Survey #260—Full Response from Gabriella

• I own items of clothing that I’ve never worn.
• I’ve felt guilty about buying new clothes because I already have a lot.
• I own clothing items that are duplicates of other items in my wardrobe (other than uniform items).
• I own clothing items that I’m keeping until they fit again.

I have now gained 2.5 months of experience in keeping a dedicated decluttering journal in support of my ongoing decluttering process. Since in the past I've already gotten rid of most of the "easier" stuff, I am now into the more difficult and sometimes painful decision making. Keeping the journal is helping me immensely in several ways:
- Documenting the number of items decluttered is not only a simple means of gamification and thus extra motivation, but it also shows me "black on white" what I've accomplished so far and for which I can congratulate myself.
- I also use the journal to plan what I intend to declutter in the near future. Documenting my intentions keeps me accountable.
- Journaling proved most helpful though whenever I felt really stuck. Reflecting about it on paper got my ideas flowing on which little steps I could take next.
For instance, when I felt incapable of letting go of of any books whatsoever, I had the idea of sorting all my books by subject and keeping those categories I'm most interested interested in, as well as a category of "definite keeps" that contained mainly sentimental items. Some other categories that may be interesting but are not my major interest, I was able to let go of even though they contained many excellent works. This algorithm enabled me to let go of around 130 books.
Would you be interested in sharing my journaling method with the Clutter Fairy audience? I could imagine that it may be useful to some of the other members of the community. (I generally do not journal, but this has really helped me.)
P.S. I'm not convinced that it is a good idea to integrate the decluttering journal into someone's general journaling practice. This could water down the rigour a dedicated journal contributes to the decluttering process.