Getting serious about my Stuff with Peter Walsh

Let me be honest: I am never going to embrace a minimalist lifestyle. I like my Stuff, plain and simple. "Restrained" and "understated" are probably never adjectives that will be used to describe me! All those cutesy decorative signs and stuff that you see in gift shops that say "Simplify" in a swirly sort of script make me giggle, because I will NEVER have one hanging in my home.

That being said, I mentioned the other day that I feel like I'm drowning in my Stuff right now. I still love my Stuff, don't get me wrong--but right now it's taking over and making me unhappy. If you walked into my home right now, you'd never know that while I was growing up, my bedroom was neat and tidy: a place for everything, and everything in it's place. My mom never ever had to get after me to clean my bedroom, and I was always a great college roommate because my side of the room and bathroom was tidy and I cleaned up after myself in the kitchen and common areas.

And then I had kids.

Kids who do not so far seem exhibit those same proclivities toward neatness, making me fear that their father's dominant Messy gene won out in that battle. I'm not blaming my current messiness on my kids (okay, not entirely). The simple fact is that now that I have children, I have more responsibilities in the same amount of time, and something has to give. That something is unfortunately my neatness and organization. I feel like the state of my house is negatively affecting the state of my mental clarity and I'm ready to do something about it.

I picked up Peter Walsh's new book, Lighten Up, at the library a few weeks ago. At first I was disappointed because I felt like the subject matter didn't really apply to me, but then this weekend I took another look and found a statement that really got my attention:

"I'll say this again, too: no matter whether you own or rent your space, you're paying per square foot. Space has value, too. If the stuff in your space is driving you nuts, then step up and do something about it. It won't fix itself on its own. Giving time to what you value is important. When you lose your ability to enjoy a room or to store your car and seasonable items in a tidy garage, you're throwing that portion of your rent or mortgage down the drain." (Lighten Up page 252, emphasis mine)

My Stuff is indeed driving me nuts, and I've lost the ability to enjoy more than one room in my house so this went straight to my heart. In the book, Peter suggests calculating the value of your home ÷ your square footage to get an idea of what each square foot of space in your house is worth. With every square foot full of clutter, you are losing out on usable space in your home and basically throwing that money away! We've been talking a lot about square footage and mortgages lately because we were considering a move, so that concept is very striking to me.

Peter also suggests a schedule for organized living, with a different category each month. The one for March is "Tension Tamer" and the assignment is to choose one area of your home that deserves the greatest amount of attention and focus your energy on that one for the month. Right now, the biggest Stuff monkey on my back is my Etsy/ebay/Craigslist mess. I enjoy selling on Etsy and have plenty of "inventory" that I've picked up but I just can't seem to get going and get it listed. It's ironic, because I've noticed that the more frequently I list, the more I seem to sell (due to Etsy's default search settings). I keep bringing in more Stuff to sell, but I'm not selling at the rate I'm accumulating so I have a huge imbalance and as a result, can't walk around in our home office because of the giant pile in the middle of the floor.

Prompted by Peter, I've made a decision: I'm giving myself until March 31 to deal with my stuff. By "deal with" I mean photograph and list for sale on Etsy, eBay or Craigslist. Whatever is not listed by March 31 gets donated, no matter what! No matter how cute it is, or what it cost, or how sure I am that it will sell--it's gone! During my Tension Tamer challenge, I'm also on a junking freeze (after the trip I have planned tomorrow--I'm shopping for a swap). No more bringing in until I get more out! I'm giving myself a pass on my Christmas items, however, since listing those right now is a waste of money.

This is going to be a big challenge for me! I get 2.5 hours per day of kid-free time per weekday while Maren is at kindergarten and Porter is napping, and any other things I need or want to get done without little helpers has to be done during that time as well, ergo I won't be able to devote that whole time each day to my challenge. I'm hoping that my motivation not to "waste" my stuff by giving it away on April 1 will motivate me to work quickly and efficiently. I'm also planning to be out of town for a week in March, so that's why I'm starting now instead of waiting until March 1--I need every single day I can get for this to work!

I got started yesterday by photographing some rubber stamp sets that I'll be listing on eBay this week. eBay is having a listing special that ends a week from today, so that's even more motivation to get things listed quickly. I know this was lengthy, but I hope by getting it all out there publicly, I'll feel more accountable to get moving and make my challenge a success! Wish me luck!