(photo: http://nylonpinksy.tumblr.com/)

When my husband, Alan is away filming, he can get a lot of down time. He’s an avid reader of the news and Zite and likes to send me articles to read while I hold the fort at home. Actually, they are usually pretty interesting, but when this one came along: Do This One Thing A Day To Defeat Clutter Forever by Max Wong, I wasn’t too enthusiastic.

The writer claims that if you remove 10 things a day from your home, you will solve all of your clutter problems. My home is pretty tidy most of the time but my clutter hot-spots are extremely hot (office, garage, most cupboards and drawers), especially right now living through a remodel. Throwing out ten things a day is such a straight-forward concept, I dismissed it as just another gimmick but Alan asked me to at least try it. When you live in hotels and vacation rentals like he does, the clutter at home is a little more obvious to you and probably a lot more irritating.

So I tried it. I read the article first, which was well written and quite inspiring and then I made a little pile of ten things, took a photo of them and sent them on their way. Some went into the trash, some into the bag for Goodwill.

Max Wong talks about making this reverse treasure hunt into a daily game for yourself. I tried that too. The weird part was that I found myself looking forward to it. As Ms Wong says, you won’t notice a difference straight away, but I’ve been doing this for 9 consecutive days, (which means 90 things have left my home!) and there is a lighter feeling about the place. It already feels easier to keep it tidy.

I haven’t done my clean out in any ordered way: a pair of aubergine  jeans here, a candle there, an electric corkscrew and many, many lip balms are all adding up to less stuffed drawers and cupboards.

When I told a girlfriend about this she was surprised I could find so many things, but believe me, it wasn’t hard. Think about how many items you bring into your home a week and add to these birthday and Christmas gifts, clothing, books, magazines, and gadgets. It really adds up.

I’ve already identified the easy areas in my house to raid: the magazine pile and the pen drawer to begin with, but I haven’t even come close to needing those yet.

This is a daily practice that has larger ramifications than you might think at first. It makes you more mindful…mindful of what you buy, mindful of the finite amount of space you have at your disposal, and mindful of what is important to you. I’m hooked!

My first 90 things