Weekend uncluttering

[fred_mouse]

How is your uncluttering going on this, the last day of 2017?

My sorting out of the sewing/music/storage room was a qualified success -- the floor was cleared and cleaned, multiple glass jars are in the front hall awaiting a friend to collect them, and several of the easier sewing repair tasks were done (and the rest put in a to do list, so I can just look at the list and decide to do something, rather than dithering at the baskets). I think we found some clothes to rehome as well!

And then we got enthusiastic, and decided to deal with the books. A hefty tax return meant that we could invest somewhat in new, sturdy bookshelves, so members of the family took themselves off to IKEA (twice!) and we now have six fancy 2.2m bookshelves in what turns out to be a discontinued colour. Two solid days of building shelves and moving books around, and we now a) have no books on the floor and b) no longer have double stacked books. And I've started the process of digging assorted books out of nooks and crannies all over the house. Primary goal is to have all fiction in there, and catalogued. Secondary is more complicated and handwavy, and has to do with 'being able to find any book that is in the house in under 2 minutes, if I know who published it and what format it is in'. [yes, my shelving system is that complicated, because I patronise a set of small press publishers, and I often need to check what I have].

And the companion question for you all, as we come to the beginning of 2018, what are your decluttering goals for the year?

Comments

[fred_mouse]

My unclutter goals are complicated. Because the overarching one is 'have everything under control', which isn't going to happen with the year I'm going to have. But realistically?

* I want to reach the end of 2018 with the books completely under control, having at least maintained the current level of control, as well as getting books out of a number of other locations where they shouldn't be. This is going to necessitate getting rid of some -- probably 2m worth or more (I won't know that until I have them all on shelves instead of teetering mounds). And we started on that, having found a handful of duplicates and one or two outgrown ones.
* I want my craft stuff in fewer locations, and to get rid of all the fabric I'm never going to use. This is going to require reflection on what kind of crafter and sewist I am now (ignoring the crafter I was at 20, and 30, and 40) and who I might want to become.
* I want all the areas of floor (except the spare/box/junk room) clear. This one is possible, but that might just require more things in the junk room.

[peaceful_sands]

Good luck! Great goals, realistic too - like you say, it's not going to all happen at once, but organisation and reflection on who you want to be and what you want to use it for are important parts of the process.

[tanaqui]

Hahaha, I know that "I want it all done!" feeling! That looks like a good set of realistic areas to focus on and targets to achieve. Good luck!

[rmc28]

I haven't done much decluttering at all in the last month, and I don't think I'm likely to get much more done today. But that's ok. The house is moderately tidy, and although there's been an influx of things because of Christmas, I think very few are actual clutter rather than wanted things being used.

Goals for 2018 is food for thought. I think:

1. sell/give away the cloth nappies and free up the storage currently holding them
2. complete the job of moving child 2's toys and books into their new room (culling as we go, obviously)
3. sort out the pile of bags of Stuff under my desk (especially the ones that were shoved there as temporary storage when the sofa was being delivered ... in summer 2015)
4. sort out the piles of things on top of my desk
5. make a serious dent in the unwatched DVDs
6. make a serious dent in the unread books
7. clear the "misc objects" from the shelves in my room (either get rid or find a sensible place for them to live)
8. ditto the "misc objects" on the bookcase in the living room
9. ditto the "misc objects" in the study

[peaceful_sands]

Good luck. I think you've broken your goals down well (or so it seems from here!) and that should make them easier to achieve.

[rmc28]

I feel "serious dent" is a bit unquantified, but I'll settle for "noticeably less than now" this time next year as a sign of success :-)

[tanaqui]

That's a really nice set of specific goals (even if "serious dent" is a bit vague.) Good luck, and I hope you have lots of success to report at the end of the year.

[peaceful_sands]

My goals are

1. to maintain the level of clutter free in the rooms I've already tackled (even if this just means moving things to another room that is not clutter free until I have time to properly deal)
2. tackle the bedroom - for which there are various steps and stages - tackling the accumulation of clutter on the desk, tackling the boxes in the corners, re-evaluating and using craft supplies, re-organising things to make them easier to access and to keep tidy.
3. Continue progress on books with aim of reducing the TBR pile by at least another 50 books by end of 2018. This won't automatically mean 50 books left in the house, as each book is evaluated on whether I will keep it once it's read, but is aimed at shifting the amount of unread books stored to being books I've read that are worth keeping. Continue to evaluate the books I've 'kept' as to whether I'm really likely to read them again and like them enough to make them worth keeping.
4. Continue to evaluate which DVDs are worth keeping as I watch them. As with books, there is no 'there will only be x amount', but it's about thinking about how much I liked them and whether they are worth keeping to watch again.
5. Manage 'incoming' - avoid accumulating more clutter where possible - evaluate new purchases/acquisitions with more of a 'what is it going to replace' eye than just a 'this would be nice in my house' eye. Try to work on a 1 in 1 out basis (not always possible, but I'm hoping that with my overall push towards things going out that this will pan out).

Good luck to everyone for 2018.

[tanaqui]

Maintaining what you've achieved and minimising what you add are both great aims to have, along with some "new" progress. Good luck with all your goals in 2018!

[tanaqui]

I haven't done any more decluttering in the past few days, but I have finally been able to think up some more concrete goals beyond "er, keep going...?"

1. Make more inroads into the books -- pulling out and donating ones I'm definitely not going to read again and continuing to work my way through the non-fiction to-be-read pile. The target for the to-be-read pile is 12 books (I managed 14 last year).

2. Finish sorting out the spare room and garage -- recycling, donating or taking to the tip anything I don't want to keep. At some point, I need to get a skip or a man-with-a-van to take away some larger stuff, which may not happen by the end of the year, so the goal in the garage is to at least have all that stuff gathered together in one area.

