In both 2024 and 2025, I shared a LOT about our decluttering journey. Many of you enjoyed following along, letting me know what you were getting rid of, and asking questions about our journey. If you want a recap you can click "Decluttering" on the side of this post for that complete list of posts.
We have opted NOT to have a coloring sheet to track in 2026. Why? To be honest, 2024 was my idea and I loved that it motivated us. But in 2025 it felt like one more thing I had to do. All of the uncolored boxes felt like a task that was bigger than I wanted to take on. I was SO thankful when we finished and did not feel like I wanted to track again.
So...imagine my surprise on January 1, 2026 when the family asked "Where is our coloring sheet?" I didn't have it in me to have that huge goal hanging on my fridge all year. I knew that over the past two years, we had woven 'letting go' into our daily lives. I knew we could continue to clean out, declutter, give away, donate, throw away, recycle, etc without a coloring sheet.
What I didn't anticipate was YOU all wondering how our coloring sheet is going! I am surprised that weekly someone mentions it to us!
So...this week I thought it would be fun to track and share what we, organically, let go of and to count how many items entered and exited our house.
First, one of the KEY aspects of owning less is bringing less into our home. This week was Mark's birthday and so four new items entered our home: two shirts, a tech item, and a kitchen item. Mark and I each also received birthday gifts from his family. My mother-in-law knows me well and gifted me cupcakes (they were gone within days) and coffee money! Zero Clutter, Big Joy! Mark got a survival kit and I got a set of post cards from his brother's family. Total items in: 6
Here is what we let go of this week:
Friday: I wrapped my sister-in-law's birthday gift. I saw that we were down to the end of a roll of sparkly macaroon wrapping paper. I used the last of it and recycled the roll. 1 Item.
Saturday: On our Disney cruise, we picked up a bunch of coloring puzzle sets for my clients. I took way too many and realized it is going to take me a while to gift them all. I took two along to my niece and nephew as they love Disney. My niece and I had a great time coloring hers. 2 Items.
Monday: We wrapped Mark's birthday gift. I purposely chose a role of paper that was near the end. We wrapped two boxes, finished the paper, and recycled the roll. 1 Item.
Tuesday: I took books back to the library and also took a fleece of Mark's for the free outerwear box. Mark has had the shirt for a year, not worn it all fall or winter, so he knew it was time to pass it on. Our library has a whole box of free outerwear that anyone from the library can get items from. 1 Item.
Wednesday: I found a box of muffin mix, purchased two months ago, in our pantry. I baked the muffins and use throw-away tins that we inherited last summer when we cleaned out Momaw's house. This made a zero cost snack to take to co-op this week. -- One of Annabeth's friends is doing a Senior Project where she is donating gently used dance items to studios in need. Annabeth kindly donated a costume she wore just six times last year. 4 Items.
Thursday: We took items to co-op with us. We took some activity books, magazines, and bracelets from Annabeth's collected. We also passed along a game and two Harry Potter necklaces to specific friends. 13 Items.
Total Items Decluttered with Zero Effort: 22!
We try very hard to live by the "One In, One out" rule. This week we had 6 in and 22 out so we succeeded!
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