Know Your Why

I just finished watching a woman on YouTube. She created a sewing nook in her basement in the video and you could tell how excited she was to set up a permanent space to do her craft. I have watched her videos for awhile as she cleans, declutters and does other projects. She holds down a full time job and has struggled with keep her house clean and tidy. She knew how to clean but she would spend full weekends doing it.

Over time she has decluttered a lot of stuff! A lot. And she learned the FlyLady method for cleaning and it is working for her and her family. The payoff now is that a corner of her basement that was filled with unneeded items has become a place to do the thing that brings her joy: sewing. And because she has decluttered and figured out how to manage cleaning in far less time, she has the time to sew.

I call this her why. This is why she was figuring out the cleaning and decluttering. I don't think that she knew this was her why when she started the journey, but the reason why found her. She has room for the joy of doing something she loves to do in her spare time. The clutter and cleaning no longer take away her evenings and weekends.

Now, she has spent hours and hours decluttering and cleaning over at least two years. It wasn't a quick process to get to where she is, but she did it. She put in the effort to clean up the clutter she readily admits she brought into her home.

We may not know our why when we begin, but figuring out how to live with less stuff will save us the time to do what brings us joy. We spend far too much time shopping for stuff, thinking about our stuff, and moving our stuff around.

Have you thought about it? Why you want less stuff? What do you wish you spent more time doing?