14. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
Clutter. It’s a family’s best friend. In our house, we do as best we can to make sure we don’t end up with stuff we don’t need. I’m notorious for selling things or Gumtreeing things away once we’re done with them. Bigger things. But clutter – it’s all the little things, isn’t it? Things that we don’t really have a place for, so they become the things that live everywhere.
Take our mantlepiece for example. We have (left to right) a wooden tortoise brought home from Uganda by our nephew; an empty photo frame box from Boston; our wedding cake toppers; a pack of chalk; one of Little L’s birthday cards (from last month); a ‘congrats’ card for getting Pyjama Drama up and running; a clock; some empty Mario themed sweet tins; an oversize wedding invitation (my fault); drinks holder circles of wood (I can’t remember what they are called right now, okay?); a smelly thingy; the pairs to the tortoise and photo frame box.
The only thing stopping this from being The Generation Game is a cuddly toy. We don’t need it all. It can all go, or go elsewhere. But it’s still there. And this is just a very small snapshot of our house. And every time I look at it I think ‘ugh, we don’t have a pretty mantlepiece like everyone else. I should really do something about that.’ But I don’t, because we have a child and I just don’t get round to it.
I need to declutter. I need to hit Ebay with the four boxes of clothes under the bed. I need to sort Little L’s toys. I need to decide what I’m doing with the front garden (whole world of clutter hiding behind the fence). I need that clarity, that space.
I will post a picture of the mantlepiece again this time next week. Together, we’ll either mock me or celebrate the clarity.