Last Sunday I heard an interesting story on NPR about space.  Not the space as in the great beyond, planets, stars, solar systems.  I’m talking about the space we inhabit. The story focused on our need for space in several aspects, but how our life is affected by how we fill that space and by how much space we have to fill.  And of course, they talked about how we should fill that space in a way that doesn’t clutter our lives. And there was a bit of advice on how to simplify your space too.

Part of the story talked about a man who lives in an apartment that is only 423 square feet.  As you can imagine, everything is very compact.  The dining table might turn into his bed or fold up into the wall.  It’s a micro apartment where every part of the space is taken advantage of and the things in the space serve multiple purposes.

But he has held a dinner party in the apartment for up to 10 people and it never felt crowded.  He’s even building an apartment building in Brazil where every apartment will be like this!

The story went on to talk about some obvious aspects of our own lives that we can “clean up.” Those being a closet or a bookshelf, space under the bed, the basement, or the attic. Those are all pretty obvious spaces that most of us have in our homes which often get cluttered.  What about the junk drawer in the kitchen or nightstand? Or that bottom drawer in your dresser? The filing cabinet in the office?  All spaces that we probably look at and say, “Out of sight, out of mind!”, right?

Yep, I’m guilty of that myself. Cleaning it or organizing it goes on my mental list of things to do, and the next thing you know three months have gone by and I haven’t touched it.  And chances are it’s also gotten worse.

But what about other not-so-obvious spaces in your life that might also be cluttered?  Think about  the glove box in your car, or that side panel pocket on your car door.  Or a USB drive might be full of files.  Even the desktop on your computer might be full of pictures or files that need to be moved.  What about the number of apps on your cell phone you don’t use; or even photos on your cell phone? Again, this got me to thinking about how I have those problems too.

So, here I am with a challenge I want to share with you. What if we devoted just five days of our lives, not even a full week, to cleaning up these spaces in our lives? From the obvious, to the not so obvious, if we just stopped and devoted a small amount of time each day to cleaning up these spaces, think about how nicer these spaces would be and in turn, how nicer our lives can be.

That being said, I’m challenging myself over the next 5 days to edit my life a bit by addressing at least one “space” in my life each day that needs some editing. And I’ll be using my “pic a day” post to talk about those spaces.  Want to learn more? Visit LifeEdited. Or stick with me over the next 5 days (starting today in my next post) to see how I do!