

If I was picking up an empty planter I could ask: If I didn’t have this planter, and I needed to plant a new plant, what could I use?

I’m very confident that my amazing creative brain could find something to turn into a planter and I probably don’t need this planter. And if not, I could likely find one in minutes by asking a neighbor or my Buy Nothing group on Facebook. (I also DEFINITELY do not need another plant to put in a planter, but that’s a post for a different day.)

When I clean out my kitchen cabinets, I used to say, “I need this serving tray because this is what I use for…..”

Now I ask,  “If I didn’t have this, what would I use?”

Maybe I would pull the wood tray that’s under my coffee pot out for serving that dish, then put it back when I’m done.

Instead of telling my creative brain to sit down and shut up,

I’m inviting it to the process.

Honoring it.

Recognizing how important and amazing it is. 

My ADD brain has been told to sit down and be quiet often enough. I’m excited to show I love it more.

Goodbye Lent, Hello next steps

Donna Joy

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, the final day in my Lenten commitment to decluttering my house. 

I looked back today and reread what I had written on Ash Wednesday, over 6 weeks ago, at the beginning of my decision to blog through my process of decluttering my home and my faith in an effort to uncover real:

“When I turned the calendar this week and saw Ash Wednesday, I was filled with longing for the night I spent bearing those ashes. More than just a night in a sanctuary, I am longing for the “real” that the Pastor spoke of. I am tired of façades, tired of being burned by hypocrisy (my own and others), and I’m craving real. Maybe you are, too.

In one of my first experiences with Lent, I accepted a challenge to only eat unprocessed foods for a Lenten fast. I hated it. Every part of it. At the end, I excitedly went for some random junk food I’d been looking forward to, and it tasted like crap. I had developed a taste for real and now nothing else would satisfy.

Many of us are not attending in-person services this year, whether due to COVID-related issues, disenchantment with the church, a faith deconstruction process, or any number of other reasons. Despite all my issues with attending, not attending has left a void. 

I’m craving real. Real relationships, real faith, real hope, real joy, real me. Like the fast I did several years ago, I want to take a hard look at my life and address where I have been exchanging real for counterfeits, cheap replacements, and fakes.”

As I look back over these past couple months, I can see and feel so many benefits from the steps I’ve taken so far and I am so grateful for the conversations they’ve sparked with others along the way.

I love how my home feels when it greets me every day. I love the peace it gives to my family.

I love the conversations I’ve had with others on worth, value, dignity, priorities, self-evaluation, shame, truth and grace. 

I am excited to keep taking steps towards real in my relationships, my body, my faith, my hope, my joy, and all of my life.

Thank you for your encouragement and challenge along the way, let’s keep going together!

Image contents: My cup, overflowing with joy. Ok, so it’s actually a mug with the word “joy” imprinted on the side, which I filled a touch too fully with coffee, so the foam is peeking over the brim, but to me, it’s a cup overflowing with joy, as I look forward to continuing to experience and write through my journey to uncover real.

Easter Reflections: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

Donna Joy

When Jesus cleared the outer courts of the temple it was about far more than what and who he was clearing out.

It was also about who He was making room to let in.

Jesus was clearing space to welcome

the foreigner

the poor

the oppressed

the discriminated

the marginalized.

The religious leaders of the day set up a system designed to keep people out, and put people down, in order to maintain and reinforce their own power. They were using exorbitant fees, gross exchange rates, and extra rules to enforce exclusivity and increase shame.

On what we now call Easter, Jesus continued the process of making space for inclusion as he announced his resurrection. Women at the time were so marginalized and devalued their testimony was not even considered credible in a court case. Yet it was women he first entrusted to tell his story.

The entire Passover celebration, from the preparation to the final glass of wine, reinforces the theme of liberation and the pull of slavery. The religious leaders of the day had turned what was intended as a celebration of liberation into an act of oppression. Every act of Jesus during Holy Week was intended to set the oppressed free once again.

I believe Jesus is still drawing people out of oppression, out of the ways we marginalize, judge and oppress each other.

Jesus also still seeks to rescue us from the slavery of the things we think will set us free.

For the past forty days as I’ve decluttered my stuff, I’ve had to process through new ways of thinking of how I interact with things, and what I prioritize: What’s out, what’s in? What oppresses and what sets free?

The past year+ of Covid19 has made many of us process through what we prioritize, what’s in, what’s out, what oppresses, what sets free?

I believe the story of Easter, and the entire life of Jesus, calls us to work through a similar process. What are we holding onto because it is tradition? What are we holding onto because it makes us feel comfortable? What are we holding onto that keeps us in power while making the marginalized, poor, foreigner and oppressed unwelcome in our spaces?

What are we holding onto that covers over real?

What are we willing to let go of to make space for others?

