Declutter Your Supplies To Create More This Year
Love more of what you do.
As promised, we are going to work together to take back our creative time this year. Letting go is taking back. Let's talk about that.
I promise you, letting go of excess supplies and unfinished projects that no longer excite you, will free you up to take your creative time back. The last time we hung out I was pairing down unfinished projects and today we are letting go of excess supplies that are weighing us down. Personally, I found it way easier to be real about an unfinished project that has lost it’s luster than a shiny new element filled with possibilities. But, more cool stuff does not always equal, more possibilities. In fact, overwhelm from too many choices can quickly lead to zero productivity. Maybe you don't have a lot of stuff yet. Hopefully this video will encourage you to avoid collecting too much so you won't get weighed down in the future. I realize what I am about to say, may not be a popular opinion, because we love our stuff, but too much stuff may be your problem.
If you don’t, who will?
Someone left a comment on my 3 Best Tips for organizing small spaces video which I will link below that said, "If this is organized, I’d hate to see what disorganized means in your world. A million boxes to hide the clutter is not organized." Yep, she called me out and some of you came for her because of her directness. I respect what she said and she wasn't wrong. She actually inspired me to go further in what I had started. She helped me realize I wasn't quite there yet. The reality is we never truly arrive. There is always room for improvement, keeping in mind that perfection is not reality, nor is it our goal. Progress is worth celebrating and should always be the main goal.
When I only organize with neatness and containment in mind, I struggle with parting with anything cool that I could make something from or with. Before I started considering other factors, like function and how important resetting my space is to my productivity, just about anything got to stay in my growing inventory if I could find a nook or cranny to stuff it in. The tendency to hoard has many faces, including the face of a maker like you or me. We are all dreamers of possibilities. Afterall, we know we are capable. The problem arises when our confidence in our capabilities of making just about any cute or crafty thing we admire, overrides the reality of actually making it. We always have very good intentions but fail to evaluate the time, expense and potential result before we buy that new brightly colored fill in the blank... Before we know it, we find ourselves in the middle of our own mini Michael's store that isn't serving us. For me this can too easily lead to not making anything at all due to overwhelm. Is this you? If it is just me, I hope you will still find some value in this video and be sure to check back for my Zone Organization Series. So since we don't have anyone in a blue smock vest punching in to dust our supply shelves and put our unused inventory on clearance, we need a system.
You are NOT BEHIND! And now, you are NOT ALONE.
If you haven’t started yet, let me reassure you, you are not behind and since you are here, now, you are no longer alone. Sometimes you just have to take everything out of your space and start with a clean slate. For the past year, I have been downsizing from my classroom studio of 1200sf to my private studio of less than 100sf. My treasured resources have spilled over into a utility room and part of a hallway. I have given away tons of stuff and I still have more than I will ever use. Figuring out what I will actually use and what I need to let go of has been happening in phases.
The “clean slate method”, can be done in phases. I don’t have space to pull everything out of my studio at once. Working in phases gave me the clean slate feeling and allowed me to clean shelf space as I went along. Also working in manageable chunks kept me from getting overwhelmed and kept my supplies from taking over my whole house. Here is how it went. I pulled supplies out of my studio by category into a larger space where I could spread out as I sorted. I also grabbed any related items from my back-stock along with any floating items. You know the things that do not have a home so they get moved from spot to spot.
I then sorted each category into 3 piles, by using 2 questions and 1 rule. The rule also answers a question. It is, nothing goes back in my studio unless it is a clear “yes”. Sounds drastic, I know, but stick with me. My CLEAR YES pile was for items that I knew without hesitation that I love and will use. The second pile was for the maybes. The 3rd, is for items I know I am ready to let go of. After a quick sort using these parameters, I moved onto my questions. I had a good sized pile to let go of at this point, but I knew I could do better and I needed more space. So I circled back to my YES pile and asked the same question we used in the unfinished project purge, which is, “How much do I really need?” Let’s use my ribbon as an example. It was taking up a lot of shelf space. I like to be able to see my options. When I use ribbon for mixed media, it is usually just a small piece. If I was a wreath maker and used yards of ribbon at a time, it would make sense to have entire rolls at my fingertips. But since I rarely use it and when I do I don’t use much, I decided to keep a sample of each ribbon on clips. This way I can see them and snip a piece when I need it and pack the rest away. I can still get to more if I need to and it isn’t out of site out of mind.
Our Oh Deer templates are another great option!
For the MAYBE pile, the question was “Could I easily replace this item at a low cost?” In the case of my ribbon I can always grab a roll of red grosgrain ribbon just about anywhere if I need more, but my vintage velvet might not be as easy to find. I limited myself to one container and what didn’t fit had to go. So, I put my vintage ribbon in first and took some smaller quantities off of the roll to make them fit.
Each category I sorted had a maybe pile with items I have held onto for quite a while and never used. I still loved some of these items, but now they had to pass the not so easy to replace test in order to stay. At this point, the maybes are not going back into the studio. To stick to the rule, the maybes must wait until the process is done and all of the CLEAR YES items have found their home. Only then, will I consider the possibility of making room for a few “maybes”. Remember, all of these considerations are being made with the goal of removing barriers to our productivity. Simplifying removes barriers. Failing to let go is a missed opportunity for an unobstructed path to creative growth. Rearranging and organizing excess inventory without letting go, may look nice and feel good for a while, but those temporary fixes will not keep your space from quickly becoming overrun by too much stuff as soon as you start working again. Ask me how I know.
Creating a patina finish is a lot like marbling.
To recap, simplifying removes barriers. Barriers keep us from growing creatively. We are letting go of excess supplies that are weighing us down and old projects that just mock us because they're unfinished. Letting these go is going to be part of what sets us up for a win. I hope taking this step helps you as much as it has helped me. I will see you in the next video where I am going to share my Zone Organization System. Hopefully you will pick up some tips from me and maybe pair them with tips from others or things that are already working for you. Let's set ourselves up for a win to create more this year! If you know someone who could benefit from these tips, please share this blog and subscribe on Youtube for more helpful content and inspiration.
Happy Making!
Donna
