On the bus, on the way home last night, I was reading a book called "The 8-Minute Organizer" by Regina Leeds.   It seems to be a useful and practical book, just as I'd hoped - though I didn't get far, since I learned (again) that reading on my phone on the bus makes me carsick.

Before I bailed, though, I came to mistrust Regina Leeds' sense of time.  She says in her introductory section that it takes about four minutes to empty the trash and the recycling bin. I don't know what her system is - I can, yes, probably empty my trash, put it down the trash shute (which is right by my apartment door) and get a new bag into the bin in four minutes, if I rush it a little.  But the recycling?  Even keeping it more or less together by the door - and I have to find a better system than that, it doesn't look pretty - even keeping it together and in a container already, I have to carry it out to the elevator or the stairs.  Either way, I don't think I can get to the basement in less than four minutes, and then there's sorting the stuff into the containers - a no-brainer, but it takes at least a minute to get a bad of recyclables in the appropriate receptacles.  Then another four minutes to get back to my apartment.

I'd say, ten minutes for the whole job, at least, if I don't linger.

Maybe I should do it with a stopwatch, to find out.

Still worth doing every day.  Or every second day. Maybe if I did the trash one day, recycling the next, on a rotating basis?  Would that work?

- - -

Having cleared a lot of books and furniture out of my living room last week, I looked around and thought: It looks better, but it doesn't look wonderful.  It needs rearrangement.  It needs an artistic eye.

I always used to think I had an artistic eye, but I was stumped.  Maybe not so much.

So I asked my friends throughout the week.  Some said, "You need new curtains."  My curtains - plain white cotton - are plain, and need hemming, but I like them - and I don't want to spend money on this project.  There followed a discussion of curtain colours, and whether people want a warm and cosy, closed-in environment, or something that feels cool and spacious.

The whole point of this project is that I want spacious - or, perhaps, a compromise middle point between the extremes.

Yesterday my friend Pim came down and looked around.  She is an interior decorator par excellence - and artist with the right kind of eye. Her place not only looks comfortable and beautiful, it has character. One would never mistake her place for a page in a magazine, and not just because of the guinea pigs running around.  Her place always looks both lovely and interesting.

So. She looked around my place, and made a few suggestions, and made a few more, and I added some, and we pushed around furniture and moved pictures and bookcases and teapots and suddenly the place looked beautiful, livable, and interesting.

How did she do that?

- - -

And, yes, there's still a lot to do.  The hallway.  The (shudder) kitchen. Work in progress, I tell myself. Work in progress.

Today I'm going to Gananoque to deliver my bags of books to a friend with a bookstore there.  J. Mann books, on Charles Street near King.  A fab place for a browse, and you'll a lot of books there that used to be on my bookcases.

- - -

A pause before resuming...

Last night, I was too tired to do anything but wash dishes and put away laundry  Note how this implies (though I am not admitting anything out loud) that I didn't put away my laundry when I did my laundry two days ago. After I have already promised myself not to do that.

Bad girl.

Well, it's put away now, in all those shiny new places.  Thinking it through: If all goes well, I can finish the bookcase project this weekend, leaving two more weekends in November, one for the kitchen and one for the hallway.  I'm not sure which is more intimidating; but I remind myself that so far each of my projects has looked intimidating, but ended up being not so bad after all - just time consuming.  And needing effort.  But nothing unmanageable.  Nothing discouraging.

Meanwhile, the challenge is to get enough sleep, and go to the gym each day, and to do yoga each day.  I am both surprised and gratified how this gives me the energy to carry on with the decluttering. I would do it anyway; but this makes it easier.

