“Grandma, what do you do all day?”
My younger granddaughter asked me that on a Saturday afternoon. She wasn’t being rude. She really wanted to know.
I opened my mouth to answer, and nothing came out right away. (It’s a bigger question than it sounds.)
So that night, I did something a little silly. I wrote down everything I did that week on the whiteboard on the side of my fridge.
When I read it back, I learned something about my house. A lot of it was set up for the woman I used to be, or the woman I thought I’d be someday.
Very little of it was set up for the life I live now. If you’ve been decluttering for your kids, or for some future day, I’d like to share a different way to look at it. It’s decluttering for the life you live now.
Someday Is Only Part of the Story
I’ve written before about Swedish death cleaning. It’s the idea of clearing out your things so the people you love won’t have to do it for you later.
I still believe in it. It’s a kind thing to do for your family.
But by the time I finished my first round, I wasn’t thinking about my kids anymore. I was thinking about how much nicer my own days had become.