unclutter | Mid-week uncluttering

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mid-week uncluttering

Mid-week uncluttering

How is your uncluttering going at this point of the week?

I'm writing this relatively early on Wednesday, and so while I have plans that involve going in to the music room/sewing room/general disaster area and trying to find things that we don't need (in particular, sorting out plastic containers and glass jars) and making a to do list for how to get it back under control, I haven't actually done any uncluttering today. The last two days have involved a lot of lying down feeling grumpy and unwell when at home, so little to no uncluttering has happened.

As we come close to the end of the calendar year, I know some people will be reflecting on achievements for 2017 and setting themselves goals for 2018. In this post, as well as sharing any current uncluttering wins, maybe tell us all how you feel about your overall uncluttering achievements for the year?

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Looking at the current state of my house, it is hard to believe that I have been steadily finding things to rehome, and that almost every day of every week, I have dealt with something. But I have dramatically reduced my yarn stash, so that it fits in a smaller space, rehomed some tens of books, and we have steadily been chipping away at the never-ending selection of clothing and books and toys that my now teenagers have outgrown.

But if I was going to say one thing that 2017 was about, it was the year of throwing out old paperwork. The contents of the filing cabinet were reduced enough that the teetering mound on top could be filed (and was). Several boxes and loose piles of paper were sorted through, and I now have one stack of paper about 40cm high that needs attention. All the necessary paperwork for multiple years of taxes were found, and the paperwork filed (and I got money back!). And several flat surfaces were reclaimed!

Oh, and the boxes that were clogging up the garage were either sorted or moved in to the house, and now the car fits in the garage again.

All in all, quite a successful lot of uncluttering, even if there is still a very long way to go.

That sounds like a very successful year. Paperwork is so insidious in how it mounts up, so well done for getting on top of it.

Also, while you may feel like the house is still crowded, you have cleared a whole space and kept it cleared: the garage! I should imagine that's less (regularly) "visible" than all the stuff that came inside the house (and makes you feel like you didn't make much progress), but it's a huge achievement and one you should be very proud of!

Good luck with 2018!

You are right -- I don't particularly notice the garage, but it was a huge job to get it back to functioning, and we are still dealing with some of the items stored there. I am really pleased about it, when I remember!

And good luck with 2018 for you as well.

You've achieved a massive amount this year and I hope that next year goes just as well for you.

Thank you!

I haven't done much "deep" decluttering this week, but I have stopped new clutter being added by constantly doing bits of putting things away/throwing things away/putting them aside for recycling.

Because my decluttering stalled a bit for the last couple of months (due to things like the weather and not wanting to over-extend myself physically), I was feeling like I hadn't done much this year -- but looking back, that's not true at all! In fact, I think my "deep" decluttering is maybe more than halfway done!

I read 14 non-fiction books, and donated about half of them, along with probably another 20 books I didn't want to re-read. I also read (and recycled) all the magazines, and worked my way through some TV shows and DVDs.

I took two carloads of stuff to the tip (including a lot of dead electrical items that went in the recycling), shredded and recycled a metre high stack of old paperwork, and made at least one trip to the charity shop with donations.

I have one room that's been emptied of everything that shouldn't be in there. That was partly done by sticking some of it in another room to be dealt with later, but visually it makes me feel much better -- and I did get rid of quite a lot of the things that were in there. I can also now actually walk into the smallest bedroom that was my long term storage/dumping ground and get at everything. While there's still stuff to go from there, a lot of things have already gone.

The garage (which really functions as my very large garden shed) is a lot emptier. Although that's partly a function of the time of year (no bags of garden rubbish waiting to go to the garden waste recycling service, or large plant pots waiting to be emptied of compost and cleaned), there's now room to have that stuff in there and work on prep for planting new things once the weather improves.

In the garden itself, I haven't made as much progress as I'd (over-optimistically) hoped, but I have cleared out some of the old, unhappy shrubs and the overgrown areas around them, and kept them from being recolonised with weeds. (And created some new space to grow vegetables in containers -- hooray!)

So 2017 has been pretty good, and the year when I finally feel like I may, one day, conquer this project and get down to "maintenance" decluttering. Onwards with more of the same in 2018!

This is also a chance to thank all of you in the comm for your cheerleading and inspiration over the last year -- it really helps!

