Have you metformin er 500mg weight loss ever felt that your stuff is a curse rather than a blessing?

I have.

It’s fun to acquire things, and most things we acquire are at least theoretically useful. However, when they begin to pile up, they usually become more of a nuisance than a help.

Having too much stuff makes organization difficult and house cleaning time-consuming. It can be harmful to our health because all of those things collect dust that we never find time to clean off.

Too much stuff tends to give the house a disordered look and diminishes our enjoyment of space, which I believe is the effect we should be going for in our homes. After all, homes are for people, not stuff.

I’ve thought for a long time that I would like to perform a ritual once or twice per year: go around the entire house, including every single drawer, shelf and cupboard, and get rid of stuff that my family and I no longer need. I would like to call it ‘clutter removing day.’

Unfortunately, I don’t get to this task as often as I would like.

I did manage to get through about half of the house last week before the time I had for it petered out. It was a very rewarding experience. It’s amazing how good it feels to get rid of things, either by dumping them in the trash or putting them in a pile to give away.

When going through this process, there is always the nagging thought that perhaps my kids might suddenly do a project that needs an old sock or an abandoned ball of yarn. Perhaps they will have the urge to read through a workbook they completed in kindergarten or play with a preschool toy. Maybe I will have trouble sleeping and want to read “Discovering Grammar.”

As a result of these thoughts, I didn’t get rid of all the clutter, but I got rid of some, and I think my resolve will increase with each clutter removing day.

The hardest things for me to get rid of are those that I paid something for but obviously didn’t get enough use out of to justify the cost. This phenomenon makes sense psychologically, so that teaches me another lesson about clutter reduction: be careful what you buy.

Another problem in my house is that things tend to be put wherever it is convenient at the moment. On my clutter removing day I found thread, needles, buttons and other sewing paraphernalia scattered in drawers and shelves all over the house.

I took advantage of the mission of the day to put them all together in one place. At least for a while, I will make a concerted effort to put them back in the right place when I am done with them.

It’s amazing how freeing it can be to get rid of extra stuff. I’m looking forward to finishing up my ‘clutter removing day.’