October 14, 2023

Energy Levels and decluttering.

It's interesting being a low energy person.  I'm generally quite productive, and not great at resting / sitting down.  But I'm currently at the point where sometimes walking up stairs necessitates sitting down for a few minutes to recover.  I was thinking about this after listening to the Organize 365 podcast on productive people - all good advice and interesting but not particularly apt for my current circumstances.

I am using this time to take it easy and not be hard on myself, although I do look around my house and think "is this the level of mess I want when the babies arrive?" 

Today is a putting-away day.  I want the house in the right shape for babies, because it certainly won't get more organized after they arrive.  I am not worried about sweeping or hovering - the floor messy with crumbs right now, but it will be a mess again.  I do want all the toys to have a space they belong.  I don't want things on counters or the floor because I haven't found somewhere for them to go yet.

I love Andrea Dekker's blog about making a space budget

And this Edit Your Life podcast about decluttering

This morning I sent my mom to the charity shop with two large lego boxes to donate:

We've had these boxes for ages.  They are cute.  But they don't store much and they don't fit in our house.  Isaac has a lot of lego now but the lego already has a space.  I've been holding onto these boxes for years.  I'm sure someone else will be excited to find these at the charity shop.

I also have a wooden block puzzle my grandma gave me when I was a child - it's handmade in China (because she was a world traveller before it was easy, and when "made in China" was special).  But it's missing a piece.  I remember it from my childhood, but I don't need it now.  It's hard to part with things like this so I may give it back to my mom and make her either keep it at her house (In case the kids want to play with a most of a puzzle?) or she can get rid of it.

It's weird how hard it is to get rid of things once they've been around a while - another reminder to make sure I get rid of things as soon as feasible instead.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the reminder - I need to declutter too. I really want to get rid of things (I think) but the thought of getting started is overwhelming (and I'd argue that we don't even own THAT much stuff, but we have a small 1-bedroom duplex, so every corner seems cluttered to me).

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  2. I remember when I was newly pregnant, saying to my doctor that I wished it were twins so I could be done (we wanted two), and he said, twins are great, but the pregnancy is hard. I have twin sisters, so thought it was a great idea. And we ended up with just the one child, so maybe I was right. Anyway, I feel for you on the late pregnancy energy. Hoping for an easy birth, healthy babies, and gosh, THEY could not care less about any clutter, so as soon as you can, let that shit GO.

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    1. I wanted twins for my first or second kids too... I thought it would be efficient. I'm not sure I would be aware of how much harder twin pregnancy is if I hadn't already had two pretty easy single pregnancies. But it is finite, almost over, and the last time I'll be pregnant so that's cool :-)

      The decluttering is definitely for me and not for the babies. Babies are mess makers but I know clean counters make my headspace better so would like to at least have somewhere for things to go before they come... also because it will make it easier for other people to help sort out of my house if there's somewhere obvious for things to be.

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  3. "It's interesting being a low energy person. I'm generally quite productive, and not great at resting / sitting down."

    This is me. I get a lot done, but I am a low energy person by nature. Big time!

    Decluttering is soothing to my soul, but sometimes it gets overwhelming and I just want someone to come in and take ALL OUR POSSESSIONS so I have room to think.

    I know what you mean about how hard it is to let go of things once they live in a space for a while.

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