Yesterday I had an appointment with a financial advisor about life insurance. As I grabbed a yellow pad to take notes, I noticed that the pad had some kind of brown gunk on it. I tasted it, and it was sweet. I looked up at the cupboard above the pad and saw that sticky thick brown liquid was dripping down from the top shelf. There was even brown syrup on the ceiling above the top shelf. All the piles of papers around my phone had brown syrup on them, too. When I got on a stool to investigate the source of the sticky mess, I found that a can of maple syrup had exploded on the top shelf. Something I’d never seen before. And it was everywhere—on the floor, on the rug, even on my cat’s feet. I put down some paper towels and decided to tackle the big clean up later. I wasn’t enthusiastic at all. But then my financial advisor said, “Well, you must be having a sweet day.”

Ah — the perfect turnaround thought. I had been praying for the motivation to do some serious decluttering. And I had meant to get started in January, but never got around to it. The task felt too big. But now I had no choice. My exploding maple syrup can provided me with a sweet and insistent invitation to declutter one small area. There was no getting around it. So I set to work. And within a couple hours, I had a lovely clean marble surface around my kitchen phone and a completely organized and cleaned up cupboard. Now the space uplifts me every time I walk past.

And then the realization hit me. I didn’t have to declutter more than a small area of my home at any given time. Just a little at a time. And then — the real challenge — I just had to keep those small areas decluttered. Kind of like keeping off the pounds you’ve lost.

So today I cleaned off another small space—a table in my bedroom that I use as an altar. But instead of putting all my sacred and meaningful objects on it (which just makes it look cluttered), I just put a few — Ganesh, Kwan Yin, a picture of Bruno Groening, a candle, and some flowers. It’s simple and beautiful, and gives me such pleasure.

One small surface at a time. Then maintain it. I can do this.