declutter 15 minutes a day

Although I’m not really yet at decluttering for 15 minutes a day, I have learned that have to start packing up about 10 minutes before I want to leave, and that this habit leaves everything neat and makes everything nicer when I start tomorrow.

How can something so simple be so hard to implement? Today I decluttered for about 10 minutes, for the first time in many weeks.
It feels good, does good.

Fifteen minutes a day of decluttering is really a lot of time, and amazingly effective. What also surprised me is how much infrastructure I need to create before I can just declutter. For example, I have to create new folders in my filing cabinet to house the paper that comes from all over. Fortunately one can do a lot in fifteen minutes.

Tuesday: Where does all the stuff come from? I tidied my desk a bit, making sure the pile of articles has nothing else in.
I took a book I had finished reading back to the library.

Ahem. After this week of “taking a break” from decluttering, I’m sure I’ll be back next week with vigour.

Today I spent my decluttering time getting rid of old till slips and ATM receipts. A nagging task got rid of, and a boxfile empty for using for a better purpose.

The really nice thing about decluttering only 15 minutes a day is that we don’t have to finish anything. If the time is up we can stop. There is no feeling of “I don’t have time now to clean up this mess.”

There is a small problem in this goal, and that it that it becomes less obvious that decluttering is needed as one makes progress. So the commitment to keep on going through stuff and getting organized and going into drawers and corners of cupboards needs some help. That’s what 43 Things is for.

Yesterday I did declutter a little bit, not quite 15 minutes because I got distracted, but I can’t quite remember what.

I didn’t get to quite fifteen minutes today, but everything that I worked with today is put away and the decks are cleared for tomorrow.

Coiled some cables, put some dusty papers in the bin, took care of a note with a telephone number on it.