Purge Without the Binge

This post isn't going to be anything about bulemia or any other food disorder.  It's about clutter!  Clutter in your home, at the office, in your mind.  It's a little like spring cleaning for the soul!

Over the last week, I weeded through 2 YEARS of old craft magazines that I was holding on to because "I love the look of that and want to keep it for inspiration."  I realized that a WHOLE bookshelf was being consumed by these magazines, and I hadn't even gone and looked back at ANY of them since I read them when they were received.  Do you want to know what I did with the magazines?  I slowly started going through them, over the course of a week, enjoying the images the second time around.  I pulled out any project or idea or color scheme or whatever that inspired me and started a binder with those clear page protectors.  The amount of pages I pulled out wasn't even equivalent to ONE of the eight magazine holders that were filled.  It was such a waste of space to hold all of those magazines!  I wasn't even looking at them.  On to the recycling plant they go!  "Why, hello, beautifully empty bookshelf!"  (And I'm not renewing the subscriptions when they come due again because you can get lots of fun images online and they take up no space!)

Sometimes you need to do this decluttering in your mind, too.  Ever have the awful feeling that you can't fall asleep because your mind is racing?  You can declutter this by keeping a pad of paper and a pen next to the bed and writing down whatever comes to your mind before you try to fall asleep.  This could be a to-do list for tomorrow, a reminder of an appointment, an idea that you don't want to forget...  Whatever you purge from your mind will allow you to let sleep in.  It's summer - think of this exercise as forgetting what you learned in school from the previous year that you won't need for next year!  Haha!

My next purging endeavor is to go through my clothes.  The closet and the dresser are packed with things that I don't wear anymore, with old items, and with stuff that doesn't fit.  I'm going to bless others by donating what I don't use, if it's still in good condition.  And I'm not going to replace those items (yet?) because it means less laundry to do, and since I've been keeping up with the laundry, I won't run out of the clothes I do wear anyway!

So without the binge, what will you be purging?