Unclutter 2014: days 1–10

[nou]

As previously noted, I'm doing Unclutter 2014, which involves getting rid of 1 thing per day in 2014, plus an extra thing for every thing that comes into the house. I thought I'd also keep track of where the things go (landfill, charity shop, recycling, etc). I'm planning to post once every ten days, giving a summary of how I'm doing.

Day 1: 1 out: Fabric decorative thing from a wine bottle - been trying to think of something to do with it, but no joy, so in the bin.

Day 2: 5 in, 13 out: Baby's First Mythos and 4 associated postcards (mail order purchase by bob) arrived today; 12 books and 1 puppet taken to charity shop.

Day 3: 0 in, 0 out

Day 4: 1 out: one of the postcards from day 2, posted to a friend.

Day 5: 3 in, 3 out: Roku box, remote control, and instruction book (mail order purchase by bob) arrived today; large pile of plastic bits from a compost bin that got irreparably broken last year went into landfill (3 bin bags, but counting as 1 out), 1 large cardboard box that's been hanging around for months broken up and put into recycling, 1 mostly-empty dried-out packet of baby wipes that's also been hanging around for months put into compost (wipes) and landfill (packet) (counting this as 1 into landfill).

Day 6: 1 out: a 2-litre bottle of sparkling water that's been hanging around in our fridge for at least 2 years. Counting this because it's been here so long and I only drank it to get rid of it (I don't generally like sparkling water and usually just drink tap).

Day 7: 1 out: another of the postcards from day 2, given to my sister.

Day 8: 0 in, 0 out

Day 9: 5 out: bag of plastic cutlery collected by a Freegler, pair of small glass candle holders donated to Scope, "charity" clothes collection plastic bag discovered going dusty on a shelf (put into plastic bag recycling), 2 of bob's old toothbrushes (landfill).

Day 10: 7 out: dead USB stick drive (bob tried to fix it, no joy, into landfill), bag of dead batteries (taken to Maplin for recycling), 5 books (taken to charity shop).

• Total out: 32 (6 landfill, 3 recycled, 19 charity shop, 2 gifts, 1 Freegle, 1 used up)
• Total in: 8
• Net total out at day 10: 24

Comments

[peaceful_sands]

You've made a great start - I wish you well for the next 10 days!

[nou]

Thanks! A lot of what I've done so far has been easy stuff (books). I expect it to get harder to find things as the year goes on :)

[moonreviews]

Haha, books are one of the more difficult items for me XD
What are your difficult items?

[nou]

The hard things for me are things that I'm likely to have a use for at some point in the future but not in the next couple of years or so. This is hard because I don't intend to ever move house again, and I do have a reasonable amount of storage space, so it feels wasteful to get rid of things now only to acquire them all over again in the future.

[peaceful_sands]

I found books were 'easy' on the first pass, but now I've been going awhile at this it gets harder because what I've got I feel like I either want to keep (that's fine) or I should at least try reading before they go or actually do want to read them but don't expect to want to keep them afterwards which makes it much slower. I think the post I'm making today might end up being the last 'big' lot of books to go en masse.

[moonreviews]

Ooh, nice idea to list it day by day :)
I'm just listing my in/out numbers per month, but it's the 10th now so I know this month's total so far :P (11 in and 87 out, but that's just because I've been cleaning out my stuff at my parents' home a bit more... In my own home it's not going that fast!)

[nou]

Those are great numbers — keep it up!

[moonreviews]

I found 28 extra items yesterday (including a book I had twice that I didn't need to own double), but by now I've been through all the "random items" areas, so I don't think I'll get such a high number anymore anytime soon :P But I did free up some cupboard space so I could put books there from a box on the floor and throw away the box :D

[nou]

Ooh, I love freeing up cupboard space :)