I’m having trouble buying gifts for others lately.  I just think we all have too much stuff, myself included.  I’ve been working regularly for a few years to remove unnecessary things from our house and our lives on a regular basis.  I’ve found it’s easier to do a small amount of work regularly than it is to try to carve out time to make an overhaul.

Something in, something out.  When I was younger, I made a rule for myself that I wouldn’t purchase something new without getting rid of something that I currently owned.  It’s a practice that I still use today.  When I go clothes/shoe shopping and purchase a items I love; I look through my closet and figure out what I can donate. I do this for nearly everything we purchase.  It keeps our house much more functional because we’re only keeping the items we regularly use and we’re giving the other usable items to someone who needs them. You can do it! Think about what you own that you don’t like and get rid of it.  Don’t save anything because of sentiment or cost.  If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work.

Creatively use your current items.  I got to organize our house last weekend as a result of repurposing our office.  Loved it! I spent quite a bit of time shifting our active storage zones into a more useful purpose.  Our garage shelving now holds my mason jar gift collection, my gift tubs now have kids toys in them and the toy bins are what we’re using for shipping supplies.  We re-purposed our current items to be better utilized in the space and function we needed.  You can do it! Look at an area that is bothering you and pretend you’re on a renovation show.  How can you use items in a new way to have that fancy reveal at the end? It’s more fun than you think.

Be realistic with the space you have.  I’m always interested when people move into a bigger house.  Sure, the extra space is something I’d take in a heartbeat.  But have you noticed sometimes it’s because they need a place to put all of their stuff? The last time we moved, it was into a (slightly) smaller house.  It forced me to think about our space and it’s functionality and make some tough decisions.  It took me a year to get through this project, but it was worth it.  We could live with less and eliminate the stuff we didn’t need, so we could keep the items we loved. You can do it! Start to store your items together and eliminate duplicates.  This is an easy way to give yourself more space.

You deserve to live a clutter-free life.  And let’s be honest, we could all use less stuff in our lives.  Think about what you can do today – even if it’s just one thing – to help you be more organized, keep only the things you love and make consistent progress toward your goals.  You can do it.