The order to do things:

• Read another book on how to declutter and/or minimize. I got another one out of the library, and don't want to return it unread.  It's called the Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing  Your Home and taking Control of Your Life by Lorie K. Marrero.
• Empty the bookcase by the front door.  Dispose of it. Find or buy paper to cover the magazine boxes as necessary. (Note: go to The Papery after work tomorrow. Find out their hours.)
• Switch the books in the bookcase by the bathroom into the two brown bookcases that were in the bedroom.  Discard books as I go.
• Move the comic book boxes in the bedroom from the north wall to the east wall.
• Move the large bookcase in the living room into the bedroom, either on the west wall or the north wall - whichever fits best.
• Put the small bookcase in the space behind the front door.
• Put the teapot display shelves (formerly a bookcase) in an attractive spot in the living room.

Moved and seconded, and so resolved.

- - -

What's the next step?

I'm keeping the process of decluttering fluid, and one thing tends to lead organically to the next.  But I do love to make lists.  It keeps my brain sharp; keeps me focused.

My list for the next things to do:

• move comic boxes from one side of the bedroom to the other (harder than it sounds!)
• empty the bookcase by the door
• switch the two brown bookcases in the bedroom for the Billi by the bathroom, and put the books from the Billi into the replacements
• move the brown bookcase in the living room into the bedroom

Call it my strategy for the rest of the week, though there are other, smaller things to work on, too, that I might do when I have a few minutes - the shelf in the hall closet, the top of the wardrobe (which is attracting Stuff like flypaper), a kitchen shelf or two.

But the very next thing to do: put away the clean laundry.  It's in a basket on my bedroom floor. It shouldn't be there.  It really shouldn't.
- - -

Confessions of a non-knitter...

I gave away my knitting box.  Everything I had: the needles, the faux wool (because I'm allergic to real wool), even the lovely suitcase-box with a handle and clasp I'd bought at Michael's to put it in. 

I've tried knitting several times in my life.  When young; we learned it in school.  When older: having learned to knit, I found I liked crochet better, set about to make an afghan when I was a post-grad.  I even made a baby-bundler for a friend who was having a baby once.  It was yellow. It was the lumpiest, funniest, badly made baby bundler you ever saw.  I don't remember whose shower it was for; I hope they ultimately forgave me for the gift.  I hope the poor baby never had to wear it.  He'd be the laughingstock of babies.

I had the notion that because I like to sew, I should enjoy knitting.  Then I thought that if I practiced hard enough, and often enough, I might get good at it, and then start to enjoy it.

These things have not happened.

People often knit while watching television.  I do that too.  But then when the show gets interesting, I stop knitting to pay attention.  Or I grimly continue to knit, and feel irritated and edgy about it.  I don't like dividing my attention between two things at once.

So yesterday, in the interests of decluttering, I offered my knitting kit to Sylvie, and she accepted it.  I realized as soon as I mentioned it that I'd been feeling a vague guilt for not knitting, for not being good at knitting, for not finding it relaxing and production and  useful the way so many of my friends do.

No more knitting. No more guilt.  And one step closer to having nothing on top of my dresser.
- - -

Desk, bottom drawer, fulfilling the task it was born for...

Last night, my task was to file the papers I'd sorted from the clutter on my desk and shelves.

Painstaking, but absurdly simple.

Papers are now filed in the file-drawer in my desk, in files labeled ART,  BANKING, BILLS, COMPUTER, HISTORY, MANUALS, MEDICAL, PAY, POETRY, RECIPES, RENT and REVENUE CANADA.

Fits nicely, too.
- - -

the joy of less..

I'm halfway through reading the joy of less by Francine Jay - whose name I keep remembering as Felicia Day. Oh dear.

It has some fabulous advice, but it is so not written with my lifestyle in mind.  She talks about all the extra clothes in one's wardrobe - and yes, I have things I should pare down even now, but that's never been my problem. 

I've read her chapters on bedrooms and the living room - and there's a huge elephant in the room. My major stumbling block, and she hasn't even mentioned it yet.  Books.  Books and bookcases.  Where are her books?

