Decluttering Is My Superpower

Stuff, we all have it. But do we really need it all? About ten years ago when we were moving into our current home, I started throwing things away, and I don’t mean donating. I actually threw stuff in the garbage.Sometimes good stuff, like Legos my boys left on the floor of their bedroom. This was very hard for me to do because I had always donated or recycled things very carefully, so that each item could be repurposed. When I first started doing this, I felt so guilty and wrong. But at the same time I was feeling guilty, I also felt a sense of freedom. Throwing stuff away was liberating. And  it was the only way to save my sanity while we were moving, selling the house we were living in, and raising four young kids at the time. Do you know what happened after I started to throw things away? My house was more tidy than it had ever been. I got numerous compliments from real estate agents taking clients through my home, about how clean and organized it was. From there I was hooked on decluttering the stuff that no longer served my family. And while the stuff still creeps in, especially during a busy season of life, I have a dedicated day to declutter every week on trash night. I call it Trashy Tuesday. I usually pull a bag out of the kitchen trash can if it isn’t that full, and go around the house looking for broken items and literal trash in drawers, closets, and the refrigerators. We have three full size refrigerators that usually have to be cleaned out every week, and I usually do that after going through the house looking for trash. Doing this has made a huge difference in the way our home looks and feels, and has reduced some of the chaos that comes from seven humans living under one roof. I would highly recommend giving it a try.