I need to have a serious decluttering session and what better way to do it than a challenge! So here is my take on the "7 days" challenge - 7 days of decluttering to be a bit more closer to a minimalist lifestyle.

(If you know me personally, you know I need to do this challenge because my room is a complete disaster even after doing somewhat of a decluttering session)

NOTE TO READERS: This post was written when I was in India, hence the room I refer to is my bedroom back at home!

• How to Declutter Like a Pro in just 5 Simple Steps

I did follow my own guide. In fact, the guide was written off of my decluttering session. However, I noticed that the amount of decluttering I did, did not satisfy my goal. I avoided decluttering because I was bored of doing it those two days and I think I'm finally ready to do an actual massive declutter. I have to reduce all the items I own by a lot because I can't fit everything into my suitcase (I'm going back to the USA to attend university if you didn't know) and also because I don't want my dorm room to look cluttered and flooded with all the junk. I will take a picture right now of the current situation (a.k.a mess) in my bedroom.

Cringe-worthy, right? I agree! You would think I would be ahead of my game if I put up decluttering guides. Truth is, I'm not perfect and sometimes my laziness kicks in hard. I abandon a task completely and don't come back to it for ages. 

I'm going to conquer this 7 Day Challenge and I'm inspired by two reasons:

1 - I really need to narrow down what I am going to take with me and what has to either be passed on to my younger brother (like drawing tools and stuff like that) or thrown away/donated.

2 - I wouldn't want all this writing to go to waste because I bailed on Day 2. I like to be efficient and not completing this challenge would be the complete opposite of that.

Note that the "After" pictures may or may not look very different from the "Before" pictures above (I don't know yet because I'm literally writing this on Day 1). I'm assuming that there won't be a massive change because a lot of my things will either be kept so my brother can use them (e.g. art materials for his future school projects) or will be sentimental items that I can't take with me but I wouldn't want to throw them out. Some items will also still be present and not packed away into my suitcase because there's still time (a little more than a month) for me to go away so I won't pack everything just yet. Maybe I'll pack the things I know I definitely will not need till I get to my dorm room.

Here's my 5 Day schedule (you may skip to any particular day if you are more interested in that section of my room if you are looking forward to decluttering that same area in your room too):

Day 1: Mainly my nightstand and other small drawers/cabinets 

Day 2: Wardrobe part 1
Day 3: Wardrobe part 2

Day 4: Study desk part 1
Day 5: Study desk part 2

Day 6: Bookshelf (+ Laptop just for fun)

I tried to alternate heavy and light decluttering throughout the week so I don't get overwhelmed/exhausted/bored by the entire process to ensure I declutter thoroughly.

Let's begin!

Day 1: Nightstand

Before:

Since it's been a while since I did an intense cleaning up in my room, I think today I will start off with a small section of my room as you saw in the schedule above. My night stand is very small and I recently threw away a lot of old nail polishes when I was doing some light decluttering. However, I think I do need to revisit the situation and maybe make space for other items, that are on my desk, that don't belong there (like my lotions and sprays).

After:
So the session was pretty fast and I'm glad it was because I started at around 7 pm or 8 pm. Here's how much I threw away:


I ended up only decluttering my nightstand and not the other drawers so I think I'll just do those when I do my study desk. A lot of the stuff in my nightstand remained because my mom keeps nail polishes she uses in my nightstand too and there are also other things we both use that will probably stay there even after I move out. I'm still pretty happy with the progress and how much I threw out because it was way more than how much I threw out during my recent, failed attempt. I had some expired things, some items I hadn't used in ages and knew I wouldn't like some fake nail sets and adhesive stickers for the same. The problem I have when decluttering is trying to throw away items that have been gifted to me. I know that I won't use that item now but I also know that they've spent money on it. I feel guilty, but there's no use in keeping it because I 100% don't want it otherwise.

I also put all my art supplies from other cabinets into one cabinet (I will not be taking them with me but I have kept them for my younger brother).

Today was kind of like the trailer for this whole challenge and it hardly took any time. Tomorrow is the real deal. Decluttering my wardrobe and then my study desk is going to be a real challenge.

Day 2: Wardrobe Part 1

Before:
So as I'm writing this, it is already 5:40 pm and I'm afraid I won't have enough time to declutter my wardrobe thoroughly. The reason being, I also have to write a blog article and a few other tasks for the day. I'm pretty sure I can't film a YouTube video now (which was supposed to be today's priority).
Anyways, I'm gonna have some snacks and then get on with the decluttering.

My goals are to:
A) pack away clothes I won't wear till I get to the US (I know it isn't technically decluttering, but it's still organization and I also want to implement that into this challenge).
B) Separate my wardrobe into two sections: one for clothes I will give away just a few days before I leave and one for clothes I will wear now and also want to take with me.
C) Identify things I want to give away or discard right now like old accessories, etc
D) See a difference, personally, when I compare the before and after.