What are we prioritizing?

Who are we prioritizing, who are we giving power to, and who are marginalizing?

Friday Reflections: Out and In

Donna Joy

One of my favorite quotes, which has motivated me countless times in clearing space in my life, is from the forward of a book I read a number of years ago, during a communal Lenten Fast. It said, 

“taking in, taking in, taking in. It clogs the soul.”

I think about this quote a lot.

It’s easy to think the answer to clogging our lives, homes and souls is to just stop taking in. Or to get rid of the clogs and stop there. 

Which brings me from one of my favorite quotes…to what used to be my least favorite parable:

In these verses, as in so many other verses, Jesus was replying to Pharisees’ questions and accusations by offering them an illustration: 

 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

I always hated this passage.

I figured at best, it was a reason not to bother cleaning. At worst, it was hopelessly depressing.

Either way, I missed the point. 

Until someone sat with me and explained it in terms of nature abhorring a vacuum. 

The person cleaning house stopped before a crucial point. They stopped at the emptying. 

We see this all over:

We stop a time-consuming job or habit and the saved time automatically gets sucked up by something else.

Condemned buildings and abandoned lots are cleared out, with no plans for ongoing utilization of the space and they become overrun with drugs and crime.

We stop a bad habit, only to find we’ve replaced it with a worse habit. 

It’s not enough to stop taking in.

It’s not enough to clean out.

It matters what we then fill the clearing with.

When Jesus overturned tables and cleared out the temple, he wasn’t simply getting rid of clutter. 

It wasn’t about the “out.”

It was about the “in.”

It was about what, and more importantly WHO he was making space for. 

Week 6, Day 4: “How Could I Keep it”

Donna Joy

A few years ago, someone left me a message left me know a building full of antique stores near me was closing up and getting rid of all their remaining inventory, free for the taking. By the time I heard about it and drove over, people were carrying the last remnants out to dumpsters. I parked my van and began making trips from the basement of the building to my van and back, racing against the dumpster fillers.  There was no time to evaluate, so I beelined for the items I thought I could most use, mainly old scratched records, antique books and vintage boxes. I pulled away from the complex a little while later, covered in dust, my van bursting with treasure.


Later, when I experimented with selling repurposed creations, I used a number of the damaged treasures I had rescued for upcycled projects like wreaths, bowls, and plate stands. Most of the rest of the items have sat collecting dust in my basement since the day I brought them home.

As I went through some of those collections today, I found myself repeatedly saying, “oh, this so cool.” 

I realized what I meant was, “how could I get rid of something with so much potential to be used in a new way, or displayed in a great space, or appreciated for it’s rich history?”

But they were stuck on a shelf, in my unfinished basement.

So, what if “but they’re so cool” meant instead:

“how could I keep something with so much potential to be used in a new way, or displayed in a great space, or appreciated for it’s rich history?

The tiny change in words was a huge shift in my mind set. I’m not appreciating or using those items while they sit on my shelf, and I can give them to someone who might.

It was so freeing. 

90% of my unused vintage records, bins and other “treasures”? buh-bye.

Room to breathe, joyful spirit and clear shelves for my newly sorted kids memory boxes? hello!

Image Contents: a few of my favorite vintage treasures. An Ella Fitzgerald record and file card box which have homes in my living room, so they’re staying; a letterpress tray and vintage music encyclopedias which do not, so they’re heading off to their new homes.

Week 6, Day 3: Onions, Old Habits and Grace

Donna Joy

Even though minimalism experts like Joshua Fields Millburn  and Joshua Becker talk about their  decluttering process taking about three-quarters of a year, and other experts describe decades-long journeys, I figured six weeks should be enough time to get my house to clutter-free-a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place status. I mean, I’m not a hoarder. I don’t have a storage unit. My basement is a disaster, but I can park in the garage. Usually.

When I started, I felt I landed pretty squarely in the “normal” range of clutter, on the scale I made up. In my head. Based basically on my house not looking like either an episode of Hoarders or a minimalist magazine cover. 

So today, six weeks into my decluttering journey, when I went to put a few things away and realized they didn’t have an easy permanent home, I was frustrated at myself. And when I gathered up a few things in a tote to “deal with tomorrow,” I felt guilty and ashamed. Hadn’t I just learned the lesson of “do it now” yesterday?

When am I going to reach the point of everything having a home and automatically putting it there?

Then I remembered two things. First, the “onion method.” Different people have different versions of what this means, but the concept always revolves around layers. Sometimes the layering is in a single decluttering session – like yesterday when Dana K. White’s method started with trash and the easy peasy stuff, then kept going through harder items.

Sometimes uncovering the layers happens over time.