She talks about having a bedroom that is geared only to sleeping, clothing and maybe grooming.  Not a word about books.  My bedroom problem - and we are not, for the moment, talking about the boxes of twelve thousand comic books - my bedroom problem is bookcases.  It also happens to be my living room problem.  And my hallway problem.  I have, at a quick mental count, twelve bookcases. No, thirteen, I forgot the little one by my pantry.  And I'm not counting at all the shelving over my desk, which has some books on it.  So: thirteen bookcases.  I'm hoping to get it down to four by Nov. 17.  Can I do it?

Well, maybe. "Four" is a very abstract number.  Fewer would be too much of a sacrifice. Five might be okay.  I rather like that little one by the pantry, though I don't want it to be there - and don't know where it should go.

Work in progress.  Right.  Some things reveal themselves as time goes by.

Alternate book venues:

1. They could go, with bookends, on top of my dresser and on top of my comic book boxes.  Fine for the dresser (though an uncluttered top is nice), but it renders the comic books a little more inaccessible.  Not to mention the books.

2. They could go in boxes in the basement.  I don't think it's good for them - I once had a drippy pipe down there, right over a box of comics.  It did no harm, but that's a comic collector's nightmare.

3. I could purge more. I've already purged a lot.  Yes, really.  Bookcases seem to fill up embarrassingly quickly.  And I do most of my reading from the library. There's a message in that, but I'm not sure what. If I could get all my reading from the library, I would.  Unfortunately so many of the books I need and want are not available in libraries, or electronically, either.

It's all in the musing stage, right now...

- - -

Zones and the joy of less..

I have been reading the joy of less by Francine Jay, a book about decluttering and minimalizing.

At first I found it preachy; but it has some good advice. I like its idea of thinking of the home in terms of zones, depending on use, and keeping the paraphernalia of that zone in that zone.

So I should determine my zones.

Book zone - Currently there are bookcases all over the living room and bedroom.  I plan to amalgamate, and to get more of them in the bedroom, fewer in the living room.

Desk zone - South end of the living room.

Bird zone - The cage is on a desk to the east side of the living room, between bookcases.

Entertainment zone - television and DVD payers, Acer Aspire, IKEA DVD shelves - all need to be pared down and consolidated.  North and east parts of the living room.  And this is related to my Entertaining zone, the sofa and chairs where I and my friends watch DVDs.

Clothing zone - Wardrobe and chest of drawers in my bedroom; closet in the hallway; bin in the locker in the basement.

Supplies zone - Cleaning supplies are in the hall closet and bathroom cabinet under the sink - and under the sink in the kitchen, too.  The system works, but needs refinement.

Sleep zone - Bed and bedside table (which is actually a set of full comic book boxes with a board over them).

Cooking zone - Kitchen, though this probably has five distinct parts:

• Storage zone -  paper towels, tea towels
• Cooking zone - pots and pans, implements like wooden spoons and knives
• Eating zone - canned foods, dried foods, flour, sugar
• Fridge zone - food inside the fridge and freezer
• Tableware zone - cups and glasses, plates and bowls

Am I missing zones?  yes:

Exercise zone - Treadmill in the south-west corner of the living room, with the yoga mat and balance cushion. I was thinking of getting rid of the balance cushion, because I've never used it: but it might still be a good idea, if I push myself. My balance really does need work.

- - -

Last night I got home from work so tired that I thought I could do nothing.

But after eating I had enough energy to deal with my very small medicine cabinet over the bathroom sink. It was easy enough: there wasn't much in it because there isn't space for much. I decided I don't need four combs, found Aspirin with an expiry date of 2012, and reorganized the band-aids.

Then I thought I'd just have a look at the cabinet under the sink....

Next thing I knew I was surrounded by stuff, all around me in the cramped little bathroom. I couldn't believe how much I had crammed in there.  Multiple canisters of Pledge, more hand lotion than I knew I had, large containers of shampoo, floor cleaning products, boot cleaning products, tea tree oil - a tiny bottle in a big box - and a manicure set.

I got rid of the extras and the unnecessary.  In the end, I made room for the big container of laundry soap I got at Costco.

I got a second wind.

