Living Simply

I have been reading and have read a lot of books on living more simply or simple living.

But what I've discovered is that living more green and giving more made my life more simple as a whole. I don't think I've achieved any sort of nirvana in all the books I've read because honestly they all say the same things over and over, but they are a great starting place if you don't know where to begin.

Here is where I began: with my Stuff.

I know some of you are cringing inside because you know I've talked about this A LOT, but seriously if you just try it you'll be amazed at the peace you have when the clutter is gone. And lets face it, if there is less to clutter there is less to clean. Period.

But maybe you are thinking you don't even know where to start when it comes to cleaning up the clutter. Well, start with what is easiest. Maybe its your linen closet that you hate to look at because the door can hardly shut. I know my linen closet was like that AND I had extra linens under my bed in those little plastic containers. I had sheets everywhere. Sheets I wouldn't hardly use maybe 1x a year and I know I bought them just because they were on sale. Last summer we gave away about 10 sets of sheets when we donated our old mattress to a family starting over. Mattress and sheets were gone and given. I didn't even take the time to think about it--I just gave them away. If I had thought about it I would have hemmed and hawed about keeping them and why.... Just getting them out FAST was the start of my de-cluttering.

The biggest part of getting rid of stuff is accepting you truly won't use those things and its OK to not have 20 sets of sheets for one bed.

Just keep your ultimate favorites and go from there.

I heard a great tip the other day about the clothes in our closets. One way to know if you are truly wearing your clothes is to take all your clothes that you have hanging up and turn the hangers backwards and after about a month if any of the hangers are facing backwards then you know you don't wear that item and may never wear it again. That probably means to be rid of it.

I can honestly say that now when I look at my closets or drawers I'm starting to feel like I have order in my life. I was a chronic clutter hider, but now I feel this huge sense of relief that its not there.

Being rid of clutter is one way to live the simple life. And not the simple life Paris thought she lived.

I'm going to talk more on the simple life later. Any requests just let me know!

Picture courtesy of 3 Board Chicks.