If You Make a Mistake...

   (Tips to keep from being overwhelmed #6)

6. If you make a mistake, there's usually a way around it.

Fear of making mistakes can keep us from getting rid of things we don't need anymore. We are afraid that in the future we will need what we got rid of. But I have found that for the few times I have made mistakes, there's usually a way round it. For example I threw out a picture that my son had made for someone. To me it looked like an old scrap of paper and I put it in a drawer that I put paper/cardboard in.( When it's full I dump it in the recycling bin. This works well because we don't have to run outside every time a scrap of paper needs to go in the rubbish, and also if we throw a piece a paper away by mistake, we can usually find it in the drawer.) But my son missed this picture and was trying to find it. He had made it for Grandma! And I couldn't find it in the drawer. I felt bad that I had thrown it out, but there was a way around it. I gave him some of my stickers and a blank card, and he made a much nicer card. He was happy!

Today I had a similar thing happen. I went to find a list of names and phone numbers that I use once a month to rsvp for a lunch we host. To my dismay this list had completely disappeared. I know I wouldn't have thrown this list away on purpose, but whatever happened, it is lost. I didn't know what to do. But since I had a separate list with just the names, I realized that I could look up the names in the phone book and I got most of the phone numbers there. There were two names I couldn't look up because I didn't have the last names. But one of those people rang up to see if the lunch was on and she gave me the phone number of the one lady whose number I still didn't have.

When you declutter, it is likely you'll make a mistake every now and then. But most likely it will be well worth it for all the unnecessary things you get rid of. I heard a lady say something like this, "For 100 things I decluttered I made a few mistakes. But it was worth rebuying a few small things to get rid of ALL those things I didn't need."

So don't let the fear of making a mistake keep your house full of clutter! Remember that if/when you make a mistake, there's usually a way around it. And most things you get rid of, you'll never think of again!