3. Find a new place to donate to (since the place I was using were incredibly rude last time I went in) -- ideally somewhere that will do a pick-up of some larger items.

4. Get rid of more paperwork -- I've identified what can be shredded in the next few months, and also have a clearer idea of what will be left after that. (I'm self-employed, so have to keep a fair amount of stuff for quite a long time.)

5. Continuing to work on the garden, with a couple of areas I particularly want to focus on.

[peaceful_sands]

Good luck - I think you've got some good goals there - balanced with a what's realistic in the time I've got available. Good luck also on finding somewhere new to donate - I've experienced the same thing in one of the places that I donate to.

[glinda]

I've been down at my parents for the holidys and today I decided to have a clear out of the box of DVDs that are still lurking in my old room there. I've tucked a small pile of DVDs that I've never watched into my suitcase to take back up the road with me and identified a small pile (8 DVDs) that I reckon I'll never watch again to take to media exchange place. But more significantly, telling my parents that I was going to do this prompted them to do the same with their own collections and they had considerably more duplicates and ones they didn't want to watch again then I did, so now I have a big bag to take into the exchange.

Overall this year, I've been good about reading books I already owned, but pretty rubbish about actually watching DVDs I already own, so I want to be better about watching the DVDs I already own so my DVD collection is more films I want to rewatch and less films that I think I ought to watch but haven't got round to.

I also want to finish off lots of half-finished craft projects instead of buying stuff for new ones. Here's to less piles of things in 2018!

[peaceful_sands]

Good luck, you've got some definite things to work on there. I hope it all goes well.

[glinda]

Thanks! I'm hopeful I'll make more progress this year. Just need to keep motivated!

[tanaqui]

Fewer piles of things by the end of 2018 sounds like an excellent goal! Good luck with making progress on the DVDs and crafts.

[glinda]

Thanks! I'm going to need it!

[glinda]

I've also started the new year off on the right foot, by clearing out a bin bag of clothes to be donated and clearing out 12 books I'm unlikely to ever read again to be donated. It hasn't made that much more space but I'm now able to fit all my books into the bookshelf now, instead of having precarious piles in various places. Less piles already! :D

[athousandsmiles]

Yesterday we officially cut the cable in the house, which meant four cable boxes and about six remotes and several associated wires left the house. My media table looks so clean and empty-ish now. After the cable guy left, husband and I culled some more unnecessary wires, labeled those remaining, and cleared out all the dust bunnies lurking in that area.

My goal for 2018 is to significantly clear out my garage. I've quite a bit of furniture in there, most of which has been stored there since we moved here 3 1/2 years ago, so I think it's safe to say we don't need it. There are also two brand new kids bikes still in boxes, which we won in a raffle and didn't realize they were too small for our boys until we got them home. So hopefully they'll find a new home where they will be used and appreciated.

Congrats to all that's been accomplished in 2017 by members here, and I hope 2018 is even more successful for all of us.

[peaceful_sands]

Good luck with your plans for 2018

[tanaqui]

Good luck with clearing out the garage and sending things off to new homes to make other people happy!

[adair]

My major goal is to manage my books - really, get a good number out of the house. They take up large amounts of space, and I have no more wall space to construct more shelving. I am not bad at managing a lot of Things - every few months I do some more kitchen clearing, but books just don't move. I acquire more regularly, both by purchase and from finding in the Books to Prisoners workroom, the best used bookstore in town. I donate 50 cents or 2 dollars and bring them home. Sometimes I take them back, but not often enough. I may get brave enough to post pictures of some of my book stashes, but not today.

Moving books on means deciding not to keep many of them - a hard thing to do. I probably will not re-read most of them, but somehow I can't let them go. I MIGHT NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN1 Overcoming this fear is something I need to do - coming to terms with the notion that I need not remember every book or novel I read, or re-experience the reading emotions of every book,

I am planning a reorganizing of the books that are in bookshelves, some of them in double rows, to see what I can let go of, or get as ebooks and move the paper on. This might create a space where I can put some of the books stacked on tables, and the tops of dressers, and corners of the living room.

I will work on other organizing projects, but getting about 500 books out of the house will go a long way to improving functioning in my 1100 foot house.

[tanaqui]

Good luck with the books! I think anyone who loves books has a kind of reverence for them that makes doing anything else but keeping them hard. Even if the "anything else" is sending them on to someone else who will love them and appreciate them more than we're actually doing right now.

[adair]

Thanks for the good wishes. The mental letting go has been a work in progress for some time. I am considering keeping a list of what I get rid of, especially those books I have had a long time. It is possible some of my fear is forgetting about the books - there is a lot of emotional stuff hanging around this process.

[yukonsally]

My goals are:

1. Keep sending things to friends as I find the things. All of the things I send to friends are things that would be thrown away if I gave them to a secondhand store, due to size or something similar, but are in perfectly good repair. Keep up with sending handmedowns to a friend--I'm to the point where I send a box as soon as it's filled and I want to stay there!

2. Organize the knitting area. I have a room that's nearly a craft room, only part of it is storage, and the knitting things are not well organized, and the rest of the room is a mess. I need to get serious about it. I want that room to be clean and not be a dumping ground.

3. Clear out outgrown toys and work with the kids to let go of unwanted toys. And books. This will address several rooms in the house, as we have books everywhere!

4. Bring less clutter into the house overall. It's not just me bringing things in, so the idea of bringing no clutter in doesn't make sense. Bring less in and get rid of what I can quickly.

[msilverstar]

We got the worst of the boxes out of the living room yesterday!!