After:
I am pretty proud of today's work. I was able to successfully manage to do A, B, and D to some extent. I still have 2 compartments of my wardrobe to sort out, which I'll do tomorrow.
This is what has been removed, permanently from my wardrobe:


The bag doesn't seem too big even after using my phone as a reference but there are a lot of clothes packed into that bag. Plus, I had already removed and given away a lot of clothes a few months ago so imagine the picture above × 2 or maybe even × 2.5.
I had a lot of packaging and cardboard and all that from accessories and from socks, etc which I discarded. I just piled all my socks and then stuffed them into the corners of my suitcase (packing hack, by the way). I still kept a lot of my clothes for the sole reason that I may or may not have time to shop once I get to my campus and it'll take some time for me to settle in my dorm too. I don't want to have to stress over things like not having enough clothes on top of all the other things I'm going to be sorting out there.
My wardrobe definitely looks way emptier than it was before but I'm still a little concerned if everything will fit in two suitcases. I'm hoping that the rest of the days in this week will help me believe that I don't have way too much left after cleaning out everything.

Day 3: Wardrobe Part 2

Before:
Today my main goals are to accomplish yesterday's incomplete goals and my focus is the top shelf of my wardrobe (it contains accessories, makeup, maybe some toiletries, and some miscellaneous items). Again, a lot the stuff will stay in my wardrobe because I'll give most of my accessories to my mom and she doesn't have space in her wardrobe (lol) so it'll stay in my wardrobe.
If I finish decluttering my wardrobe early, I might (might!) do a bit of tomorrow's task.

After:
As expected, not much was taken out to be discarded since I decluttered about 80%-90% of my wardrobe yesterday itself. However, I did manage to remove more items than I expected to. I was basically expecting none of my jewellery/accessories to be discarded as my mom would use all of it but suprisingly I had a good amount of accessories discarded.

I let go of a lot of necklaces and earrings that I wouldn't have let go if my goal was not to make sure all my stuff fits into two suitcases so I'm glad I didn't keep anything for "sentimental purposes". Trust me when I say that before I kept everything for "sentimental purposes". Most of the time it wasn't even close to sentimental but I gave myself that excuse every single time.

Mission Nearly empty wardrobe: Completed
(just clothes I'll need for about a month's time and clothes I'll throw away just before going are kept)

Day 4: Study Desk Part 1

Before:
Those who notice that I've given myself two days for a desk and think that it is weird, kindly refer to the "disgusting ___" collage above. My desk has a lot of storage and is bigger than the average desk. I need two days. Okay...maybe I want two days, but whatever!

After:
I've successfully managed to distance myself from my art supplies (I love my art supplies and I'm a big time art supplies hoarder). Most of it has been kept, neatly, in the storage cabinet below my desk for my younger brother to use for school projects. I will only be taking a few paint brushes and perhaps one small watercolors set. I've thrown away some files that are old, a lot of miscellaneous items including things like old pens, rulers that were in unusable condition (don't ask how, I have no clue), etc.
I have filled my trashcan completely (to the point of overflowing). I have also gotten rid of a lot of the bottles that were lined up on that one shelf. Everything is so miscellaneous it's hard to describe what kind of stuff I threw out!

Day 5: Study Desk Part 2

After:
(I decided to skip the before part because there wasn't much to say)
There was a trunk-like case below my desk which was previously a case for the keyboard I have (we don't put it in the case anymore). It had a lot of art supplies, some random electronics I don't use, etc. I threw out 2 small boxes worth of stuff including an old microscope set I got when I was way younger (total scam, something was wrong with the microscope so it never worked properly), some decoration kits and so on. I also gave a lot away to my cousin who has come to visit me.

Day 6: Bookshelf

Before:
My bookshelf looks extremely messy and I have way too many files and notebooks in it. I hope to segregate the 4 sections of my bookshelf like this:
1 (Top shelf) - Files and notebooks I want to keep
2 - Dictionaries and notebooks for my brother + one or two pairs of heels
3 - Reading books (combined). I will decide which books I will take with me the last minute if there is any space in my suitcases.
4 (Bottom Cabinet) - Rest of my sandals/heels

After:
I was successful in doing exactly as I stated in my goals above and segregated my bookshelf according to that. I still have around 3 miscellaneous items that I am very confused about whether to keep or not. #Dilemma

I also have two camera bags in my bookshelf currently but that is again because there is nowhere else to keep it safe, I guess. My tripod will most likely reside in my wardrobe.

I threw away a lot of CDs (eBook versions of my high school textbooks), some vintage greeting cards with an unknown origin (why did I even consider keeping those in the first place?!), a lot of very old books and dictionaries, and two pair of sandals. I gave a pair of boots to my cousin because I had a total of two pairs of boots and I don't have enough space in my suitcases to fit too many shoes.

