Mid-week uncluttering

[fred_mouse]

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?

Comments

2017 achievements

[tanaqui]

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!

Re: 2017 achievements

[fred_mouse]

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.

Re: 2017 achievements

[peaceful_sands]

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