Happy 2011 friends! I love a fresh new year. A new beginning, a new calendar, and the positive expectation that this year will be better than the one before.
A great method for creating a better year this year is to pick one area of your life and focus on eliminating everything but the things you love OR that are essential in that area.
Let's say you decide to focus on your beauty products (or your footwear, your dish collection, your pet supplies, or your scuba gear). Throughout this year, be mindful of ways to eliminate the things you don't like, use, or need. Then streamline the products and possessions you eventually decide are keepers.
Less clutter, more pretty (or scuba)!
My inspiration for this post came from the book, Lighten UP! by Don Ladigin. Don is an extreme backpacker, has decades of experience, and has streamlined his pack so that the total weight he carries for most excursions is (get this) 12 pounds. (In case you're as unimpressed as my cat was when I exclaimed, "TWELVE POUNDS?!," the average weight of a fully-packed aluminum frame backback for a serious packer is usually 35-40 lbs.).
Don's 12 pound pack includes the weight of his bedroll, sleeping pad, shelter, water, extra clothing, first aid kit, hygiene and grooming needs,and gear repair kit. He has also been know to pull Halloween candy from his tiny lightweight pack.
What he has done over the years is WEIGH EVERYTHING he's going to take with him, and then search until he finds the lightest weight object that will still effectively meet his needs on the trail.
I love it!
The ultimate decluttered backpack is no different than the ultimate decluttered make-up drawer (file cabinet, tool box, DVD cabinet). The process to get to lightweight and streamlined is the same, whether it's a backpack we're talking about, or your bookshelf: weigh everything (not like Don does by using an actual postal scale, but weigh it by how much you use, love, need it, etc. See my previous posts for dozens of ideas for judging whether or not something is a keeper or a tosser). Then throughout this new year, streamline down to the things in your chosen area that exactly meet your needs.
This isn't a resolution, it's a suggestion. One small area. One year. You can do it.
Now I'm off to streamline my pretty blue hanging toiletries bag I take along when I travel.
Happy trails!
