Saturday, September 18, 2021

Making Space...



Earlier today the video below popped onto my Youtube feed.  It's six months old, but its topic is timeless.


In this video Dawn fleshes out the concept of The Silent To-Do List, but gives credit to where she got the idea (the video below). 

Original video found at Simple Victoria: 



And Victoria got the idea from the book, Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki - which I'm now listening to on Hoopla.  

I think Dawn does a great job of simplifying and at the same time giving some very good everyday examples of things that end up on our Silent To-Do Lists.  The concept immediately resonated with me.  BTW, you might want to skip to 1:30 in the first video, though, just to cut to the chase.   And Victoria has some real gems in her video too.  

Seriously... if you're ever lagging in decluttering motivation, I suggest checking out this not-so-obvious idea.  

~~~~~

To be honest, though, I came up with this week's haul before watching the videos, but the idea of a silent to-do list is still very relevant.

First up, I went through a small storage cabinet in the garage this week, and emptied at least half of the cabinet:


Normally, I don't count recyclables, but I had put several more glass jars in this cabinet than I photographed.  For some reason I was collecting them out there and they were taking up space.  A few went under the kitchen sink for putting grease or other food stuffs in that I don't want going down the drain and the ones pictured got recycled.  And I just want to point out that this is a second ice cream bucket that has surfaced during this clean out. 😄  Otherwise, like most of my decluttering, I found quite number of little unremarkable things to rehome.  Thirty things in the picture above.

And then I remembered that I had decided some weeks ago to get rid of a shoe box full of CD's we'd obtained many years ago when attending and working at homeschool conventions.  Working meant we didn't have time to attend as many workshops, so we brought home bunches of recordings to make up for what we missed.  Some of these might have even gotten listened to.  😉  I can't help but think we have more than this somewhere in the house, but so far this is all that has surfaced:


Here's where I'm applying this concept of the Silent To-Do List:  I've held this collection of CDs back from my weekly Making Space posts because it is very tempting to think that I might like to listen to some of these recordings - not everything is homeschool related, and there are some topics that I might honestly find interesting still at this point in my life.  But you know what I'm going to do?  Scrub that idea out of my brain, and erase it from my Silent To-Do List!    What a relief!  Simply deciding up front I'm not going to listen (or re-listen) to some old CDs makes my to-do list 36 things shorter!  😃

If you're at all curious about this concept, watch the first video above especially.  And then look around and see what you can remove from your Silent To-Do List!

Making Space Week 46:  877 things gone!






10 comments:

  1. I watched it and it does make sense, I find it hard to throw jars and containers away thinking that I'll use them one day especially the plastic one's that go onto landfill. I think that rather than throwing that away I will find a good use for it and of course I never do. You have to be really strict with yourself but unfortunately I'm not quite there yet but you are inspiring me, 877 thing's is amazing. Have a great Sunday. xx

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    1. It's funny, the closer I get to my goal of 1000 things I'm realizing how much MORE I could (and want to) get rid of. The more one does this, the easier it gets. I may just be hitting my stride about the time my stated challenge is over. ;^)

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    1. I didn't explain how the silent to do list gets started (or becomes a thing), but as soon as Dawn above explained it, I wanted to identify all things things on my silent list so I could either deal with them, or become free of them.

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  3. Great videos - and a wonderful concept. I know it's going to take work to get to that point (as I sit here in my sewing room at the computer looking at the 'stuff' I have crammed in every available corner!!!). I know I need to do another downsizing/declutter but with Christmas and a new baby coming I just don't have time right now. Guilt over that? Oh yeah!!!

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    1. I was sitting in my craft room when I watched the videos, and looking around I realized that that room was the repository of most most of the things on my silent to do list, and will also be the hardest space to deal with. But I started with my desk that I was keeping too many things on, and doing that much felt like a bit of a relief. Now, I just need to do that to 100 other little containers and niches in that room and I may just get totally free of my silent to do list. ;^)

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  4. I'm always decluttering and the clutter keeps coming back. Darn that love of shopping.
    Amalia
    xo

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  5. Hi Becki, just wanted to say thank you so much for your sweet comment on my blog last week. ♥♥ I'm so impressed by your decluterring efforts!

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