Seems I have a huge excess of liquid hand soap. Most liquid hand soap is sold with a scent; I wanted the scent-free, so I got two bottles of pure soap from a health food store.  Then I found a good deal on huge (and I mean huge) containers of the same at Costco.

Found room for all that, too.

My cabinet door fell off its hinges.  I'm hoping the landlord will fix that today.

Of course, when I'd cleaned up all the debris, trashed the trash, and looked at the bathroom... It needed the floor to be cleaned and the bathmats to be laundered.  I washed both: one to go clean to the thrift store, one to keep.  I don't need two bath mats.

I begin to think 'decluttering' is a code word for 'endless housekeeping' but I know that's not quite true.  There will be an end to the tunnel.  The less I have, the easier it is to clean.

And you know... the bathroom doesn't look half bad.  I can't do anything about the ugly orange floral tile the place came with.  Despite that... the place doesn't look half bad.

And I still have my photos of James Bond and Q on the walls.

- - -

Another day, another drawer...

Last night while watching Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with friends, I decluttered two desk drawers.  My thought was that if I could empty both drawers to the extent that I could amalgamate them into one, I could put my netbook - the Acer Aspire - into that drawer. It currently sits on the bookcase by the television with an HDMI cord plugged in, so I can watch YouTube (or whatever) on my TV.

So it's very handy there. More handy than it will be in a drawer.  But I plan to move that bookcase.  So: another problem to work through.

I did not work on the drawers while watching the new episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - of course not!  It was the one from two weeks ago, which we watched again, "The Girl in the Flowered Dress". 

Amazing how many pens and pencils one person can have in two drawers. I put half of them in the discard bag, and I still have more than I can use in a lifetime. At some point, I'll test them to see if they all work.  That will be another stage of culling.

Everything now fits very nicely in my top drawer, including the rubber stamps and stamp pads.

The more I do, the easier it gets.

Next step: file the papers that have been sorted and cleared off the top of the desk.

- - -

I am puzzled by my teapots.

It's a small collection - a couple of days ago, it was ten teapots.  I threw out the one from Chapters that was cracked and leaking, event though I loved the way it looked; and I gave away the one I liked least.  So: eight teapots.  I made a space on the top shelf above my desk for them.  The TARDIS mug and Dalek salt and pepper set are in the middle. There's a special place for the big Chinese cast-iron pot, and the rest are arrayed in a row. I thought it would look lovely.

It doesn't. It looks tacky.

Of course it isn't a finished product.  There isn't enough room for my latest teapot anyway, a birthday-present  PC teapot in blue that is the perfect size and my favourite colour. Perhaps I should get rid of a teapot or two - would a real minimalist have eight teapots? Probably not.  I use them all. I love them all. But I could do with fewer.

Or maybe, when I've decluttered more, they can be separated.  Each to its own showcase.

Or maybe a solution will come to me in the middle of the night.

- - -

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." - William Morris.

I like his style.  Used to have wrapping paper in his designs... Hmm.  I wonder how that would go with my current decorating style, which seems to have bits of Egyptian art with  flavour of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

The weekend rolls to an end...

Two days now.

Yesterday it was clothes.  I emptied my MALM drawers and my wardrobe (a stand-alone piece of IKEA furniture in the bedroom), and took all the clothes from the closet in the hall - which is fairly large, but the coats and jackets have to share space with the vacuum, the toilet paper supply, and various other storage items.  That closet is a problem area I'll have to revisit; but for yesterday, it was just a matter of clothes.

I sorted the clothes into two piles: 'keep' and 'don't keep'.  The 'don't keep' clothes went into green trash bags and will go to a charity as soon as I can find transportation.  The  'keep' clothes were sorted for function and replaced on hangers or in drawers.

Top left drawer: socks.  Top left: sleepwear.  Next drawer down: T-shirts for the gym (most of which are purple and have "Curves" written across them); black T-shirts for work; bras, knickers, and wfite gym socks.

Next drawer: T-shirts.  The one after that is all neatly sorted shoes in IKEA dividers.