A month ago,  I decluttered my reusable grocery bags. Today I went grocery shopping and realized, since I’m not stocking up on grocery items as heavily, I’m shopping for less, and therefore don’t need as many bags as I had narrowed it down to a few weeks ago.

I started with what I thought I needed, then was able to peel back more. 

The same thing is happening in the rest of my home. As I enjoy the benefits, see how I’m actually living, and build up my decision-making muscles, I’m often decluttering things as I come across them, and sometimes intentionally going back to spaces I know can function better with less. 

I also realized everything not yet having a place for everything and putting a few things in a tote for tomorrow is not failure. There’s grace in the process. After all, I have a whole other week before my self-imposed deadline. 😉

Image Contents: an image of Shrek saying, “Onions have layers, Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers!” Because I can’t talk about onions having layers with Shrek and Donkey busting into my head.

Week 6, Day 2: Experimenting With a Different Method

Donna Joy

I’ve ingested quite a number of books, blogs, podcasts and youtube videos on decluttering and minimalism. (Oh the irony of my consumption of minimalism media.)

I’ve gleaned a number of things which work for me (timers are an essential part of my routines) and things which don’t (no, I don’t think the answer to a messy house is to just stick everything you have in baskets).

There is one decluttering method I’ve come across in a few places. I hate almost everything about it. Except: it works really well and solves a lot of the problems I create for myself, and apparently it’s just about perfect for me. But, you know, other than that…

Mostly I don’t like it because it goes against how I usually declutter. But how I usually declutter leaves me exhausted and often leaves my house in worse shape than when I started, so… I decided maybe it was worth trying… for research. 

The method is from Dana K. White of A Slob Comes Clean. She has multiple blog posts, youtube videos and books detailing what she’s learned over the past decade or so of her journey, I’m just going to highlight her method of “decluttering without making a bigger mess.”

Here’s what she says you need to get started:

1st: a donate-able donations bag/bin. (so you can just put the whole bag in the car and drop it off at a donation center.)

2nd: a garbage bag

3rd: your feet or someone helping you if you need assistance (yeah, it’s a little cheesy, but she’s going somewhere with it, so I’m including it) 

During your decluttering session you’re going to stick to a small, defined area and ask yourself two questions as you go:

  1. If I needed this item, where would I look for it? (take it there. now.)
  2. If I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that I already have one? (If not, get rid of it because I’d just buy a new one if I needed it.)

It’s her parenthesied directions that get to me:

Why would I take it there immediately? It breaks up the process! I’d get distracted! I can’t imagine how tired I’d be if I stopped with every item to put it somewhere else and came back! I’ll just make a pile as I go.

The second question is not as difficult for me, but I still feel the arguments rise up inside: What a waste of money! It’s a perfectly good item! Why would I buy a new one when I have one?!

But I tried it anyway.

Normally my decluttering process is more like:

dump everything out. sort every single item. get distracted. come back. look through the piles to remember what the sorting method was. get distracted. come back. finish sorting everything. feel accomplished but tired. look around and see scattered piles of donate, garbage, keep, bring to another room, etc. feel overwhelmed and frustrated with myself. 

Sometimes the piles would get addressed right then. Sometimes I’d need to move on to something else and the piles would linger, becoming magnets for more clutter and more frustration. 

So today, I picked one drawer and implemented the rules. She encourages you to start with the easiest stuff – usually trash. I didn’t have any obvious trash in the drawer, but found plenty of things which needed to be delivered to other places. I love her first question because it’s totally real, not aspirational and unattainable. You’re not designing a whole organizing system and creating places for something. You’re acknowledging how you actually operate. If she asked me where my favorite multi-bit screw driver belongs, I might be tempted to think about places on the workbench I should  keep it. When she asks where I would I look for it, my immediate answer is, “the kitchen drawer.” Ok, so don’t beat yourself up over whether that’s the right answer or not, go put it in the kitchen drawer! If there’s not room in the kitchen drawer, get rid of one thing in the kitchen drawer and now you have room. 

I still found it hard to deliver the items immediately. I was tired. I repeatedly found myself going to make a pile of something. But I forced myself to do it – looking around first to see if there was anything else I could take at the same time to save a trip. At one point the phone rang and I left to go answer it somewhere else. When I came back to the drawer, all that waited for me was an empty garbage bag, a partially filled donate bag and progress. Nothing totally dumped out. No piles. No mess. I could walk away right then and it would be better than I started.

This is the beauty of Dana’s method. You’re always at a stopping point and your stopping point is always better than when you started. 

So like I said, I hate almost everything about it. Except it works really well, solves a lot of the problems I create for myself, and apparently it’s just about perfect for me. 

Image Contents: What my spaces often look like AFTER I declutter – random piles of stuff that need to be delivered to other places, often tossed in bags that sit in the hall or basement until I set aside time to deal with the items inside. again.