It was kind of ridiculous.
I would often lament about my room to my younger sister. Her room was always so perfect and tidy and felt nice to be in. And so one day my thoughtful sister gave me a gift that really changed everything. That gift was Sink Reflections
by Marla Cilley aka The FlyLady.It was a sort of funny gift for a 16-year-old, but it was just what I needed.
I could write a whole post about the FlyLady and her practices, but one of the main things that book did to change my life was to teach me to get rid of stuff and simplify. She has an activity called the 27 Fling-Boogie, in which we would turn on crazy fast, peppy songs and run around our rooms for 15 minutes randomly grabbing 27 unneeded items and throwing them in a box to get rid of.
We would do this once a week. It’s crazy to think I had enough stuff to get rid of 27 items every week. (And we did this for several weeks.)
Slowly, but surely I started to reclaim my room and my stuff. And this was the first time in my life that I had really ever done it. I was learning to take responsibility for what I owned, figure out what was truly needed and what was purely unnecessary. And it felt really good.
That lesson stuck with me and shaped who I have become and how I view keeping my home. At 16, my eyes were opened to how awful I felt by having chaos in my life and how freeing it was to simplify the stuff in my room.
What does this have to do with reducing waste? Well, I learned that when you simplify the possessions in your life, you use what you have more efficiently and have a tendency to accumulate less unnecessary stuff and therefore produce less waste.
Here are some tips for simplifying your life to reduce waste:
Purge. The first step to simplifying your home is to purge those unnecessary possessions. Take a good hard look at what you have and start purging. For some this step is easier. Begin with one room and take it a bite at a time. Start with a particular drawer, cabinet or shelf. Look at everything in it or on it and decide if you really need it.
If You Don’t Use It, You Won’t Use It. Having a hard time deciding? Well, they say if you haven’t used something in a year, chances are you’ll never use it. And in general, I find this to be true. So, if you haven’t used it in a year, get rid of it. If there’s still stuff you’re not sure about, put a date on the item, stick it in a container and place it in the garage or a closet. If in a year, you haven’t missed something in the container, get rid of it. (However, I find through simply relegated an item to said container, within a month I have a clearer view of its necessity in my home.)
A Place For Everything and Everything in its Place. Once you’ve initiated the purging process, take time to go through each room and find a place for everything and make sure it resides where it’s supposed to go. This makes tidying your home so much easier. You don’t end up with that pile of stuff you don’t know what to do with that you just move from room to room.
Get Rid of It! After you’ve collected the items you don’t need, get rid of it! But do so RESPONSIBLY. You can sell the items or for simplicity’s sake, donate them to Goodwill or Salvation Army. Whatever you do, do it quickly.
Once you’ve simplified your home through purging, work hard to keep it simple. Before you allow something to enter your home, ask yourself if you really need it. I found that once I started purging my room of stuff, I had a better idea of what needed to be there. It’s a lesson I’m still learning today, but it is a lesson that becomes easier to learn through continual practice.
So, what are you doing to simplify your home?
