We’re about to renovate our house, and the other day I started having a mild freak out about how I was going to manage wrangling 3 small kids in the middle of a construction zone.

It catapulted me into tidying and decluttering mode. I figured that if I could minimize the household clutter, it would be one less area of chaos to deal with.

I’m already a fan of less, so I didn’t think there’d be that much to get rid of. But it’s amazing what the cupboards can hide.

So I went on the offensive with my stuff. Some stuff was easy to toss – worn out clothing, redundant toys, expired cosmetics. But some of the more sentimental things, or things that I thought might come in handy one day, were just plain hard to part with. Getting rid of them felt like a loss.

But I ploughed on, and cleared a car-bootload of stuff from the place without too much trouble.

It wasn’t until the next day that it struck me, that what had felt like a loss, was actually a gain.

I gained space; with a couple less pieces of furniture, and a whole lot less general clutter, there was suddenly room to swing a cat in the place.

And I gained a sense of peace. I felt less anxious about having too much clutter and chaos to deal with.

And I gain time for more important pursuits; now that the stuff is gone, I don’t have to waste any more time cleaning it, sorting it, or reorganizing it.

It feels great, and I’m convinced that there truly is more in less.