uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

What have you managed to unclutter this week? (or month, or longer -- I know it's been a hot minute since I had the brainspace to check in on this community!)

If you haven't done anything recently, do you have five minutes to go stare at a pile of things that need sorting? Or look at a pile of things that have already sorted and need to go, but are still sitting in your home -- is there something you can do towards getting them out of the place?

If you want a challenge: can you find something you have outgrown? Which might mean clothing you have physically outgrown, or merch from a fandom you no longer love, or a hobby you've moved past (or your hands refuse to continue with), or books you loved but are never going to read again.

We've all got that thing that is taking up space, physically and mentally, that is actively making our lives worse, and the best thing we can do with it is put it in the bin. But doing that is HARD and we donwanna.

So: my challenge to you - between now and next week, find something that is making things worse, and bin it.

Maybe your scrap paper pile has fallen over and now you have a scrap paper mound: throw out enough to get it back in a pile! Maybe you are the kind of person who replaces shoes but keeps the dilapidated pair 'just in case' and now you don't want to count how many broken pairs there are filling up the floor: throwing out one gives you back storage space! Maybe your sewing repair pile is overflowing with things you no longer wear and aren't worth fixing to donate, but you already have too many rags: bin something! Maybe you have things brought home from school/work/a friends place that have never had a place to go, aren't getting used, nobody wants, and are taking up space.

In this situation, the bin is your friend.

This post brought to you by me deciding that the apple peeler/corer tool that doesn't do its job, has been 'repaired' twice, and has cut me at least the last two times I used it was making my life worse just by having it in the house, and putting it in the bin.

It's been some months since we've had one of these posts, so I hope everyone is doing okay.

How goes the decluttering? Have you shifted anything out of the house? Found something to sort through? Had thoughts on things you can let go of?

Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.

Congratulations to everyone who has found and/or disposed on any clutter in the last weekthree months!!

How goes the decluttering? Have you shifted anything out of the house? Found something to sort through? Had thoughts on things you can let go of?

Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.

Congratulations to everyone who has found and/or disposed on any clutter in the last week!

ps. I'm going to be a bit sporadic for at least the next month; please cheer along others in the comments!

January is nearly done! For some, that means the weather is heading out of being quite so awful, while for others the worst is yet to come. For all of those heading into dreadful weather, may it not last long (and if we have anyone here from South Australia or Victoria, may I say Oh! My! about the temperatures you've been having. I'm aware that lots of other places have also been having interesting weather, but there have been some truly improbable numbers reported in those states in the last week.)

Last week's challenge was making your space welcoming to visitors by dealing with clutter in shared spaces. How did that go?

To finish up the last few days of the month, the final challenge is to get something out of the house. If, like me, you've been stockpiling things as you work through other spaces, there are lots of choices! If you have been the responsible adult in the room, and been dealing with getting identified items out of the house as you've been going along decluttering spaces, I suggest picking the area you felt least happy with at the end of its focus week, and seeing if there are some easy wins.

The next checkin will be the regular weekend one, but I might try and post on Saturday for the end of the month to round the challenge off neatly.

How did the decluttering of the work space(s) go? Did you spend time looking for things that could go, move a thing or two, or have a wildly successful week? Or did you work on a different space instead?

For week four we are moving from decluttering spaces in order to make them more welcoming to us, to making our space more welcoming to others. What this might look like

• Is it difficult to get into the house? Option: work out what of the stuff in the front hall / entrance / verandah / front step is useful to have there, and deal with (some of) the rest. If that stuff is clutter to be rehomed, maybe make the getting it out of the house a priority
• Is there nowhere for visitors to put things when they visit? Option: go through the shoe rack / coat rack / other storage and getting rid of what you don't use so that there is space for visitors to leave their shoes / coats / other when they visit
• Is there nowhere for a visitor to sit? Option: Clear a second chair! Or a path to a second chair!
• Are there too many choices of tea, and none of them good? Option: get rid of the stale tea so nobody accidentally gets served it. Do not suffer stale tea.
• Have your serving plates / company coffee mugs / tea cups seen better days? Are there good ones that never get appreciated? Consider: ditch the dodgy, have the joy of using the nice ones (and if the nice ones aren't ever going to get used, is it time to send them out into the world to bring joy to someone else?)
• if you have a car and are a person who provides transport, is there clutter in there making life awkward?

Remember, this is a gentle challenge, and if you get one thing progressed, that is a big win even when you can't give yourself the credit.

How did the decluttering of the hobby spaces go? Did you spend time looking for things that could go, move a thing or two, or have a wildly successful week? Or did you work on a different space instead?

For the third week, we are moving on to a work space -- just the one. Unless you have all the energy and all the time, in which case don't let me hold you back. But this was meant to be a gentle challenge to get started on the year. What decluttering a work space might look like

• moving the cooking equipment you never use out of the kitchen
• sorting through stuff in a work from home space so you have more space for you
• looking in the laundry for things that have drifted into corners and become one with the wall.
• going through the cleaning rag stash and getting it down to Just! One! Bucket! worth (for whatever size of bucket you keep your rags in)
• throwing out old cleaning equipment--particularly if you have replaced it with one that you use!

Alternatively: keep going with the rest and / or hobby spaces. Get things out of the house!

How did you go with decluttering your rest space? Did you have thoughts about what you might do, did you deal with one tiny thing, or did you have a startlingly productive week?

For the second week, we are moving from rest space to hobby space. Can you find something to declutter? What this might look like:

• acknowledging that you aren't going to come back to a craft project and rehoming the materials
• clearing WIPs so that there is space to work on Just One -- especially if one of those is something that will leave the house when it is done! Gift yourself space while finishing that gift!
• clearing a path to the sewing machine (this one is me. I really need to do that, because if I do that I can start work on repairing the clothing I want to keep and repurposing the ones I don't)
• working through a shelf of books / DVDs / games and deciding which ones spark joy, and which ones can go.
• going through the tool box and working out just how many pairs of scissors or screwdrivers or gumblesprockets* you really need

Alternatively: keep going with the resting space! Get something out of the house!

* no, i don't know what a gumblesprocket is either. It was one of the list of silly words for tools I learned in a poem as a kid

How goes the decluttering? Have you shifted anything out of the house? Found something to sort through? Had thoughts on things you can let go of?

Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.

Congratulations to everyone who has found and/or disposed on any clutter in the last week! I haven't had the oomph to come and post replies to celebrate you, but I cheer each comment notification when I read it.

ps: would anyone like a lowkey challenge for January? I have some ideas...