Deadline decluttering

I've generally been pretty good about limiting clutter building up in the last few months, apart from two key areas - the table for mail for processing, and the spare room. On Friday morning, the spare room looked like this:

Two forces have combined to give a deadline for the decluttering. Firstly, I made a deal with my boyfriend to get something I want in exchange for clearing the build up along the sofa and on the desk, and the second is that we have a guest coming this weekend. Both dictated that these spaces needed to be clear by the end of this weekend. And I have found that the deadline has really helped:

Miles better. There is still a pile on the desk and a bag on the sofa - both my boyfriend's - but it already looks so much better and I feel so much lighter. Why didn't I do this ages ago?

I struggled to motivate myself to spend my weekend sorting through this stuff - I hate decisions and I'm really good at procrastinating. I found it useful to remind myself that if, as I hope, I will eventually have animals to care for (not to mention children), then I absolutely cannot procrastinate. If animals need to be fed and watered, brought in for the evening or given other care, that has to be provided regardless of whether or not I want to spend the afternoon on the sofa with a bottomless pot of tea.

Now I think I'm going to go make some cushions and a throw to prettify the sofa so I want to keep it tidy in future.

P.S I must confess much of the staff has moved rather than been given away...

Our own adventures

I'm having a very decadent Sunday curled up with a cup of tea and some Narnia films. And I'm pondering on the subject of adventures.

Something I have observed is that, in my own procrastinating-y escapist-y way, I tend to watch films, read books or blogs etc on a given subject rather than living it. Rather than doing the washing up, running a mop around this place or getting the sewing machine out, my instinct is to watch Little Women for the thousandth time or delve into the archives of another simple living blog. I find it easier to experience my adventures vicariously through other people's experiences than to knuckle down and have my own.

I think I am getting a bit better at this - at turning away from the screen to pick up a broom or some knitting needles. Slow progress, but progress it is.

But I do wonder why it is so hard. All stories are on some level about the adventure of life, and you can have an adventure without ever going beyond your front door. Yet real life sometimes seems less entertaining than the fantasy world, where we see all the sweeping vistas and epic battles and profound moments without the drudgery, the endurance, the battles to drive onself on which take place every day, every hour, every minute. 

Whether we're battling with a Tolkien-esque mountain or simply trying to work through a backlog of dirty laundry, it seems monumental, overwhelming, and we have to take one step at a time. But climbing the mountain seems more glamorous; we definitely underestimate the challenge - and thus the satisfaction  (I hope) - of small battles, unnoticed but important achievements, in every day lives.

 

I often feel so far from where I want to be that I wonder why bother. Why not just stay on the sofa in my pajamas with endless cups of tea?

If the characters - and real historical figures - in our favourite stories had stayed on the sofa revisiting their favourites, they would never have had the adventures we love to read. So I'm just going to pause the film now to do some washing up. If I can use other people's adventures to motivate my own, then it is a positive force in my life, not just a tool for procrastination.