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Introduction & goals for the year
Jan. 14th, 2011 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmc28Hello, I'm Rachel and I keep failing to quite finish decluttering. I've been aware of the concept since about 2000, and I feel like I've been recycling and freecycling and donating stuff ever since, except I still have oodles of stuff. One thing I learned from the unclutter_2009 community on LJ is that this is because I haven't stopped buying up bargains as though I were a poor student, long after I stopped being so.
Last year I tried again but fell out of the habit of tracking about halfway through the year. I'm working on my ability to resist "bargains" and I find just tracking my ins and outs really helps: if I measure it I can manage it, or at least it feels that way.
So apart from just tracking and trying to get down by at least one thing a day, I think I have three goals for this year:
The first is to finally clear my half of the horrible "junk room" which I dream of making into a little study/music room with a single futon as an emergency spare bed. (My jobseeking brother's overflow stuff temporarily occupies the other half, but he knows that it has to be gone by the time I finish my half; so far he's decluttering faster than I am!)
The second is to empty and remove at least one set of floor-to-ceiling shelves in my living/dining room, to make the room feel a little less crowded. Some stuff could go elsewhere in the house, but I think we could usefully get rid of quite a lot, one thing at a time.
The third goal is to get my four-year-old son's room sorted out by the time he starts school in September. We need to clear out all the stuff of ours that ended up dumped in there on high shelves; move all the remaining children's stuff from our room in there; tidy up and cull the books and toys; try to arrange the bookshelves so the stuff for under fives is low down and the stuff for ten-year-olds is accessible at roughly a ten-year-old's height.
One really useful thing happened last summer: a new charity shop opened around the corner, and they take nearly everything. My brother J volunteers there regularly, and they have deals with local waste collectors/processors who pay them by the kilo for unsellable stuff (especially textiles and electricals). I no longer worry about ebaying or freecycling stuff: if it's salable the shop will sell it (and they are very busy), and if it's not they'll generally still get some money for it, and I don't have to take it to the tip myself. We're lucky enough not to need the money and it's a cause I'm happy to support.
Last year I tried again but fell out of the habit of tracking about halfway through the year. I'm working on my ability to resist "bargains" and I find just tracking my ins and outs really helps: if I measure it I can manage it, or at least it feels that way.
So apart from just tracking and trying to get down by at least one thing a day, I think I have three goals for this year:
The first is to finally clear my half of the horrible "junk room" which I dream of making into a little study/music room with a single futon as an emergency spare bed. (My jobseeking brother's overflow stuff temporarily occupies the other half, but he knows that it has to be gone by the time I finish my half; so far he's decluttering faster than I am!)
The second is to empty and remove at least one set of floor-to-ceiling shelves in my living/dining room, to make the room feel a little less crowded. Some stuff could go elsewhere in the house, but I think we could usefully get rid of quite a lot, one thing at a time.
The third goal is to get my four-year-old son's room sorted out by the time he starts school in September. We need to clear out all the stuff of ours that ended up dumped in there on high shelves; move all the remaining children's stuff from our room in there; tidy up and cull the books and toys; try to arrange the bookshelves so the stuff for under fives is low down and the stuff for ten-year-olds is accessible at roughly a ten-year-old's height.
One really useful thing happened last summer: a new charity shop opened around the corner, and they take nearly everything. My brother J volunteers there regularly, and they have deals with local waste collectors/processors who pay them by the kilo for unsellable stuff (especially textiles and electricals). I no longer worry about ebaying or freecycling stuff: if it's salable the shop will sell it (and they are very busy), and if it's not they'll generally still get some money for it, and I don't have to take it to the tip myself. We're lucky enough not to need the money and it's a cause I'm happy to support.
