Major Clutter Issues

Last week in a reading frenzy I devoured Karen Kingston's book, Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui. It was amazing and I couldn't stop reading. (Although to be fair it is not a tremendously long book.) I became interested in the book because I was feeling overwhelmed by the messy state of my condo. It's only 650 square feet after all (in case you forgot...), and that is not a lot of room for my stuff. I actually have a history of being a packrat, and I recover and relapse in phases.

Once I kept a goose egg (a real goose egg) from my grandparent's cabin in a tupperware container in my desk for probably close to a year. That is messed up. I'm not bad like that anymore, but I still have a lot of knickknacks (read: garbage) that I keep around along with receipts and other paper junk. Oh, and I have an obsession with keeping cardboard boxes and large envelopes. But that's only because I shipped ebay items for years and years and every ebayer knows the immense value of the perfectly shaped box to fit that strangely shaped Widgetmadiget.

Since I've read the book I filled my garbage container and my neighbor's as well. Don't worry, I hauled the neighbor's garbage can to the curb. But don't tell. I also have a huge stack of odd shaped boxes. I'm trying to de-clutter in phases, the first being getting everything I need to learn how to let go of in a pile. Specific piles, that is. There was a garbage pile (now living at the dump), a box pile (still sittin'), and a sell on ebay pile. For which I might need that box pile. Ugghh! I am drowning in my own bad habits, haha. As you can tell, it's still a work in progress for me.

I don't believe in magic. (Awww, cue the collective sadness.) But I do believe in coincidences. And Karen teaches you how to map your home into different zones that relate to different parts of your life. My worst (most cluttered) zones were my career and friends/support zones. My friend/support zone was my kitchen. That's where the junk drawer(s...) live. I cleaned them up and a few hours later my friend from school last semester texted me and told me she was going to be in my city and did I want to hang out? Very cool. But just a coincidence, I know! My closet just so happens to house my career zone. I've been working on it slowly. This week, three people on my team were promoted to new jobs. (That is VERY unusual.) I don't know what that means for MY career yet, if anything, but it is strange. Wait, does that mean my coworkers live in my closet?! Now I'm confused. I can't wait to see what happens ... COINCIDENTALLY ... when I finish cleaning my closet.

Anyway, reading the book was a lot of fun and very helpful for me in letting go of my bad clutter habits. It never hurts to be reminded that things aren't who you are. But, Karen also explains that things can represent you to others, so it helps to choose them wisely.

Over the next week I'm going to share a few things I learned from the book along with specific examples (and pictures) from the condo. They'll be under the tag Feng Shui!