There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m starting to see it. That was my big breakthrough recently. I surveyed the piles of paper on the bed and they seemed small. There weren’t a lot of boxes around me anymore. Decluttering stopped seeming endless, and started to appear finite. I’m getting there at long last, and you will too. I’ve been quite busy during all these months at home. While others are relaxing with family and house mates, playing games and puzzles and lego, I’ve tried to end years of hoarding and clutter with a firm view of a different future. Here’s the gist of my progress in productivity.
Continue readinghabits
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
Moments
I have always been a busy girl. Priorities out of alignment. Letting work or study or clutter take up all my time. Everything else would get an excuse, sit lower down the priority chain. If I could just get X out of the way then I’ll have time for Y, I’d think. But it never happened. When I was last working, life genuinely was busy in my job, always having kids to chase, parents to answer to, my own impossible expectations to meet. I started this idea of making tea, taking that moment while the kettle boiled, to breathe, to do nothing, to think nothing, to be mindful. To notice the sound of the kettle, the smell of my herbal tea bag, the feeling of my feet on the ground, my back pressed against the counter. I didn’t drink hot drinks, especially in the Middle East, so even if I forgot to make or drink the tea, which I frequently did, in boiling the kettle, I started buying into this notion of taking a mindful moment for myself. Continue reading
Life with Less 