Look, I make a lot of lists, alright?!
I’ve mentioned before that I’m bonkers about paper.
I can’t bear to “waste” it so I end up with mountains of scrap…
…probably more than I’ll ever be able to use.
It’s OK.
I’m good at getting rid of other stuff…
…and (more to the point in fact) I’m EXCELLENT at not acquiring stuff…
…so my home functions well…
…and it doesn’t matter that there are piles of scrap paper under my office desk.
But this weekend I came face-to-face with my nemesis…
…when my bureau came up on my decluttering schedule.
As usual, my first thought was…
…”I don’t suppose there’ll be much I can get rid of“.
How wrong I was!
A huge pile of beautiful photos of birds I’d cut out of RSPB magazines.
…thinking I’d do something creative with them…
…YEARS ago…
…and which had sat in a drawer, sorted by species, unused ever since.
Tubes of plastic glitter.
Aargh! Now we know how damaging that stuff is, and that, sadly, the best place for it is landfill.
A load of envelopes with perished adhesive.
And…a big ol’ pile of diaries.
These related to my first 15+ years of self-employment.
I used to log my time so that I knew how long I’d spent on different projects…
…to help me plan my time efficiently.
Well, that was the theory.
Truth is, I never did anything with that data.
Eventually, I admitted this to myself and stopped keeping records (yay!)
Here’s the journey those 15 diaries had been on since.
1. Sitting on a shelf in my office, gathering dust…
…until said shelf came up in my decluttering schedule.
2. Moved to a drawer of my bureau on the basis I could use them as notebooks…
…until said drawer came up in my decluttering schedule.
3. Admitting to myself that I don’t use notebooks…
…thinking I should probably chuck ’em…
…and knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist tearing out any usable paper to keep for scrap…
…so leaving them where they were…
…until said drawer came up in my decluttering schedule again (last weekend).
4. Getting real.
Tearing off the covers (bin)…
…ripping out the ribbon bookmarks (rag recycling)…
…dumping the paper in the recycling bin.
5. Pulling them back out of the recycling bin…
…tearing out the “best” sheets for scrap…
…and dumping the rest back in the recycling bin.
Hey! It’s progress, right?
There’s a point to telling you this story.
Actually there are two.
The first is so you know I can be as irrational about stuff as the next person.
Clients often tell me they assume my home is a cavernous, echoing, empty chamber!
Not so! 
The second, is to demonstrate why I recommend creating a decluttering schedule…
…and continuing to declutter every area of your home in an never-ending rotation.
It lets you hang onto stuff you’re not sure about…
…even when you know, really, you “should” get rid.
Because you know that you’ll have a chance to review the decision in the future.
In my case every three years.
You’re not keeping it forever. Just f’now.
Have you got a decluttering schedule? Inspired to create one? Comment below!
