Choice Part III

So. As I was saying.
Too many choices (in your closet, in your cabinet, at the store, on the playroom shelves) can result in

• second guessing
• focusing on missed opportunities 
• overlooking the positive aspects of the final decision
• less satisfaction with whatever we choose
• getting overwhelmed and making no choice at all (this can be good or bad, depending on the choice!)
• distraction from the goals behind the choice (and the pertinent criteria)
• stress
• overbuying (if I don't really know what I have and don't really feel like what I have is satisfying my needs)

And I feel that all these things really snuff out feelings of abundance. They make it difficult or impossible to appreciate and use what we have. To be satisfied with what we have, and to be grateful for what we have. To feel like we have what we need. To feel like we have enough.

Decluttering my kitchen

I started reading a book called Simplicity Parenting that, according to the Website,

offers a simple, orderly, and effective pathway to simplify four realms at home, which reduces stress on children and their parents, and allows room for connection, creativity, and relaxation.
These four realms for simplifying are:
Environment: De-cluttering too much stuff at home.
Rhythm: Increasing predictability by introducing rhythmic moments for connection and calm.
Scheduling: Soothing violent schedules brings moments for Being into all the Doing.
Unplugging: Reducing the influence of adult concerns, media and consumerism on children and families to increase resilience, social and emotional intelligence.

 In the book he talks about how having too many choices, for example, having a roomful of toys, causes stress for kids, and I think that is really true for me, too. (See my posts on clothing.) Our kitchen was "organized" quickly when we moved in (I was pregnant at the time, and just needed to get it all unpacked) and then re-organized along with way in response to the arrival of new gadgets and changing babyproofing requirements. I finally started to feel too much pressure from all the stuff in the kitchen, and today I went through and got stuff out. Some I will get rid of and some I will keep in the storage room downstairs, but at least I got out all the stuff that is clogging up my drawers and cabinets that I don't use, don't like, feel guilty about, etc. And now, just like with the clothes, I feel more like I know what I have and what I need that I don't have (very little, as it turns out). I happened to be in Bed, Bath, and Beyond today, and it was just like with clothes. I was more able to look at things and think, "Yeah, I don't need that." And I'll tell you, it feels great. I am ready to do it in every room in the house!

More on clothes: less really is more

I talked about reducing clothes here. This is more on that subject.

1. My friend Tina said on FaceBook one Saturday a few months ago that she and her family had  folded and put away so much laundry that day that she couldn't believe they had so many clothes in their house. She was tempted to do like a friend of hers had done and make each person in the house choose three outfits and donate the rest.
2. I was always sorting clothes. Sorting more and more until I had separate loads for whites, synthetics, sheets, towels, rags, pants, shirts, and sweaters. It seemed like if every day I did a load or 2, I could catch up, but there were always huge piles of dirty laundry around waiting to be washed. And there were huge piles of clean laundry around waiting to be folded and jammed into too-full drawers. Then my friend Adam, who, along with his family, has very fresh-looking clothes, said he just washes everything together.
3. In the last year, when we travel to see relatives, which is usually why we travel, we bring clothes for 3 days (4 days for the kids, because they are still pretty young, and sometimes need to change during the day) and wash whatever we wear every day, and it works pretty well. 

So I thought about all this, and decided that we would go through all the drawers and closets. Here is what we did:

• Choose about 4 of each thing (sweaters, underpants, T-shirts, etc.) and put them in our drawers. 
• Look at the rest of the stuff. Is it worn out? Outdated? Does it make us feel queasy with guilt because we spent money on it but don't wear it or someone gave it to us and we don't like it? GET RID OF IT! Give it away, donate it, sell it, consign it, throw it away. I don't care. Just get it out of there.
• What's left? Is it just as good as the stuff in the drawers but maybe not our top 3 favorites? Stick it in a bin in the closet for those times when a) the things you have been wearing every 4th day wear out; or b) something like a cold or a vacation disrupts the usual order of things.
• Voila! You can easily see what you have to wear. It is easy to put things away because the drawers aren't jammed full. 
• I do one load of clothes every day, then, if necessary, a load of rags or sheets and towels. I can usually manage to put everything away every day, and, when I don't, we can just pull the clean, folded outfit from 2 days before out of the laundry basket and put it on. It is awesome.

My friend May wrote to me recently, "Having just moved into a compact little space, I feel that completely - I got rid of so many clothes I didn't wear, and now I'm really wearing what I have. My friend Walter talks about the 20%-80% rule of clothes. We wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. I like the idea of just slimming down what we have so that we're closer to owning just that 20 (or 25 - need some special things) percent!"

Abundance is the new Austerity

Or, maybe, Austerity is the new Abundance?

Reduce
I have been reading, and trying to put into practice, clutter clearing, such as getting rid of clothes I don't wear. It turns out once you get rid of stuff, maybe giving it to someone else who can use it, you are actually more able to use the stuff you do have. E.g., after clearing out your closet, you can see what's in your closet and actually wear it. You know everything fits you and is something you actually will wear, not something: you hope to fit into someday/someone gave you and you feel guilty about not liking/you wish you were the kind of person who would wear/etc. I have done this, and I actually do feel like I have more.

"Spend out"
Another prong of this Austerity/Abundance thing is using the things you have, not saving your good stuff for some "right" time to use it. Don't save the cloth napkins for a suitably fancy dinner party, or save the Le Creuset dutch oven until you are a better cook, or save the scented candles for the time when you finally have nothing on your To-Do list other than "take a leisurely bath" (haha!). Those times may never come.

Both of those things, reducing and "spending out" seem to me to be related to both Abundance and Austerity.

• You use what you have(letting it sit in your closet, unused, is wasting it).
• give away to someone else what you don't use (sharing abundance with other people), and then,
• having less, you actually have more (because you're actually using it all and can find it all).

This feels very incomplete. I'll try again another day. The first link above is to the Fly Lady, who I have found very helpful in getting ideas for approaching housework and clutter-clearing. The second is to Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project website. I just finished reading this book, and I got so much out of it. It is the most practical and interdisciplinary book I've found on the subject of happiness. GR and the FlyLady seem to be of the same mind re: clutter clearing and using what you have.