That is fantastic that half of your deep decluttering is done, and that there are lots of spaces where you are seeing the results of your effort. Well done! Good luck with doing more of the same in 2018.

You've made great progress. Getting things accessible so that you can work on them is all part of the process.

No action yet, but I've identified a few things to take to the consignment store--not sure when I'll be able to go. Slow going this time of year!

I'm pleased with my efforts this year. I didn't have many big loads, just once or twice, but lots of little things are leaving the house. Lots of small loads, lots of sending one thing to a friend. Sometimes I feel like all those little things leaving made a difference in my daily life--but the absence of a thing doesn't affect me at all. So why was I holding on to the thing that means nothing to me!? It's good confirmation that getting rid of the thing was right, if it's absence or presence makes no difference to me.

There's a bit less to dig through to get to needed things. There's a bit less to store for holidays. It's not a battle to convince Spouse to get rid of things. one child is starting to get the idea of sending unused/unwanted/outgrown things along.

I've been really impressed with how regularly and steadily you've been passing on small things (and padded envelopes!) to friends all year. Glad to hear that you're feeling "right" about that whole process.

Good luck for continuing to re-home things for the next year -- and making more progress in converting Spouse and child. :-)

Congratulations on steady progress, and the sheer number of things that you have let go in 2017. Here's to an equally successful 2018.

Little builds up to big loads in the long run. Every step is in the right direction. I hope things continue to go well into the New Year.

I've made progress this year but still feel like there is a lot to do. I've got the dining room and living room mostly sorted and now I'm trying to train myself into maintenance of these rooms. The kitchen is mostly organised as well, although I have identified a few problematic items - things like the breadmaker which aren't used all the time but I don't have room to store easily, but equally don't want to get rid of. I'm going to have to think about a good way to store these somewhere else in the house until they're needed.

A big step this year has been to admit to myself that I'm very unlikely to go back to my old job and that therefore I can get rid of the equipment that I'd accumulated over the years because of that job. It's almost all gone now and now I'm contemplating things like getting rid of the old filing cabinet that I stored some of the stuff in. It was frightening to think how much I'd spent over the years on things for the job with no prospect of getting any of those funds back. (I tried selling some of the most recent books with no luck at all - the only offers were for less than the cost to post them to destination).

I've also been working on reducing the numbers of books and DVDs. Approximately 300 books have left the house this year, some as part of the work related clear out, but about 100 were because I'd either read and not enjoyed them enough to keep or couldn't finish them. I've also got rid of almost 2/3 of my original DVD collection. I've added to the book and DVD collection but feel that as it is more of a cycle of in/out this is acceptable. I'm working on reducing the number of books I acquire in physical form as I really don't have space for them all - another helpful step this year was to exchange many of the old classics with small type for free ebooks facing up to the reality that smaller type is more of a struggle to read for any length of time and that the added space in a box (I wish I could say it was on a shelf but I haven't got to the stage where all of my books are on shelves yet!) is a positive.

In the coming year, I need to continue to work on the book and DVD collections and work in the yarn stash as well. I would like to make enough progress that I could feel that I had recovered at least one of the bedrooms. I also need to maintain the positive step I've taken to reducing the number of books that I acquire. My goal this year was to reduce the To Be Read pile by at least 50 (as in balancing the length of the list by removing ones read or removed with no intention of reading against the new books acquired). I'm going to set myself that goal again next year - it's getting a little more difficult as I've read more of the thin books and am beginning to have to tackle more of the doorstop size books!

That is a fabulous amount of progress to have made -- so many books and DVDs gone, three rooms close to where you want them, as well as making those hard decisions about the work related items. I can absolutely sympathise about not wanting to let go of those things. I have a set of resources for a job I trained in that I'm never likely to work at (but is always a back up plan, because supposedly there are always rural jobs in the area) that I can't bring myself to release in to the wild, because I'll never be able to replace them. And now I'm giving Eldest the same advice, because they want to go in to teaching, so I'm telling them to hold on to all of their school books. It seems so counter-intuitive!

It sounds like you've made some really great progress this year. Particular congratulations on dealing with the old job stuff -- those items that are about part of your identity are really, really hard, so well done on being able to handle that.

Good luck with next year's goals and with maintaining the rooms you've already achieved!

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Mid-week uncluttering

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