Overall, it felt pretty great to declutter my room and finally being able to actually see the furniture in my room for once. Unfortunately, I did this very last minute and just forgot to transfer all the pictures of my room from my camera to my USB drive once I was done decluttering and only realized now (after moving to USA). My camera is back at home and so I can't show you guys the wonderful room transformation that occurred after I finished decluttering it.
Hopefully, if my dorm room gets cluttered I can make a post when I declutter that! Just kidding, guys please do not hope that!

My phone always told me that my storage space was running low or that I had to delete one or two apps to be able to download the one I was trying to at that moment. I could never find the meme or picture I wanted to in time because it was drowned in an ocean of other pictures. I had so many downloaded files I didn't need. Decluttering your phone is very similar to decluttering your laptop/PC. 

This is pretty self-explanatory at this point. Just delete apps you don't use, delete memes you have been laughing at for ages and delete random pictures or those pictures your phone took on its own when you unlocked it by mistake. Delete pictures that carry no significance either due to the amount of time the pictures have spent in your phone or because they never were important in the first place. Delete the PDFs you don't need anymore and the random notes and files and memos and all those screenshots of conversations you sent to your friend(s). You get the point.

Transfer anything and everything you can to your SD card. Phone storage is used up because of software updates and all those important phone files that you can't delete. So go into your settings, go to application manager, and transfer all the apps you can to your SD card. This will free up a lot of your storage especially if you are transferring large applications like Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Another thing you should do once in a while is delete cache. Large and frequently used applications usually have a lot of cache. You can delete all the cache in one go by going into your phone settings and then to "Storage". You could download an app to clear your cache in just one click, but chances are that app takes up quite some space in your storage, defeating the purpose of trying to clear your storage for other stuff.

Note: You may be tempted to also clear the "miscellaneous files" after you clear you cache. But be careful. If you delete files in the "miscellaneous files" like the Whatsapp folder, for example, you will end up deleting all the media you have received from people on Whatsapp. You don't want that unless you know 100% there is nothing important your friends/family/acquaintances/whatever have sent you. I suggest going to your gallery/files and selecting pictures and deleting them. It'll take longer, but you won't risk deleting important pictures/media.

Just like above (in the PC section of this article), you can store pictures, PDFs, etc, on a cloud app and free up some space on your phone. This is also great to do if you need to access your files from another laptop/device as you can just log in to your cloud software/online cloud website and access the files.

To wrap it all up, only keep very frequently used apps on your home screen and/or make folders to make it look less crowded. If you have an iPhone you don't have a home screen but you can still organize your apps in to folders. If you have an android phone, reduce the number of pages after your home screen. You could keep a page with a calendar widget and maybe one more page but don't have too many pages if you want to keep it minimal.

I didn't do anything about it because I thought it would just go away after a few months or a year because it was probably hormonal. I was around 12 years old at this time. 

But it didn't go away after a few months or even a year. It just became worse and worse and worse. It eventually spread to my cheeks and jawline. The acne basically took over my entire face.

I was very bothered by my acne. People kept asking me what happened to my face as if I intentionally covered my face in the dirt to spawn these little devils on my face. 

At this point, I kind of got used to touching my face and it didn't help my situation at all. I had acne and acne marks/spots all over my face. It became worse when I was stressed (for example, during exams) because I touched my face, even more, when I was. People immediately noticed when my acne flared up. That wasn't the problem, though. They told me. That was the worst. Friendly tip if you have a friend or know someone with acne: Don't tell them, they already know!

Everyone has a mirror, and those who have acne probably already look in the mirror a lot of times during the day hoping for their acne to go away or getting stressed out about new acne.

All you are going to do by telling someone that their acne looks worse from the last time you saw them is make them not want to talk to you and reduce their self-esteem. In my case, it didn't matter when my close friends pointed it out (I guess because we already insulted each other for fun so this didn't have an effect). There's a difference between a concern and an unnecessary comment that doesn't actually help. 

People also just assumed a lot. They assumed that I didn't take care of my skin. I understand a lot of people don't realize that they aren't taking enough care of their skin despite having acne, but that was not my case. I literally tried every facewash and cleanser there was for acne-prone/oily skin. I tried to stop touching my skin for at least a few days (before giving in and then trying again) but it obviously didn't work. People also assumed that I was getting acne because I was angry (????). I get it, I was a teenager and I was moody (however, people assumed that even if they didn't know me well) but honestly how do you expect me to manifest a face full of acne because of my teenage tantrums?! It was ridiculous.

