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I hate spring cleaning. I’ll tell you why. When I was a kid, my mom would come into my room and instigate a spring cleaning. Now if it were just about getting the dust bunnies out from under the bed and putting away the winter coats, that would have been fine with me.
Alas, no. Her intent was to go through my toy box and find a way to make it more manageable. Not a bad idea from her point of view. I am sure her point of view was a horrific pile of un-played-with toys strewn everywhere but where they belonged.
My point of view was that someone else was going to force me to choose which of my beloved pile of toys had to go. Oh, I hated those sessions.
I would defend a broken unrecognizable bit of plastic as necessary to a game that I never played. My mother would become frustrated with my tears, drama and obstinacy and return it in kind and we both wound up exhausted, hurt and angry.
Spring cleaning became a hated ritual.
Fast forward to today and there is no one to force me to clean out my toy box of art supplies, unfinished projects or no longer loved items, except the sound of my mother’s voice whispering in my ear that I have entirely too much stuff. It is much easier to ignore the voice now than it was back then. But I ignore it at a price.
The price of hanging on to un-finished-objects (UFO’s) or unneeded objects requires a lot of mental, emotional and physical energy that could be used to fuel my creativity.
If letting go of UFO’s are blocking you in any way, you might be interested in a short e-book I wrote called:
How to Prevent UFO's from Alienating Your Creativity
You can find out more about it here:
If you have trouble letting go of your un-used creative toys consider that you may have gotten what you needed out of them already even if they don’t look finished or used up to the rest of the world.
Spring cleaning your space can allow room for more creativity. And isn’t that a breath of fresh air?