2 questions to ask if you are stuck on decluttering.

Hi freinds! In today’s video I want to help you tackle those tricky items in your crafty stash that don’t really bring you joy but they are still perfectly good and you might need them someday….

…those “someday” items are the worst! 🙂 Watch the video to see how I handle these things!

If you are stuck trying to decide wether or not to get rid of a craft item ask yourself these two questions:

1. Is there something else I can use in place of this item if I discard it? (Do you have another dual purpose item that will make do?)

2. What is the worst thing that can happen if I get rid of this?

Those two questions helped me decide on some of the more tricky items in my craft room and I hope it will help you. I listened to the audio book “The Life Changing Magic of Tiding Up” by Marie Kondo and it changed the way I look at my possessions and helped me clean out the excess. I have more time to spend on things I enjoy because I spend less time managing my stuff and less time cleaning. I also enjoyed her book Spark Joy, it is a more in depth book on the Konmari method. For me, focusing on what I was keeping, not getting rid of make the whole decluttering process feel positive and less scary because when we focus on discarding things we can feel an overwhelming sense of scarcity and it makes us want to hold tighter to our possessions for comfort I think.

These 2 questions might not solve it for you though. I read through your YouTube comments after the video went live last night and I heard a common refrain (a refrain that echoed in my own head) “I have these supplies because they were part of my craft business that I no longer do, why can’t I let them go? I no longer want to pursue this, why is it so hard?” I am paraphrasing of course but there were several folks in the same predicament. Honey, I hear you! In this case it is not only the things we are giving up, we are giving up on that person we wanted to become at one time. Maybe you have supplies to make crafts that did not sell or maybe the crafts sold fine but you decided that crafting for profit wasn’t for you. You might look at these items with regret, you made a mistake and might even feel ashamed to have them. Well, keeping something that brings out such negative feelings should definitely go! Maybe you have supplies from a past livelihood (this would be me with teaching and framing supplies) and you are afraid to let them go because they are your “fall back” occupations and if your current business fails you know that old trade will sustain you. We put so much weight on our things, we can see them as a reflection of us, like a negative status symbol, reminding us of that time we totally blew it or made a big mistake. Well you know what, you already paid for that mistake once and that is enough. I plan on doing a future video on this topic and I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below. Please be kind to yourself. It’s OK if you still can’t decide to keep or get rid of something. There is nobody judging you except yourself. Try to be as kind to yourself as you would to a friend in the same situation, you deserve that. Take care and happy crafting:)