Isn’t this year just flying by and going snail slow all at the same time? I can’t believe it’s August and there is still so much uncertainty. Here in Melbourne we’ve just entered a stage 4 lockdown amid COVID-19 numbers spiralling. Well, I thought I’d break from the norm and, in keeping with my silver linings optimism, focus on something a little different this month: Intentionalism. Similar to minimalism, the journey a person takes typically starts with decluttering then going into minimalism, and then reaching intentionalism. That’s how I see it anyway. And each week this month, we will delve a little bit into the benefits of a life lived intentionally. This week, we’ll look at the journey and what it all looks like, so that the next posts featuring the benefits make a little more sense. Enjoy. Continue reading
Declutter
Small Steps
Small steps make big progress. It’s a fact. All the minimalism and slow living folk talk about it. Joshua Becker. Courtney Carver. Brooke McAlary. The Art of Decluttering podcast ladies call it, micro decluttering. Small actions, when there are enough of them, do lead to a big change. This applies to anything really. Grassroots campaigns sweeping the world even. I live by mottoes of similar mantras “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” (Lao Tzu, on my fridge magnet), “A job begun is half done,” my teacher used to say. “Done is better than perfect”, a friend told me last year.
Below are some of my small actions that are getting things done in my life this year and last. File under REPAIR AND REUSE. Continue reading
The cat
I am not a cat person. Not really much of an animal person at all. But in the great binary question of dogs versus cats, I suppose I am a dog person. If I had to choose.
With great reluctance back in October, I took in a week-old abandoned stray kitten I found on the property and nursed it toward better health. Having spent years as a nanny of babies, I was kind of awestruck how much tinier and more vulnerable this kitty was, this baby who fit in my hand, with his big eyes looking up at me in total dependence. Continue reading
The Great Declutter, part 3: D-Day
Over the northern summer I spent my eagerly anticipated month in Australia, relaxing on a much needed holiday break while also consciously thinking about the things I own, how to declutter in a meaningful way and how to spend my time in a way that balanced relaxation with family and friend time, spontaneity and community. I was so proud of the result. I returned to work feeling truly at peace with myself, for the first time in a long while.
I arrived in Australia one wintry Wednesday night. Completely focused on my mission, I secured free wifi in my hotel room and promptly posted online ads for my mattress and bedding package as well as my bike. Within two hours I had someone interested to buy my bike and coming to meet me Thursday afternoon. It was a great start. I was so ready for Thursday to arrive. Little was I to know how smoothly things would go – preparation was everything. Continue reading
The Great Declutter, part 1: The Real Cost, November 2015
What a powerful bridge I just crossed.
This journey can only be described as an elongated thought process, and so the following post will read as such.
It’s my day off again. Weighed down by things to do, I came up with a list of short tasks to achieve this morning to help me start to feel like I’m getting a lot of work done. After that I thought, you know, while I’m here I have some other things on my mind that I want to list: easily discarded things from my storage. So I opened up my smartphone notes page and jotted them down. Then it occurred to me to scroll back through my smartphone photos to the last pictures of my storage (which I do each visit), to see if there’s anything else I can see I need to add. What followed was a half hour of liberation.
Flashback! Relocating. Again. August 2014
Is there anything to inspire a person more into action than accepting an international job that gives you two months to pack up and prepare to move? Especially when you’ve done it all before, and learned all the mistakes the hard way the first time? Oh the clarity of what really needs to be done and what hard choices really need to be made!
Over the past month I have been working and attempting to finish up some projects that I’d really rather avoid taking with me. But in the back of my mind, I’ve also been constantly thinking about my month of no work before I move, and my 13 metre square unit full of all my worldly goods, that could probably be whittled down before departure. Continue reading
Life with Less 