Unplanned Tidying and Decluttering

You know that thing were you have a whole lot of things you should really be getting on with, but then you suddenly have an indescribable urge to declutter and organise some areas that, up until that moment, you've been doing a very good job of completely ignoring.  Well I had that recently and normally I would just push through it to get on with what I was supposed to be getting on with, but this time I decided to just go with it.

I wasn't entirely sure how much I would actually find to declutter as I had already done a couple of big purges and I tend to go through my things as I clean.  However, I was nicely surprised by the number of things I was able to add to the decluttering pile.

The first big category was a number of electronics that no longer work or don't work well particularly well anymore no matter what I do.  I have been keeping a hold of them thinking I might get round to fixing them, but I won't and I know that so I've decided to just let them go.  Though I now need to go through them, move any of the documents I want to keep and wipe their hard drives.  I might try and get some money from them, but I can't imagine it'll be much.

I also pulled out these shoes that I brought for my wedding but which ended up not going with my outfit at all.  I love Irregular Choice shoes, but I don't really see myself ever wearing these now and there is a part of the shoe that rubs the side of my foot even though I've only worn them indoors.  So I should probably enjoy how pretty they are one last time and then sell them.  A little bit of extra money would be good.

Then there was this book that I keep holding onto because I like the idea of being able to use it, but which I know I won't.  At least not until I actually have a garden of my own and who knows when that will be.  I also finally went through my socks and pulled out all the ones that had holes in them.  I'm not entirely sure why I've been keeping onto them, probably because I just couldn't be bothered to get rid of them.

Lastly were all these little things that I found here and there.  Some gloves which, amazingly, were too small for me.  A little clutch bag I've used but which I actually have a nicer one I want to use more often.  A travel jewellery case which I do still like but don't actually need or in fact use most of the time we travel.  It's time someone else got some uses out of these.

Weirdly once all of this was done I was able to get back to all those others to-dos I had and get through them pretty quickly.  It took away the distractions and I was able to concentrate again on what I needed to get done.  Maybe I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that those things were there and needed to be dealt with.... and now they are.  Next time I won't ignore it.

On a side note, I was watching a documentary on cats and it talked about how, a long time ago, there were women who were known as wise women who knew that keeping your home clean, tidy, and free of vermin ensured that you remained healthy.  So they brushed their home with broom sticks and owned cats to kill the rats and mice.  However, the men in the church decided that there was something bad about these women so they persecuted them as witches and killed vast numbers of cats.  And then we got.......the black death.  Keep your homes clean and tidy people.