Day 11

Decluttering Deluxe

The Advent Cal(m)endar contains habits to increase clarity, focus and calmness. Every second day, I open a door and post about my experiences.

Hi readers! I think many of you know the feeling – being calm or working with focus is harder in a messy environment. A cluttered room is distracting, and it can even feel like the stuff is “demanding”. It wants our attention, wants to be used or wants to be tidied away.

I have been a minimalist for many years – since figuring out in my teens that I enjoy almost empty spaces. Not a minimalist in the sense of owning only 30 items (even though I got close to that at one point), but in the sense of regularly getting rid of everything that I don’t truly need or that doesn’t make me happy. I have no cupboard and only a small shelf because I do not need more, but I keep 20 or 30 books at a time because I like having a choice, I own a selection of camping equipment that I do not use frequently but that brings me great joy in the summer, and I like to display some stones, pine cones and other items I have collected in nature.

I declutter regularly almost automatically because I feel that my baseline stress level increases when my apartment is messy or full. In fact, I sometimes overdo it and get rid of things I later miss. There are very useful decluttering methods and challenges (e.g. get rid of one item per day; or get rid of one item on day 1, two items on day 2, etc.), but it would not make sense to add these to my list of habits because what I own is already carefully curated.

However, before you start thinking that I live in a perfectly neat, minimalist place, let me tell you there is one big exception – and that’s where we get to today’s new habit!

The exception is the recycling. I separate my waste, get rid of the general waste, get rid of the plastics, get rid of the glass… and keep the cardboard and paper forever. I don’t know why, but I have a giant box of cardboard and paper recycling, as well as some towers of cardboard boxes. If you laid all the cardboard pieces out, they would cover 73 football pitches. Or at least that’s how it feels. My apartment is tidy, but when you come to the area with the cardboard it’s like you’ve entered the messy house of these brothers (a horrible and fascinating story).

So, time to fix this. The plan is to get rid of some recycling each day until it’s gone (I cannot discard it all at once because of how the recycling system works in my area)! I started today by putting the cardboard into smaller boxes that I can bring away individually, and it was a nice trip down memory lane as I found the packaging of last year’s Christmas gifts…

Do you like a simple / minimalist home, or do you prefer a cosy place with memories and lots of decoration? Do you also have that one thing you struggle with?

Happy Wednesday,

Hannah