resolved

It may not look like it from how often I update this... but we really are up to a lot of things. School, work, job hunting, potty-training, not potty-training, learning our letters and words, and trying to learn to share (just to name a few... I'll let you guess who's doing what.)

As New Years came around I got excited. I realized there were many things that I wanted to do and things I wanted to change.

As I searched for family members Christmas gifts, I stumbled across this book. It's been an inspiration to say the least. And while I'm not willing to go to the extreme of her minimalist techniques. (ie. her bedroom consists of nothing more than a futon mattress on the floor and two alarm clocks on either side of the bed), I do like the way she gets rid of stuff.

Stuff that we don't need, stuff that takes up space and time and takes more work to keep than it would if we just got rid of it. Stuff that might be better off in someone else home or the garbage, or something that would be better off on someone else's to-do list instead of my own. It's amazing to me the things that I keep because, "I may wear that again someday..." or "It was a gift, I can't give it away even if I don't really like it".

She breaks down the reasons that we keep things, and makes some pretty good arguments as to why we should or shouldn't keep something. Her tactics have opened my eyes to a new world of getting rid of semi-sentimental objects that I keep for really no good reason at all (sometimes I keep things just because "I know someone close to me gave me that, even though I can't remember who.").

Everything you keep should have a reason. If it doesn't have a reason, toss it. 

She goes over why we really don't need duplicates of everything, if one will do (and I'm surprised at how many duplicates I find in my house that I didn't know I had). 

After she talks about how to get rid of stuff, she talks about how to keep clutter out. Cut it off before it enters your house. For example, have a set number of shirts in your closet. If you bring a new one in, another one must go. If you can't let one go then maybe you don't need a new one. She doesn't specify how many shirts you should have in your closet (that's left up to you), but set a number. Maybe it's 10 or maybe it's 50, but when you set a number stick with it and you'll never have to worry about too many clothes gathering in your closet. And she sets this example throughout the house.

It's brilliant. I've never seen an organizing/decluttering book like it. I love the way she approaches it. (Although she is quite the extremist on the matter, she does make excellent points.)

So, I've purged my closet and I'm working on the other rooms in my house.
My goal is that before we move out of this house, I will have significantly less stuff to follow us to the next one.

And that was my goal with getting this book. I planned on decluttering my house and organizing the objects that survived the overhaul.

But the book didn't end there.  She went on to describe how we need to declutter life itself. How to let go of expectations and how to know when to settle for "good enough" instead of "perfect". Setting limits for yourself and sticking with it, cutting back on your extra activities so that you have more time for the hobbies and activities you truly enjoy.

I always focus on making everything perfect. The photos I post and the dialogue that follows has to be perfect. And when it's not, I find that it takes me even longer to get my next post up because my last one wasn't up to par.
When I shop for clothes or search for a new recipe to try, it's gotta be perfect. I've got to be able to have something perfect to show for the time that I invested. And in the end, I spend too much time looking for recipes when the first one I found would suffice. I search for that perfect pair of jeans when I normally end up going back to first store to buy the first pair I tried on.
I'm sure I drive Kyle crazy with how often I change my mind. I change it because maybe there would be a better choice that would pop up later. Maybe what I want now won't be what I want in five minutes.
Maybe I haven't researched it enough to know what really would be the best choice, and if I spend another week checking it out then I'll be able to make my decision.

Not any more.

I've made a decision to be more decisive, and to be happy with the choice that I make. I'm going to cut out the things that don't really matter in life and to focus on the things that do, and realize that sometimes "good enough" really is better than "perfect".

And here's one of my favorite photos of the boys today... it's not perfect, but it's my favorite.