Sweaters and woollens go into a nice wicker hamper someone left in the basement of the apartment building.  That left the wardrobe for indoor jackets, work trousers, jeans, skirts, dresses, and whatever.

Sounds as if I have a lot of clothes, doesn't it?  I never thought so, but even with four garbage bags of giveaways to show for my pains, I have more than I thought I did.  Which is good.  In a way.  It does make me feel like a failed minimalist.  Perhaps in future there will be another pruning.

Today, still happy about yesterday's triumph, I faced an area that terrified me: my desk.  I treated myself to a marathon viewing of The Good Wife while doing it, and was mightily entertained. I offered my spare computer, monitor and printer to some friends - having discovered that I absolutely don't need a spare of either. They were taking up a lot of space on the desktop.

So I spent the day going through papers, trashing everything I don't need - and what a pile of useless printing there was. Leftover material from work, catalogues, old correspondence, half-used notebooks - okay, I confess, I'm enough of a pack-rat to keep the half-used notebooks.

Four carton-loads of paper went to the trash.  Assorted items will go to the charity shop.  I cleared off the shelves above the desk, and the top shelf is not displaying my teapot collection.  I had ten teapots; I threw out the cracked one, and gave away the one I least liked.  The newest doesn't fit on this shelf. so I'm still looking for a good place for it.  That will come.  Early days still.

What impressed me most is how much work this all is, and how slowly it goes. It's a little intimidating.  Even working fairly efficiently, quickly, and steadily, it took me two days to accomplish what feels like tiny steps.

But it's a good start.

I'm hoping to do small increments of decluttering through the week, maybe ten or fifteen minutes of it per day, and then attack the big projects next week - the rest of the hall closet, perhaps, or one of the bookshelves.
- - -

From seed to blossom...

A few months ago I walked into a friend's house and thought: this is what I want.

It was a beautiful, peaceful place.  Not elegant, but not shabby, either. Decorated more with taste than money.  What I loved was that nothing was extraneous.  A living room with sofa, chairs, a bit of art; a plant.  Dining room with table and buffet.  Nothing special... but enchanting.

I want this, I thought.

I can do this, I thought.

I haven't done it yet, so it's time to start.

My place isn't a mess - not by my standards.  But I have too much furniture, too many books (is that an oxymoron?), not enough empty places to put things.  This can all be fixed.

Since I like to research projects - and it's a fine form of procrastination - I looked up the subject online.  I attacked it from three angles:

1. Moving out the clutter
2. Making it simple and beautiful, yoga-like and calm
3. Putting my life in order in other ways: saving money, making better use of my time

This is my quest.

There are many blogs and websites on the subject, most of them useful.  I kept coming across the same factors that make the sites a bad fit for me:

1. Sites about how to declutter a large house, assuming the declutterer has a spouse, kids, a garage and a car.  I have none of these things. I have a small one-bedroom apartment and three budgies. 
2. Sites which go too far: the people who live with 100 possessions only, which makes me wonder "is a pair of socks one object or two?" and "how do you deal with paper clips?" One package would be it.  Though of course, if you have no need of paper, you have no need of paper clips.  I have a way to go before I get there.  I want to be minimalist, even Spartan; but not stark.
3. Blogs which are defunct. The information on them is still good, but there's a static quality to them.  I am looking for encouragement, inspiration, a sense of immediacy.
4. Do It Yourself sites that give instructions on how to make all sorts of ingenious things, but which are based on the idea of "having more things with less" while I want to "have fewer things".

So I decided to write about my own process, and how I get there.  The theory and the practice.  The challenges and the (I hope) triumphs. Special bonus challenge: I want to do it without buying anything for the project. Ingenuity is the key: I don't need to spend money to do it.

My goal: to have a clear and beautiful place by Christmas.  "Beautiful" by my own standards.  "Clear" in terms of "free of extraneous things" and "purposeful and elegant".

Can I do it? I plan to prove it.

- - -