I had severe (but not that severe. I was lucky enough to not have very red, large acne. It was spots and small acne which is still bad but I'm grateful it wasn't worse) acne for a good few years and it made me frustrated and anxious. Sometimes, I didn't want to go out because of everyone pointing out what was obviously visible to me. What frustrated me further was that no matter how many times I cleansed/washed my face, there wasn't even the slightest improvement.

At this point, I started developing "bacne" (back acne) and it also spread to near my collarbones and shoulders. I tried back polishing and face clean-ups too, but all in vain. What I thought was just a temporary hormonal imbalance that would go away on it's on in a year or so stayed with me for a lot longer.

In 2016, I went through a very tough time that I've told only a few people about. The entire year was bad for me and it was the lowest point of my life thus far. The fact that I had my face to worry about didn't help with my newly-developed anxiety and it just became worse. When I pulled myself out of this phase in my life, I decided I didn't want my face to have even 1% control over my day/mood and I started by strictly not touching my face at all and continuing the search for a face wash that did help my face even in the slightest way possible. Today, I am so grateful to have almost no acne spots on my face and rarely occuring acne. My skin is still oily, and my hormones are still changing - those two factors are something I cannot do much about. But, the degree to which my skin has improved is so amazing and I am so happy even though my skin isn't 100% perfect. Honestly, after having so many years of acne, this is like the best deal. Of course, I will continue to try and improve my skin quality and there is work to do still. The healing process is a plateau graph; steep increase at first and then steady.

Most people will only give you the following two pointers as "advice":

↣ Wash your face twice a day

↣ Don't touch your face and don't pick at the acne

But the truth is, that isn't enough for everyone. I was made to think that it was my fault that the acne got so "out of control" and that it was my fault because I didn't take care of my skin. That was simply untrue. And if you are dealing with acne right now that will not go away for the love of god, click the link below to see how I finally got rid of my acne!

• How I got rid of my acne

If you want to know what my regimen/routine is currently to keep my face clear, head on over to this post:

• Acne treatment routine

Ending this chapter...

/ / R E L A T I O N S H I P S / /

/ / P E O P L E / /

/ / J O Y / /

So many wonderful things have happened to me. I have people around me with great energy who motivate me to be a better person and work on my flaws. I am not under the illusion that I am perfect. I'm not even near perfect, but the people around me are helping me get closer to the person I want to be and I'm thankful for them. I got to foster a puppy for 2 weeks this year. It was the best 2 weeks of my life. The little fluff ball taught me stuff in 2 weeks that I couldn't learn in 17 years and it was such a learning experience and so much more space was created in my heart for love. I am so glad she got a permanent home and I am so grateful for being able to take care of such a sweetheart (even though she bit me a million times because she was teething!).

It was nice being genuinely happy due to so many events for so many moments, compared to last year. 

/ / P E R S O N A L  C H A N G E / /

Recently, I went a bit downhill again. A little bit anger came back, more of the mood swings, a little bit more anxiety. But I think it's okay taking three steps ahead and one step back. That's life. You can't expect to have no obstacles or no setbacks. I'm only human and I'm working on becoming a better person in general. I think the main things I'm trying to learn is patience, being calm in stressful situations, and listening to the other person and trying to understand the situation from their point f view instead of immediately reacting in a regretful way. I hope the next chapter in my life helps me grow in other ways too. I assume being independent will definitely teach me a thing or two.

Starting a new chapter...

/ / P R E S E R V A T I O N / /

I hope to preserve the good relationships I have right now. I don't want to lose any of those who I am close with because the thought of that is scary to me. I hope I don't change in a way that will drive them away from me but I also hope I change for the better because I know I can't avoid change. It will happen. People grow and people change. I just hope I change into a better version of me so that I can love myself more and so people I love can continue loving me too.

/ / N O U V E A U  / /

I want to make some solid relationships with people I meet in the future. I want to attract truthful and genuine people in this new chapter of my life and want to make new memories that make me happy. I don't have any idea what this new chapter has for me and the number of uncertainties is terrifying but I am waiting for what is in store for me. 

I am turning the page and entering this new chapter with a positive mindset and hopeful heart. 

FREE PRINTABLES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST!

I created a basic printable so that you can easily plan your blog posts!

You can either right-click on the below image and click "save image as" or you can go to this Google Drive link and download the pdf version of the same printable (the second option would be easier for you to print). If you want me to email you the pdf file (in case you don't use google drive), then DM me on Instagram: @blackandwhiteandwise
If you download the printable, let me know in the comments or on Instagram if the printable was helpful!

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByYzoYNWNnsDVHNWRFJLeHdYczA/view?usp=sharing

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1 

Clean your face/acne-prone areas on your body (Twice per day)

2 

Moisturize (After you wash your face)

3 

Sun Protection (Every day)

4 

Topical Ointment (According to prescription or once a day)

5 

Put in a little bit more effort to help your skin