unclutter | Week 1 review / Week 2 start (Reply)

Goals for week 1 were:

get in touch with the gardener
hours-of-power: Sun x2, Tue x1, Thu x2, Fri x2

Actually achieved:

Sun 1x hour-of-power
Freecycle emails

Yeah, it turns out I drastically ovestimated my capacity / motivation here. It doesn't help that I'm also behind on a language course, and given the choice between catching up on that, and decluttering: well I did my language study.

However, I did do that one hour-of-power on Sunday (i.e. 3x 15 minute stints with a 5 minute rest after each one), starting with the Display of Delight (i.e. the contents of a box of misc. small bits of plastic which I'd laid out across the now-clear mantlepiece). Elder Offspring had previously come and claimed pieces they wanted to keep, so in my hour I:

added all the recognisably Lego / K'nex pieces to a box of same already living in a different room (Spouse's project!)
put everything else in the bin
finished sorting through the Bag of Miscellaneous Things I'd started working on during Saturday's effort, and sorted out two more similar bags

Results:

a large pile of paper in the recycling bin
a smaller pile of unrecylables in the bin
a couple of very important documents filed in the filing cabinet
some children's books and magazines added to existing teetering piles of same
a number of notebooks, colouring pens added to existing teetering piles of same
a stack of Interesting Clippings from my dad set aside to actually read
a nice 2020 calendar and a pleasingly tactile stress-ball added to my bag to go live on my desk at work
one small colouring book and pack of pencils to my bag as emergency child entertainment supply

(I made a point of sitting down after this with a nice drink and the pile of Interesting Clippings. My dad likes to save these things and bring them along when he visits, which is a few times a year, and I don't always read them in a timely fashion but it turns out he does have a good eye for articles that I'll find interesting and wouldn't necessarily find myself, and it was good to rediscover that. And then I put the pile in the recyling when I was done.)

I also dealt with Freecycle emails, resulting in people turning up on Monday to take away the armchair I listed, and also a bag of outgrown school uniform. Definitely the right choice to be rid of the armchair, the room feels significantly bigger already.

Next steps: there are no more Bags of Misc Things (in this room, anyway, cough), but there are multiple teetering piles and overstuffed shelves. What I need to do is start working through those the same way I did the Bags. I am full of the donwannas about this, but I can probably manage it for 15 minutes at a time.

Goals for week 2: