I just read/skimmed another book on decluttering. “Declutter Like a Mother.” Funny title. 🙂

Anyway, she had one idea that sort of revolutionized part of my decluttering project. She said before you do anything with a room, take some time to identify what your intent is for the room. How do you want to use it when everything’s done? And then keep that intention in mind as you’re decluttering.

Since I won’t be using the current rooms in my house after I declutter (I’ll be moving), it didn’t really apply to my current situation. But then I thought about the intentions I have for the rooms in my future house. And suddenly the two rooms that were going to be my office and a spare bedroom changed entirely. I realized I wanted the office space to be solely for work-related things so I can close the door and be done with it all at the end of the day. The other room I want to use for more than a guest room. I want to use it for art/crafts, sewing, reading. I want to make it cute and cozy. I want to put a hide-a-bed or futon in there so it can be used for guests as needed, but I don’t need an entire room set aside for guests since I rarely have anyone sleep over.

Just that idea of “intention” for a room really transformed my thinking. It also has changed the decluttering process on this end, too. When thinking about the intention of the rooms at the new place, I realized I can part with the queen-sized bed that’s currently in the guest room since I’m going to be using a hide-e-bed instead. I can keep a desk I was going to part with because now I’m going to use it as a craft table. I have chair that was going to go away, but now I want to keep it as a reading chair in the craft/activity room.

I didn’t really get a lot of new ideas for this particular book, but just finding one idea that’s helpful like this is definitely worth checking it out from the library.