21 “Normal” Things I Decluttered to Get My Time, Rest, and Presence Back

The things that were keeping my home from shutting up

I swear every time I open my feed on social media someone is selling more crap as the fix. The fix that never actually fixes anything but is sure to eventually turn into clutter, a regret, and one more thing to maintain. So when I scroll and see someone talking about letting go, with the end goal being more presence, more gratitude for what they already have and more space in their life for what actually matters, it stops me every time.

I wasn’t always the woman who was fascinated by stories of less and now living with less herself, but I absolutely was the woman browsing online for hours for the next perfect thing and holding onto every just in case item. My journey to less clutter and living more simply started when my son was in the NICU. Everyone was trying to convince me I needed something more (with good intentions I’m sure). Things that would make that time period easier, things that would make motherhood more restful and another thing that promised to make things simpler.

Something in me said “don’t buy into it, the stuff won’t fix any of it”. His birth was the wake up call, the moment I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I was living all those years prior. Overscheduled, consumed by my phone, addicted to buying stuff, constantly comparing to everyones highlight reel and always discontent with the life that was right in front of me. It was anything but instant though, I wish I could say I dropped all these habits overnight. I kept overspending, I continued overscheduling my days, managing too much, pushing myself past capacity and carrying things long after I knew better.

For me it wasn’t one declutter or one weekend of a total life overhaul. It was noticing all the crap that surrounded me in my own home, how I had slowly gotten here, what I was grieving, how I was coping, what it was doing to my nervous system and realizing how much I was carrying because of it. So many of these things were normal things, things that I had been walking past for so long I’d stopped noticing them. So maybe by sharing 22 of those things, it’ll help you notice the things in your home that are stealing from you.

The Things I Decluttered

1. My cabinet full of coffee mugs. So many I could have hosted a book club I never even started. I held onto them because I would have people over and what if there wasn’t enough, and what if I missed them after letting go, and what if one broke. A lot of what ifs. I realized this was anxiety over stuff and once I made peace with that I quickly realized I could keep a couple extras without keeping ten extra, and to this day I don’t miss any of them and years later, lots of coffee later, I haven’t broke one. If I do, I’ll buy a new one.

2. Extra towels for the bathroom and lake. I don’t have an extra set in the cabinet, what we actually use is what we have. This keeps me on top of laundry, we have room to store other stuff that matters and I can easily stack them without the whole cabinet spilling out.

3. Extra sheets for our beds. I had an extra for my son while he was potty training but after zero night accidents, I gave myself permission to let them go. When it’s wash the sheets day, I wash them and put them right back on because I have no other choice but to. (Really good accountability for my adhd brain)

4. Any extra beauty products that I was holding onto. Expired, barely touched, samples I never used and anything that I didn’t actually like.

5. The bulk purchases I regretted. A good deal wasn’t a good enough reason to hold onto something that was always in the way and needed to be managed, when what it gave didn’t match it drained.